World Press: Bush is cause of the chaos which led to blackout

Bush blamed for chaos which led to blackouts
Independent UK
18 August 2003

"Just two years ago, and his allies in Congress blocked a Democratic proposal to invest $350m in upgrading America's electrical grid system," said the Florida Senator Bob Graham. "The blackout is further evidence that America needs to invest in its infrastructure."

Investigators have narrowed down the origin of the blackout to a number of high-voltage transmission lines near Cleveland, Ohio. Just over an hour before the lights went out, the first 345-kilovolt power line went down. A parallel line that automatically picked up the slack then overloaded, sagged and hit a tree, causing it to shut down.

Those failures apparently initiated a chain reaction throughout the vast area administered by the North American Electric Reliability Council. FirstEnergy, the utility responsible for the downed Ohio lines, said it did not become aware of the problem fast enough because its alarm system did not kick in. That does not explain, however, how the rest of the north-east was taken unawares. But most energy experts agree on the root causes of a failure many of them have been predicting for years.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=434764

They don't get it in England. The buck NEVER stops at Smirk's desk.

It's ALWAYS someone else's fault.

If you think about it. And rest assured that is what the repukes think about it. The Buck can`t stop with the supreme court`s favorite spoiled brat. That would be unrepublican. Or something.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

commenting on how it could never happen in Germany: "I mean, have you ever seen all the power cables that are draped all over the US?"

"it looks as if some cowboys have tried to temporarily electify the wild west"

"now the Iraquis understand, why it seems to be so hard for the americans to repair our infrastracture"

And I've seen one repuke in Faux-TV at least three times in the german news today, who's stating: "it's the fault of those ecology-chaots, those environment-radicals!"
But I guess we just have to wait ten years more, till the gift of deragulation makes a blackout like this possible in Germany, too. Our officials even admit it!
Dirk

The land of the sheeple.

The parts of the rest of the world that we're talking about, anyway -- Western Europe, in this case.

Free, antagonistic, energetic, investigative, courageous. All the things that make the press the Fourth Estate in a functioning democracy, as opposed to the lickspittle pretty faces we have here.



http://www.dvorkin.com

do power lines really sag when they overload? :wtf:

the voltage "sags." that simply means it drops too low, causing a brownout or dimming of bulbs and struggling of air conditioners and other motor loads.

From the orignal post:
"A parallel line that automatically picked up the slack then overloaded, sagged and hit a tree, causing it to shut down."

around houston. Survey crews make measurements when extreme load or weather conditions exist and of coure baseline measurments.

As they carry more current, the wires heat up and sag. Over a lage span that could be quite a few inches and if there are trees close by, it's fairly easy for an arc to occur and take the line down. Add high humidity or rain to that and the odds are even greater.


Fair & Balanced Buttons — The Cronus Connection

...I can see how power lines would 'sag' when overloaded. The ability of a copper or aluminum conductor has its limits, in that there is a given amount of resistence within the conductor to the flow of electrons( actually the 'holes' left by departing electrons do the flowing, but that's another discussion ). When the conductor is pushed beyond its capacity to carry the ampereage it is being asked to carry, it gets 'overloaded'. The reaction to this overload is that the inherent resistence in the conductor causes the flow of electricity to become more and more difficult because of the 'friction' imposed by the limited capacity of said conductor. The result of a force trying to move against resistence (friction) is HEAT. The conductors can get so hot that their structural integrity is compromised and they would begin to........sag.

Of course, I could be horribly wrong, too.

Transmission lines do not carry current. Only voltage. Transfomers transfomrs the voltage down for commerical use at switchgear stations.

transmissions lines most certainly carry current. That's the whole point of transmission lines.

power = current * voltage. power lines carry high voltage so that *relatively* low current gives significans power, but it's still in the order of hundreds if not thousands of Amps.

current across resistance (the lines) causes heat.
to much current (over load)> to much heat > sagging power lines.

leads to heating of the cable, leads to expansion of the cable, leads to sagging.

By the way, why hasn't anyone asked the power companies why they haven't invested some of their profits in their own infrastructure instead of looking for handouts from the government.

according to our local power co. Our neighborhood had to remove some 40 mature trees from a median because the power co. said there was a risk that they could sag into or close to these trees and cause major trouble. :shrug:

The company that ran the rail infrastructure in the UK did something similar and ended up with a whole business syndrome named after it.

Cronic under investment in the infrastructure saved shareholders/management a few million pounds over a few years......and then it all stopped working properly.

There were several high-profile train crashes (none of which were directly proved to be the result of under investment, hahaha) and then an announcement that 1000s of miles of rails needed replacing and that services needed to be reduced, cut or slowed down while it happened.

The government had to intervene and (illegally) closed down Railtrack. The repair bills have run into hundreds and hundreds of millions (IIRC) and the delays are absurd.

Railtrack syndrome - under investing in infrastructure to save a small amount now, but which allows things to decay. Instead of small, ongoing repairs you're now faced with a HUGE bill to make serious repairs to everything.

Genius.

P.

that we will need to apply frequently.

I imagine more rail problems for them. Lots of track stretching might be required.

Their customers are subsidizing Repugnant campaign funds.

2002 election cycle .... $182,800 to Dems, $532,051 (74%) to Pugs
2000 election cycle .... $160,000 to Dems, $415,630 (72%) to Pugs

http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softcomp1.asp?txtName=FirstEnergy

Their executives are even more biased in their individual contributions. Isn't it an amazing coincidence that all the executives at a single company seem to be supporters of one political party? Gosh, what're the chances? D'ya s'pose that's a resume item? :eyes:

"Does the United States ever take responsibility for anything?"

Stupid question. Of course not.