Legacy From the 1800s Leaves Tokyo In the Dark 322
itwbennett writes "East Japan entered its fifth day of power rationing on Friday, with no end to the planned blackouts in sight. The local electrical utility can't make up the shortfall by importing power from another region, though, because Japan lacks a national power grid, a consequence of a decision made in the late 1800s."
I'll bet ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... this situation changes. And Japan will leap to the forefront of HVDC transmission gear manufacturing.
What's it like in Japan? Will this cause changes? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So how does TV work? (Score:4, Interesting)
TV's used to sync to the power line until well into the 1960's. The tolerances needed for color put an end to that,
Time to build big extension cords (Score:5, Interesting)
If the USS Ronald Reagan had a couple Mighty Pumps in its inventory, these could be attached to the catapult steam lines. An electrical generator could be attached to the pump's drive shaft, generating power. Then they'd just run a cable to the shore to power the cities affected by the disaster.
The USS Enterprise [sendtheenterprise.org] has 310 megawatts of thermal power. I don't know how much of this could be sent to the catapult lines... Nimitz-class carriers [wikipedia.org] have 2 reactors instead of 8, and generate ~190 MW of thermal power.
There is some historical legacy for using an aircraft carrier to power a city:
Lots of people have found my site this week (/. post on Sunday [slashdot.org], google, etc), and the link about the MYT engine was one of the more-commonly followed links. This page has better information about the MYT pump/engine:
When Disaster Strikes, Send the Enterprise [sendtheenterprise.org]. I just did my first newspaper interview this morning. :)