US Electrical Grid On the Edge of Failure 293
ananyo writes "Facebook can lose a few users and remain a perfectly stable network, but where the national grid is concerned, simple geography dictates that it is always just a few transmission lines from collapse, according to a mathematical study of spatial networks. The upshot of the study is that spatial networks are necessarily dependent on any number of critical nodes whose failure can lead to abrupt — and unpredictable — collapse. The warning comes ten years after a blackout that crippled parts of the midwest and northeastern United States and parts of Canada. In that case, a series of errors resulted in the loss of three transmission lines in Ohio over the course of about an hour. Once the third line went down, the outage cascaded towards the coast, cutting power to some 50 million people. The authors say that this outage is an example of the inherent instability the study describes. But others question whether the team's conclusions can really be extrapolated to the real world. 'The problem is that this doesn't reflect the physics of how the power grid operates,' says Jeff Dagle, an electrical engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, who served on the government task force that investigated the 2003 outage."
Re:Wrong analogy (Score:5, Funny)
No, it needs to involve cars. All analogies, especially those pertaining to something technical, must always be reduced to cars.
Re:Wrong analogy (Score:5, Funny)
No, it needs to involve cars. All analogies, especially those pertaining to something technical, must always be reduced to cars.
You're right, you're right... my mistake! "Facebook could probably lose a few gas stations and remain a perfectly stable network..."
Re:Coincidentally... (Score:5, Funny)
Solar panels is un-American.
Try to set up a gas-driven backup generator first. You will get tons of support and advice. Then try to add some solar panels "to help a bit when it is running over capacity"
Then you might be allowed to sneak over to full solar as long as the gas-driven generator is clearly visible.
Yup... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Coincidentally... (Score:4, Funny)
Based off of a sample size of 1. Nice generalization.
Hey! That's one better than some of the climate change theories!
Re:Wrong analogy (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wrong analogy (Score:5, Funny)
Try living through a blackout when your home is on the upper floors of a TALL (30+ stories) apartment building. Walking up those stairs after a long work day (and an even longer commute) on a hot summer day was /not/ a fun experience. In the dark, no less. Emergency generators for the elevators were, apparently, too much of an expense. And those batteries in the emergency lighting fixtures only last a few hours...
And I couldn't even get online to bitch about it once I got home! I mean, really; it was like living in the 20th century!
Re:Wrong analogy (Score:4, Funny)
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver. (been playing Krater)
Re:Wrong analogy (Score:4, Funny)
Here's the kicker; one of the big rigs was carrying a nuke which explodes and kills EVERYONE...JUST LIKE THE POWER GRID. It's science.
The moral of the story is that Sally is a bitch for using a shitty tow rope and is responsible for killing not only the old lady but everyone else. Also, what the hell happened to your new tow rope and why did it snap first? You need to get some higher quality emergency roadside equipment. Oh wait...you're dead. Fucking Sally.
Re:Wrong analogy (Score:4, Funny)
A car could lose 25% of its wheel nuts and still remain a perfectly stable vehicle (provided that wheel nut loss was spread out evenly across all wheels). Reminds me of a joke:
A motorist had a flat tire in front of an insane asylum. He took the wheel off, but when he stood up he tipped over the hubcap containing the bolts, spilling them all down a sewer drain.
A patient, looking through the fence, suggested that the man take one bolt from
the remaining three wheels to hold the fourth wheel in place until he could get to a service station.
The motorist thanked him profusely and said, “I don’t know why you are in that place.”
The patient said, “I’m in here for being crazy, not for being stupid.”