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U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
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SumOfAllFears Offline
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U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure

The problems have gotten worse from a year ago.

Quote:Network analysis suggests geography makes the grid inherently unstable

Aug 26, 2013 |By Jeff Tollefson and Nature magazine

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.

That is according to a mathematical study of spatial networks by physicists in Israel and the U.S. Study co-author Shlomo Havlin of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel, says that the research builds on earlier work by incorporating a more explicit analysis of how the spatial nature of physical networks affects their fundamental stability. The upshot, published August 25 in Nature Physics, is that spatial networks are necessarily dependent on any number of critical nodes whose failure can lead to abrupt—and unpredictable—collapse.

The electric grid, which operates as a series of networks that are defined by geography, is a prime example, says Havlin. “Whenever you have such dependencies in the system, failure in one place leads to failure in another place, which cascades into collapse.”

“I suppose I should be open-minded to new research, but I'm not convinced,” says Jeff Dagle, an electrical engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., who served on the government task force that investigated the 2003 outage. “The problem is that this doesn’t reflect the physics of how the power grid operates.”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. Havlin says that this outage is an example of the inherent instability his study describes, but others question whether the team’s conclusions can really be extrapolated to the real world.

Critical order

Havlin and his colleagues focused on idealized scenarios. They found that randomly structured networks—such as social networks—degrade slowly as nodes are removed, which in the real world might mean there is time to diagnose and address a problem before a system collapses. By contrast, the connections of orderly lattice structures have more critical nodes, which increase the instability. The problem is that such orderly networks are always operating near an indefinable edge, Havlin says. To reduce that risk, he recommends adding a small number of longer transmission lines that provide short cuts to different parts of the grid.

Benjamin Carreras, a physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee who has conducted similar work, says that network theory can be useful for providing insight into electric grids but must be complemented with more complex models that attempt to represent both the physical realities and the responsiveness of the modern electric grid. Although in some cases adding long lines can benefit the overall stability of an electric system, Carreras’ work suggests that in certain circumstances such an approach allows problems to propagate even farther.

“More connections may stabilize some processes, by, for instance, increasing the number of paths to generators, but also may destabilize others,” Carreras says. “One cannot make generic statements on this topic.”

Although local outages caused by falling trees knocking down distribution lines are common, large-scale failures within the core transmission lines rarely occur on a modern electric grid. Before 2003, the last major blackout in the United States had been on the west coast in 1996, and more recently an outage has struck in the San Diego area.

Dagle says that the 2003 blackout stemmed from a combination of bad vegetation management—the first three lines tripped after sagging into trees but were all within their load rating—and a series of monitoring and communications breakdowns. Vegetation requirements have since been standardized, and a new generation of sensors is providing grid operators with more information about what is happening across the grid at any given moment.

“Many more utilities have much more data,” Dagle says. “The next phase of our voyage is to make better use of that data.”

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on August 25, 2013.
(This post was last modified: 07-26-2014 11:14 AM by SumOfAllFears.)
07-26-2014 11:12 AM
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DFWMINER Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
Glad Texas has it's own grid.
07-26-2014 11:30 AM
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SumOfAllFears Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 11:30 AM)DFWMINER Wrote:  Glad Texas has it's own grid.

Thanks ERCOT.
07-26-2014 11:35 AM
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smn1256 Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
The type of work I do has me interested in the electrical grid and I never could figure out why they do things the way they do. My only guess is the problem lies when power is shared from one geographical area to another. If we had smaller grids and less sharing we'd be more stable.
07-26-2014 11:40 AM
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SumOfAllFears Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
If you dare

07-26-2014 11:42 AM
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Fitbud Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

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07-26-2014 12:33 PM
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SumOfAllFears Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

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Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?
(This post was last modified: 07-26-2014 12:36 PM by SumOfAllFears.)
07-26-2014 12:35 PM
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 12:35 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?

04-bow

As much as Fitbud gets a s s raped and owned on this board I beginning to think he enjoys being wrong 100% of the time.
07-26-2014 01:09 PM
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smn1256 Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 12:35 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?

He's a unionized government employee. Of course something trickled down to him.
07-26-2014 01:11 PM
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07-26-2014 01:21 PM
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 01:11 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:35 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?

He's a unionized government employee. Of course something trickled down to him.

trickled down to him, and then on to Dick Trumka. Maybe Trumka gave him a reach around while bending him over.
07-26-2014 04:08 PM
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dmacfour Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 12:35 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?

As far as I am aware, Solynra is the only company that went bankrupt. So that's 500 million in wasted dollars, not 500 billion (so far).
07-26-2014 04:13 PM
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UofMstateU Online
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 04:13 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:35 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?

As far as I am aware, Solynra is the only company that went bankrupt. So that's 500 million in wasted dollars, not 500 billion (so far).


you need to become more aware. There's a list of green companies that went under on the taxpayer dime. Hell, Solyndra wasnt the only solar company to go under.
07-26-2014 04:19 PM
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chargeradio Offline
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U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 04:13 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:35 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?

As far as I am aware, Solynra is the only company that went bankrupt. So that's 500 million in wasted dollars, not 500 billion (so far).
SunPods of San Jose, CA (they didn't come back from the second one)
07-26-2014 06:19 PM
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smn1256 Offline
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RE: U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure
(07-26-2014 04:13 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:35 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  
(07-26-2014 12:33 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  But let's not spend a dime on infrastructure.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Shovel ready jobs, that weren't so shovel ready. You messiah wasted 500 billion on crap ass green jobs, that went bankrupt. It was a payday for his friends and supporters. Did any trickle down to you?

As far as I am aware, Solynra is the only company that went bankrupt. So that's 500 million in wasted dollars, not 500 billion (so far).

$154 billion wasted on green energy

List Of Failed Green Energy Jobs & Companies...

7/19/12: The Amonix Solar: FAIL – manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants given by Obama Administration, has closed its 214,000 square foot facility a year after it opened.

Solar Trust of America: FAIL - Filed Bankruptcy in Oakland, CA, April 3, 2012 – On April 2, 2012

Bright Source: FAIL - Bright Source warned Obama’s Energy Department officials in March 2011 that delays in approving a $1.6 billion U.S. loan guarantee would embarrass the White House and force the solar-energy company to close. Lost Billions of dollars but Getting More Money To Keep Trying. Can you say, “This isnt working?”

Solyndra: FAIL - Obama gave Solyndra $500,000,000 in taxpayer money and Solyndra shut its doors and laid off 1100 workers in August 2011 After Billions in Losses due to failure to make a solar product that works!

LSP Energy: FAIL - LSPEnergy LP filed bankruptcy protection and a sale of its assets in Feb 2012 Energy Conversion Devices: FAIL – On February 14, 2012 Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. and its subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy

Abound Solar: FAIL - Abound Solar received a $400 million loan guarantee from Barack Obama announced in June, 2012 that it would file for bankruptcy

SunPower: FAIL – SunPower stopped producing solar cells last year at near bankruptcy restructured only with help of, get this, oil giant TOTAL who owns 60% stake. Irony! Still struggling…

Beacon Power: FAIL – Beacon Power Corp filed for bankruptcy Oct 2011 just a year after Obama approved $43 million loan Government loan guarantee

Ecotality: FAIL - ECOtality, a San Francisco green-tech company that never earned any money on the verge of bankruptcy after receiving roughly $115 million in two loan guarantees from Obama

A123 Solar: FAIL-A123 received $279 million from taxpayers thanks to President Obama’s Department of Energy loan guarantees and after Solyndra bankruptcy is getting another $500M from Obama and it has lost $400M

UniSolar: FAIL - Uni-Solar filed for Ch 11 bankruptcy in June 20 this year laid off hundreds got more Obama money still failing but still in business

Azure Dynamics: FAIL - Azure Dynamics files for bankruptcy in June ter millions in Obama “Stimulus”

Evergreen Solar: FAIL - Evergreen Solar received $527 Million in Taxpayer money from Obama filed bankruptcy

Ener1: FAIL received more than $100 million in government funding from the Obama administration filed for bankruptcy January 2012

Update: In May 2012 Obama visited a dusty, desert town 30 miles outside Las Vegas Wednesday to declare he’s doubling down on failed federal efforts to boost the solar industry which has NEVER proven to produce a single working product. Like Socialism, no evidence ot works, but they just keep doubling down on the failed ideals!.

Republicans believe Obama is gambling with taxpayer dollars as he continues to aggressively push alternative forms of energy proven to be more than 20 years off in working effectively and being affordable. After the failure of Solyndra, which resulted in the loss of half a billion dollars in taxpayer dollars President Obama is going to give America more of teh same: FAIL. [...]

80% of green energy loans went to Obama donors
07-26-2014 06:30 PM
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