Hoooray for incompetent design! Or lack thereof.
The US government worries that terrorists could take down the country’s electrical grid just by hitting a small node in the system. But a new study reveals the grid is too unreliable for that kind of attack.
Last year, network theorists published some papers suggesting that terrorists could take down the entire US electrical grid by attacking a small, remote power station. But new research shows that network theory models, which [work] great for analyzing many complex systems, don’t work for patchwork systems like the US electrical grid. Basically, the grid was set up so haphazardly that you’d have to take out a major node before you’d affect the entire thing.
Don’t worry. The Fed gov will fix it so it can fail. Your elected incompetents at work.
Seriously why would anyone other than a flaming idiot with a death wish want to hook the entire grid together so that failure at one point could pull down the entire grid?
Why would you want to design the grid in such a way that even a major failure would result in more than that portion of the grid going down?
Why not put in major circuit breakers to knock off current to locations with failures before the entire grid goes down?
To much of the system is running on hardware running an OS which can be hacked when what you need is dedicated hardware that can’t be hacked.
To much of the smart hardware is out of China which pretty much defines the word brain dead. That the Fed gov would even allow that to happen suggests the people in charge can’t even remember what we did to Iraq.
We put Trojans in hardware shipped to Iraq!! They were built into the chips soldered to the motherboards that were built into the machines!!
“Basically, the grid was set up so haphazardly…” This is a derogatory (or ignorant) way of saying the system is robust because it’s not centralized.
Well, I figured there was mote to Texas. Where is Alaska and Shark Week?
There is little in the Circuit that is STANDARDIZED.
There are FEW locations that are even run Remotely..
MOST of the system is MANUAL Switches.
There are only 2 weak points, but even THOSE require you to hit More then a few locations to do much damage.
Understanding this MESS, is fun. AS there have been ADDED parts over the last 100 years, and FEW updates, unless something FAILS.
To make things FAIL in the grid, Isnt Easy/hard. The hard part is to destroy something, NOT just break it.
Break something, and it can be back up/reinstalled in 2-4 hours. destroy a relay station and they SHOULD be able to re-route. But, there are PRIME RELAY points that would take 1-2 days to replace.
And as many of you know from your OWN HOME, there are BREAKERS in the system. So that problems dont Cascade..
To REALLY cause damage, you would have to hit the Source of power. The power plants. 90% of the power plants are OWNED by the Gov/civil engineers.. The ONLY real way to damage the power plant is to destroy the generators. THOSE could take upto 1 year to replace.
Government can fix it, they just need 100,000,000,000
uhm, ladies and whatevas..
do you not recall that a few years ago a major chunk of the electrical grid was taken out by some trees???
Most people really have no clue to how bad the grid is. Most if not all green loving, prius driving consumers don’t care either. I don’t mind a blackout every now and then but damn if I get screwed with more blackouts because idiot consumers think going hybrid is all there is to the mess of what we call global warming.
1. Grid is bad
2. Grid can’t support more uses (green cars)
3. No stations for those damn cars
4. Your electricity is from the Grid, understand?
5. Grid improvement is like finding Jesus in real life
6. Grid improvement would most likely cost more than winning a few lotteries.
I’m in CA so I have the right to be upset! 🙂
The US loses 7% of the energy placed on the grid due to inefficiency. I can’t believe it’s that low.
Rebuild the grid with thicker copper wires when necessary. This will allow higher voltages. Use three phase wiring at the customer end. I can’t understand why investing in “smart grid” technology will help much in the long run when the voltage goes over that wiring.
Crankygeeksfan,
Copper gives CURRENT, not voltage capacity.
Today’s homes are doing quite well with the 200-400 amp service they are getting.
As for the smart grid, it’s purpose is to replace generating capacity with “easy” denial of service.
Where our parents had electricity 24/7/365, the smart grid will allow our children to experience frequent blackouts which will get MORE frequent as green policies proliferate.
I remember the Northeast outage of 2003. I might have been in the only house in the state of New York that had power, because we got our power from across the river in Pennsylvania.
There were plans to beef up the power grid in the mid Atlantic states, but NIMBY ruled the day.
“Crankygeeksfan,
(heavier) Copper gives CURRENT, not voltage capacity.”
This is true… But… I believe at either high frequencies or voltages (not sure which) current flows on the skin of the conductor. So a heavier conductor would help that way, too. Can anyone clarify for us?
What terrorists do to a grid is nothing compared to what liberals will do. Energy prices will necessarily skyrocket, coal companies will go bankrupt, and a smart grid that turns off your electricity on a whim.
Then you have electric cars putting additional load on this grid at high voltages, requiring a rethink of neighborhood transformers. Then you have windmills feeding this grid with a large supply, but onl intermittently.
IF’ they would FIX and redesign WHAT IS THERE..to WORK BETTER…it would be a great thing.
What keeps the ELECTRIC corp in business?
LOCALIZED/REMOTE DISTRIBUTION. Being able to keep it OUT OF YOUR HANDS. the facilities are BIG, and Located so that 1 building can supply energy to 1000’s of people.
What would KILL the corps..
DISTRIBUTED network..
where EACH TOWN/CITY/HOUSE has its OWN generation facility.
I HOPE most of you KNOW what the electric corps DO…
There are 3 PARTS to you getting power.
1=Generation facilities. Dams, aluminum plants, coal plants… MOSTLY PRIVATELY OWNED, or OWNED by the Gov.
2=Electrical Distribution CORPS. These folks run wires around the area and install 60 year old transformers. They PAY for the Electricity ON LEASE. Then sell it BACK AND FORTH to each other to get a premium price.(especially to those STATES that dont have generation facilities)
3=YOU. YOU have to pay.
There was a time when ELECTRICAL POWER as a utility, was REGULATED and not on the stock market. STOCK MARKET=WE HAVE TO MAKE A PROFIT, not just PAY salaries and let people go home. They get to play with PRICES and see how much they can FORCE you to PAY(ask enron about California)
#9 RSweeney – The thicker copper wires will allow higher voltages to pass through the wires for distribution. (Less voltage drop, less heat generated. When more heat is generated, the wire is lengthened and is closer to the ground.) I wasn’t clear the first time.
“Today’s homes are doing quite well with the 200-400 amp service they are getting.” That amperage depends upon which and how many devices are on. During times of heavy power consumption over a given area, there is more transmission loss for the entire grid over that area. In the US, voltage going into a residential neighborhood transformer is about 1000 volts – coming out its about 120 volts. Notice the thin wires coming from above a transformer – the higher voltage side – and the wires that connect to the homes, the lower voltage side.
In other words, there’s less voltage loss (and heat created) with thicker wires or transmit at higher voltages to reduce the loss or both. The smart grid isn’t changing much of the wires, transformers and hookups. It’s hard to get the electric utilities to inspect their grids, anyway. There would even be a big energy savings if inside wiring was upgraded to a thicker size. Copper prices are low now.
#11 Rich – The skin effect is what allows people to act as conductors with no harm to themselves. If the frequency of the alternating current is high enough, a person can hold a wire in one hand and a fluorescent light in the other hand. The voltage would have to be the appropriate voltage for the light in order for the light to light up. I saw this in a circus sideshow once and Nikola Tesla also performed this demonstration.
We’ve had major outages from single point falures, but so randomly that the “Terrorists” probably couldn’t identfy where an outage would do major damage system-wise…