How badly will the electrical grid be if?
- Thread starter Mo Magic
- Start date
LoupGarou
Ancient Fuzzball
If it was low altitude strikes, the damage would just be to that city, since any EMP effects would go out about the same distance as the fireball. I am pretty sure that they would just segment that city off if it did not already do that automatically. I would ask somebody in that field (like Hitssquad) for more info on the grid and policies for shutting down damaged portions of it.
Loup Garou
Loup Garou
truthseeker
Inactive
yes, it is to early in the morning to be worried about it, did you have a nightmare?
It is according to where it was and the time of day. Along the east coast it could take the entire coast from DC to Maine down but as the area of damage was isolated the grid could come back up.
From what I have seen most of the grid failures were caused by rate considerations.
Remember all the California brownouts that we later discovered to be simply Enron manipulating the market in order to extort billions from the Californians?
Well that Texas company is not the only maggot in the apple:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/092706dnbuspower.2fbd42.html
don
From what I have seen most of the grid failures were caused by rate considerations.
Remember all the California brownouts that we later discovered to be simply Enron manipulating the market in order to extort billions from the Californians?
Well that Texas company is not the only maggot in the apple:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/092706dnbuspower.2fbd42.html
don
Mo, I have no technical knowledge, but my gut reaction is to expect the grid to go down if there's a nuke in my grid. That's what I prepare for and expect, and will be surprised and thankful if it doesn't.
Here's why - during the massive eastern grid failure (in 2003?) that centered in the northeast - NY, canadian border, Ohio - I could have lost my power in Iowa due to the fact that I am also in the "eastern grid" where the blackout was. The eastern grid goes from the Atlantic west to the Missouri river, PAST the Mississippi.
So if there's a nuke anywhere in the eastern grid, my power might go down too. Supposedly the huge outtage in 2003 could have gotten me too except for some sharp utilities/programmers that shut down the cascade.
You can search electrical grid/map on this forum, the map has been posted several times. There is an eastern grid, a western grid, and a Texas grid. My assumption is if a nuke goes off in my grid I better watch for my power going out too. Hope that helps.
Knoxville's Joker
Has No Life - Lives on TB
What about TVA? supposedly it was designed to withstand a nuclear attack with all the redundancly they have. 
eXe
Techno Junkie
Since most of the countries electrical grids are old.. and some are in need of major repair, My guess would be anything that upsets them would hit them harder.
As Loup said, a low altitude strike would take out just that area, however a low altitude strike, say over a major population area (Like NYC) might take down a whole lot more. Remember the NYC blackout that took out a whole chunk of the east coast? We are so interconnected and the electrical grids are rather outdated and in need of repair so anything that upsets the apple cart could have a major effect.
This is why I feel alt power is so important, heck entire areas loose power from a squirrel running across the lines, I don't want to think what EMP from a nuke would do.
As Loup said, a low altitude strike would take out just that area, however a low altitude strike, say over a major population area (Like NYC) might take down a whole lot more. Remember the NYC blackout that took out a whole chunk of the east coast? We are so interconnected and the electrical grids are rather outdated and in need of repair so anything that upsets the apple cart could have a major effect.
This is why I feel alt power is so important, heck entire areas loose power from a squirrel running across the lines, I don't want to think what EMP from a nuke would do.
SheWoff
Southern by choice
What about TVA? supposedly it was designed to withstand a nuclear attack with all the redundancly they have.
HA! You are funny!
TVA dams can't even hold up to a strong eq let alone a nuke attack....She
I worked at Consumers Powers in Michigan back in the early seventies and had responsibility for the programs that the electrical engineers used for circuit analysis.
Electricity is produced at a power plant goes through a substation at the power plant into the electrical grid for the associated company. These company grids are interconnected allowing excess power produced by one company to be used by another compay’s customers. The interconnection between Consumers Power and Detroit Edison is in Ann Arbor. There was a map showing all of these interconnection point over in the BS(I think).
What is suppose to happen is that every circuit, at all level within the grid, is suppose to have layered protection. This protection can be in the form of fuses, breakers and/or reclosers. Fuses and breakers are no different than the ones in your home or car, just a lot bigger. A recloser is a breaker that resets itself (recloses) after it has been tripped, I think they normally try to reset three times. You have probably all experienced where the power has gone off for a few seconds and then comes back on. This was probably a recloser at work.
Now I said layered, this means that if there is a short in the lines coming into your house, the protection closest to your house should trip before the one a little further away. This is supposed to limit the size of the outage. This whole process works better on a local level, between the distribution substation and your house, than it does on the larger lines between power plants and the interconnection points between companies.
With that background, the way it should work is that only the area that had the short circuits should go down. Now depending on where the protection is, you could be affected because you are being supplied from the same feed circuits as the city. You could also be affected if a power generating plant was damaged. This would cause more power to be transferred across one or more interconnection points. This is the scenario that was proposed in the Jericho pilot last week.
Now say that there were enough bombs dropped to take down the whole grid initially for a few hours. Once any power generating facility goes down, it takes electricity to get them back operating again. Power plants in general take about 10% of the power they generate to keep them operating. A nuclear plant will be a little less, a coal plant a little more. That means that you have to power somewhere with an open circuit to the plant to get them started. At Consumers, they installed “peakers” at most of the larger plants. A peaker is a basically a large diesel or jet engine connected to a small generator, usually in the one to two megawatt range. You can go out and start one of these like you would any other engine. They were usually fueled by natural gas. With one of these peakers running, you can bootstrap up the operation of a large power plant.
Now if everything is down across the country and you get a 600 megawatt power plant running, you just can’t have everyone turn on the lights or you will get an overload that will take the plant down again. Therefore all the protection (breakers, reclosers) has to be tripped and one distribution circuit at a time turned on. This process can take a long time.
It been 30 years since I worked at Consumers, so many things have probably changed, but this is what was SUPPOSED TO happen.
Electricity is produced at a power plant goes through a substation at the power plant into the electrical grid for the associated company. These company grids are interconnected allowing excess power produced by one company to be used by another compay’s customers. The interconnection between Consumers Power and Detroit Edison is in Ann Arbor. There was a map showing all of these interconnection point over in the BS(I think).
What is suppose to happen is that every circuit, at all level within the grid, is suppose to have layered protection. This protection can be in the form of fuses, breakers and/or reclosers. Fuses and breakers are no different than the ones in your home or car, just a lot bigger. A recloser is a breaker that resets itself (recloses) after it has been tripped, I think they normally try to reset three times. You have probably all experienced where the power has gone off for a few seconds and then comes back on. This was probably a recloser at work.
Now I said layered, this means that if there is a short in the lines coming into your house, the protection closest to your house should trip before the one a little further away. This is supposed to limit the size of the outage. This whole process works better on a local level, between the distribution substation and your house, than it does on the larger lines between power plants and the interconnection points between companies.
With that background, the way it should work is that only the area that had the short circuits should go down. Now depending on where the protection is, you could be affected because you are being supplied from the same feed circuits as the city. You could also be affected if a power generating plant was damaged. This would cause more power to be transferred across one or more interconnection points. This is the scenario that was proposed in the Jericho pilot last week.
Now say that there were enough bombs dropped to take down the whole grid initially for a few hours. Once any power generating facility goes down, it takes electricity to get them back operating again. Power plants in general take about 10% of the power they generate to keep them operating. A nuclear plant will be a little less, a coal plant a little more. That means that you have to power somewhere with an open circuit to the plant to get them started. At Consumers, they installed “peakers” at most of the larger plants. A peaker is a basically a large diesel or jet engine connected to a small generator, usually in the one to two megawatt range. You can go out and start one of these like you would any other engine. They were usually fueled by natural gas. With one of these peakers running, you can bootstrap up the operation of a large power plant.
Now if everything is down across the country and you get a 600 megawatt power plant running, you just can’t have everyone turn on the lights or you will get an overload that will take the plant down again. Therefore all the protection (breakers, reclosers) has to be tripped and one distribution circuit at a time turned on. This process can take a long time.
It been 30 years since I worked at Consumers, so many things have probably changed, but this is what was SUPPOSED TO happen.
Coal fired power plants depend on a long freight train of coal cars coming in each and every day.
Gas fired and nuke plants depend on workers coming in.
Anywhere with fallout people will have to stay home at least for a while.
At best, figure rolling blackouts for some period. Better to assume none at all than to be unprepared.
Gas fired and nuke plants depend on workers coming in.
Anywhere with fallout people will have to stay home at least for a while.
At best, figure rolling blackouts for some period. Better to assume none at all than to be unprepared.
hitssquad
Inactive
Actually, I don't know much about the grid. I have been wondering about this very question myself, especially since the issue has (apparently -- I have not watched it, except for the promo clips) been brought up on the new TV show Jericho.
I can ask around. I think I will ask my friends on the Know Nukes forum, for starters:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/know_Nukes
Rex Jackson
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I was paid to study this once..IT HAPPENS QUICKLY
When a city gets nuked, loads on the grid shift effecting all surrounding cities and communities. One city being nuked may effect just that state but several cities being nuked could drop entire sections of the grid.
AUTO POWER TRANSFER
When a city 'near' an effected city senses a load shift, it will disconnect that city from the grid leaving it standing on its own. If that city can sustain its own power, well that is a bonus. Usually only cities that have hydro power can do this. Only until assessments are made, can automatic transfer switches be overrided to supply power to certain areas. The goal of engineers in that situation is to limit further grid damage by preventing brownouts and further damage to grid of surrounding communites by not suppling power to damaged zones.
ASSESSMENT - REPAIRS
When cities become damaged (for example Katrina) the grid must be cut off until assessments and repairs can be made. This could take years with radiation in the area.
MANUFACTURING
If the grid fails in cities that produce transformers for the grid, this could even further set back the availabilty of makeing repairs.
TRANSPORTATION
When large segments of the grid fail, so does the ability to pump fuel. No fuel means no work. Its hard to assess, repair, produce parts, do emergency management with no fuel. Fuel will be come even more scarce becuse the military will have top priority over fuel consumption.
WORKERS
Workers for needed to make parts and repairs may become scarce for a number of reasons.
Personally, I don't fear nukes by the extremeists. No one wants to be remembered as 'the race that ruined humans and the planet'. Even if they only popped a few nukes, they would set the stage for their total destruction.
JohnGaltfla
#NeverTrump
If we're hit by 7-10 low yield nukes in major cities, the electrical grid will be fine. However if our bridges over the Mississippi are taken down AND the high tension towers hit at strategic junction points then I would say we are looking at 3 plus months of serious rationing.
Of food, gas, and power.
Of food, gas, and power.
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
the above is accurate from my understanding and research.
When the Lake Erie Loop came down a couple Augusts ago, it took 3 days to get everyone back up and running as they came up SLOWLY to avoid having to do it again...
When the Lake Erie Loop came down a couple Augusts ago, it took 3 days to get everyone back up and running as they came up SLOWLY to avoid having to do it again...
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Personal preps
Not trying to engage in thread drift here, but grid concerns should prompt everyone to have their own electrical backup security. The easiest way to start is to use your own vehicle as a generator "base" and buy a modified sine wave inverter. Those interested in this should reference my many previous posts on the subject. By investing in a high output alternator and a large inverter, you can produce pretty good electrical current at home. Later, if you wish, you can add deep cycle batteries - in a battery bank configuration - and charge these from your vehicle, too.
Best regards
Doc
Not trying to engage in thread drift here, but grid concerns should prompt everyone to have their own electrical backup security. The easiest way to start is to use your own vehicle as a generator "base" and buy a modified sine wave inverter. Those interested in this should reference my many previous posts on the subject. By investing in a high output alternator and a large inverter, you can produce pretty good electrical current at home. Later, if you wish, you can add deep cycle batteries - in a battery bank configuration - and charge these from your vehicle, too.
Best regards
Doc
momof23goats
Deceased
living in a northern state, and use to the winter storms, we have laterns, for just that. the gas is rationed, to the gennie, for one hour or so. enough to water the animals, and that could be cut way back in time. but we would ru nit long enough to wash a load of cloths, and we could watch part of a movie, while the washing machine is running. now, if the gas starts getting low, and none is in sight, then just laterns, and washing in washing tubs. The gennie, would be run only once a week for a very short time, to get water. that is all, or we would use the hand pump. probably the hand pump, and we would not use the gas.
Been there. Done that
I do have a generator and keep a supply of fuel. Back during the last hurricane when we lost power for 10 days we went to bed at dark.
I ran the generator for short times in order to keep the freezer cold and sent it out to neighbors the rest of the time.
Our next door neighbors in their twenties ran their generator 24 hours a day for the whole time. They said they didn't want to get out of bed in the dark.
I have a 94 year old mother in law in my house so I put in LED lights in every room powered by 12 volt batteries that are charged with a 45 watt solar array.
I can power my notebook and the DSL modem as well with the batteries but the phone line has to stay up. It went down in the last storm.
don
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
And so it goes...
Gee Janecj,
What happens when the gas runs out!!! Wow! I bet no one on this board has thought of that...
On the other hand, maybe if someone searched the board archives for terms like fuel, diesel, energy, coal, wood, stoves, propane, listeroid, generators, storage, etc., they might find enough fuel and energy storage (and production) knowledge here to write a book...
Try it. It'll be, er, fun and wonderful!
Best regards
Doc
Gee Janecj,
What happens when the gas runs out!!! Wow! I bet no one on this board has thought of that...
On the other hand, maybe if someone searched the board archives for terms like fuel, diesel, energy, coal, wood, stoves, propane, listeroid, generators, storage, etc., they might find enough fuel and energy storage (and production) knowledge here to write a book...
Try it. It'll be, er, fun and wonderful!
Best regards
Doc
Worrier King
Inactive
In my book, there's really nothing wrong with that. What better way to conserve energy when there is not enough energy for everyone anymore? Maybe people could get back to focusing on FAMILY and HOME.
Part of our national mass psychosis stems from being driven and needing constant stimulation in our human resource roles as producers and consumers.
The social slowdown and end of constant stimuli overload in service to the economic beast could be one of the few positives of a SHTF situation.
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
The way I had it figgered in 99, I had enough gas to run the genny for about 3 hours a day.
The 5KW genny would have, theoretically, driven the chargers to bring at least 2 of the 4 deep cycle batts up to working level to allow me to drive the controller on my furnace. AND drive various 12 volt luxuries. Every day.
It would have allowed me to - either - run the bread machine (every 3rd day), or run the freezer for 3 hours, making sure it got cold again (every 3rd day), a load of wash (every thrid day).
And was expected to take me to the end of March or mid April.
By which time either we had figured out how to get things back from whatever catastrophic failure had occurred on New Years Evil, or we had progressed to a whole other life style....
The 5KW genny would have, theoretically, driven the chargers to bring at least 2 of the 4 deep cycle batts up to working level to allow me to drive the controller on my furnace. AND drive various 12 volt luxuries. Every day.
It would have allowed me to - either - run the bread machine (every 3rd day), or run the freezer for 3 hours, making sure it got cold again (every 3rd day), a load of wash (every thrid day).
And was expected to take me to the end of March or mid April.
By which time either we had figured out how to get things back from whatever catastrophic failure had occurred on New Years Evil, or we had progressed to a whole other life style....
Raphaelle
Inactive
For Fulltimer,
Could you tell us where to buy the supplies you mentioned---LED lights, 12 volt battery and solar array. It sounds like a great idea, but I just don't have a good image of how this works. Each room has all of this equipment? or each room's lights are wired to one solar panel.? I know this sounds dumb, but I struggle with practical, down-to-earth things.
Could you tell us where to buy the supplies you mentioned---LED lights, 12 volt battery and solar array. It sounds like a great idea, but I just don't have a good image of how this works. Each room has all of this equipment? or each room's lights are wired to one solar panel.? I know this sounds dumb, but I struggle with practical, down-to-earth things.
With the grid down i think most power plant workers will be worried about there family and not go to work.If you think about it ,a lot of public workers will not show up for work so i bet we will be without power for at least 1-2 weeks minimum .Would you want to go out side and get a lung full of glow in the dark and on your skin better to stay inside then driving around trying to get the power back .fall out is invisable so inless you have a geiger counter you wont know whats hot or safe.i would plan for 2 weeks of fuel for a genny, heat, food and lights .Of course being a member here i have 6 months of food and fuel for lights and water after that i hope help shows up .
OK I will start with the parts:
http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductDetail.aspx?categorycode=3157A&mfrcode=APC&mfrpartnumber=360426W
Each of these kits contains 2 strings of 4 domed 12 volt LEDs. One string or 4 lights in each room provides plenty of light for security purposes. So, each kit lights two rooms.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=90599
This is a three 15 watt solar panel kit with a distribution controller that will provide 3, 6, 9, and 12 volt DC .
I have the LEDs in each room and they are wired to some 12 volt deep cycle scooter batteries that are charged with the solar panels.
The scooter batteries are ones I salvaged out of electric scooters that were damaged by UPS.
One deep cycle lawn mower battery would work just fine.
I found one of the 12 volt scooter batteries would power 4 LEDs for 6 weeks without recharging.
Hooking them up to 3 batteries that are being recharged during the day seems to work just fine.
The LEDs have a very small white wire that I ran down the door facing and drilled a very small hole through the floor and hooked them up to the 12 volt supply line from the batteries under the house. The attic would work better but I am rather large and get stuck in the tight confines of my attic.
don
D
Dazed
Guest
Why would a plant being isolated cause it to shut down? Can't they power themselves? If they are net poducers of power, and they use 10% of their max output, why couldn't they just power themselves?
Led Lighting using XMAS Lights
We improvised a 12V system for hurricanes at my friends house, he was without power for 8 days After Wilma.
At Traget last year I found 4 AA battery operate White LED light strings on sale half off paid $2.50 each string. They had irrc 18 Leds, There were wired in a a 2 series / 9 Parallel configuration, to work on 6V - Each LED runs on 3.4V and the lower voltage of 6V/2 works very nicely and you don't need resistors to limit the current that way.
This was installed in a friends house, he pulled cat5 computer wires though the house. I'll get a photo of the power panel later. He used a 45 Watt solar panel and two car batteries. I designed a simple charge controller using a LM7812 and a few diodes and capacitors, we just used as few in parallel -- crude but sweet.
We also pulled some 12ga/2 romex to run 12V car jacks in several rooms so he can use fans, TVs and DVD player.
We wired the LED string in series to get 12V capable strings.
We used crown Molding and drilled them about every 5". The Lamps are the T1 size / 3mm.
The light given off is more than ample to read large print items and do most chores.
These were installed in 3 rooms, the other rooms including the bathrooms has modifed lamp sockets with 12V LED clusters in them, we just removed the 110V wires from the entire circuit and hooked up the 12V stuff in the heat lamp units in the ceiling, it's South FL so we don't need no stinking heat lamps.
We improvised a 12V system for hurricanes at my friends house, he was without power for 8 days After Wilma.
At Traget last year I found 4 AA battery operate White LED light strings on sale half off
paid $2.50 each string. They had irrc 18 Leds, There were wired in a a 2 series / 9 Parallel configuration, to work on 6V - Each LED runs on 3.4V and the lower voltage of 6V/2 works very nicely and you don't need resistors to limit the current that way.This was installed in a friends house, he pulled cat5 computer wires though the house. I'll get a photo of the power panel later. He used a 45 Watt solar panel and two car batteries. I designed a simple charge controller using a LM7812 and a few diodes and capacitors, we just used as few in parallel -- crude but sweet.
We also pulled some 12ga/2 romex to run 12V car jacks in several rooms so he can use fans, TVs and DVD player.
We wired the LED string in series to get 12V capable strings.
We used crown Molding and drilled them about every 5". The Lamps are the T1 size / 3mm.
The light given off is more than ample to read large print items and do most chores.
These were installed in 3 rooms, the other rooms including the bathrooms has modifed lamp sockets with 12V LED clusters in them, we just removed the 110V wires from the entire circuit and hooked up the 12V stuff in the heat lamp units in the ceiling, it's South FL so we don't need no stinking heat lamps.
Attachments
Doc,
So, you don't have to worry. You're a genius. You're set.
However, I can just see the normal McDonald's-for-breakfast American retrofitting a generator to run on coal.
Maybe one in a thousand guys (my husband's one of 'em) knows how to build a steam engine from scratch. You're looking at an awful lot of people eating their canned beans in the dark.
So, you don't have to worry. You're a genius. You're set.
However, I can just see the normal McDonald's-for-breakfast American retrofitting a generator to run on coal.
Maybe one in a thousand guys (my husband's one of 'em) knows how to build a steam engine from scratch. You're looking at an awful lot of people eating their canned beans in the dark.
Rex Jackson
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Im sorry, your wrong. I had a over dozen meetings with reps from national grid, spent days on the phone with NRC, and spent 1/2 my life working for a huge electical contracotor. The grid will be far from fine if 10 major cities got nuked. The truth is, no one knows exactly what will happen until it happens. On top of that, the grid is old, overloaded, and unstable in 1/3 the country. Especially mid summer, mid winter. Every city east of a nuked city will be unservicable due to contamination from fall out. Many of these systems need to be manually controlled after such large disruptions. That is a no go if men can't go in. There will be restricted areas, brownouts, and more.
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Me and DW have been talking about the grid for weeks now. Every winter we end up going at least a week with out power. We usualy run a 5kw gas generator but it gets old quick. Constant maintanence, re-fueling and running for more fuel, we only kept 20 gals on hand and it just is not enough.
This year we descided NO MORE!! We purchased a 13kw propane powered gen-set with 250gal tank as well as 2500watt inverter and gel cells.
So now we are just waiting for the power to go out!! Our new setup runs the whole house including electric hot water heater. The 250gal tank will last about 50 days before worry of low fuel
Rich W.
This year we descided NO MORE!! We purchased a 13kw propane powered gen-set with 250gal tank as well as 2500watt inverter and gel cells.
So now we are just waiting for the power to go out!! Our new setup runs the whole house including electric hot water heater. The 250gal tank will last about 50 days before worry of low fuel
Rich W.
Jumpy Frog
Browncoat sympathizer
Doc,
So, you don't have to worry. You're a genius. You're set.
However, I can just see the normal McDonald's-for-breakfast American retrofitting a generator to run on coal.
Good! This is what I count on from my fellow man.........
Maybe the cold beans will wake them up to the fact that they should have prepped.
Think about your car, the alternator is a net producer of power, but without the initial power from the battery you can't start your car.
A coal fired power plant is the same way, they need power to run the motors that run the conveyors that move the coal to the pulverizers and power to run the pulverizers and power to spray the pulverized coal into the boilers, etc. Once one of these plants cools done, it takes hours to get them fired back up. Remember that they have to super heat thousands of gallons of water to make steam before they can start turning the turbines that are connected to the generators.
I hope this helps
D
Dazed
Guest
Why should the plant go down and cool off? Isolated I can see (disconnected from the grid load). But why should it go down? Once operating, there is no reason to shut it down as long as there is enogh load to let it operate (and IIRC there is provisions to keep the turbines spinning even if ther is no load as long as there is steam) I can see that a plant might have to decrease it's steam production if it is suddenly unloaded, but surely it can operatie itself as long as it is not shut down.
Again, why would the plant have to shut down (as long as there is fuel)? Grid issues are not necessarily plant issues.
This is a great question. Again, I'll give you some background before I answer your question.
The power for the plant actually comes from the substation that is outside the plant. This is the substation that the plant supplies. The power plant generates electricity at a voltage that the plant can NOT use directly, therefore it has to go through transformers before it can be used.
There are two way that a plant can be shut down by the system:
1. Overload - this is supposed to be protected against and I have never heard of it happening, but an overload could cause the speed of the generator to slow and the there would be an automatic disconnect. Speed of the generator controls the cycles and the power company wants that to be a constant 60 cycles, in fact they may legally have to keep it at 60 cycles.
2. Short or shutdown of the substation feeding power to the plant. Although this is an unlikely event, it has happened. In the late 60s or early 70s a tornado took the roof off of a metal building and placed it on the substation feeding one of the plants (I think it was Campbell, but I'm not sure). This of course was at night and all of the lights within the power plant went off along with all of the machinery. It took them several hours to figure out what happened and then had to go about correcting the problem. If I remember correctly, they had to shut down some of the distribution substations to give a direct path from one of the other plant to the one that was down to get enough power to start up the plant without overloading the system. This is the reason that Consumers added peakers to all of their generating plants.
I hope you don't have many more questions, I'm at about the end of my knowledge.
The power for the plant actually comes from the substation that is outside the plant. This is the substation that the plant supplies. The power plant generates electricity at a voltage that the plant can NOT use directly, therefore it has to go through transformers before it can be used.
There are two way that a plant can be shut down by the system:
1. Overload - this is supposed to be protected against and I have never heard of it happening, but an overload could cause the speed of the generator to slow and the there would be an automatic disconnect. Speed of the generator controls the cycles and the power company wants that to be a constant 60 cycles, in fact they may legally have to keep it at 60 cycles.
2. Short or shutdown of the substation feeding power to the plant. Although this is an unlikely event, it has happened. In the late 60s or early 70s a tornado took the roof off of a metal building and placed it on the substation feeding one of the plants (I think it was Campbell, but I'm not sure). This of course was at night and all of the lights within the power plant went off along with all of the machinery. It took them several hours to figure out what happened and then had to go about correcting the problem. If I remember correctly, they had to shut down some of the distribution substations to give a direct path from one of the other plant to the one that was down to get enough power to start up the plant without overloading the system. This is the reason that Consumers added peakers to all of their generating plants.
I hope you don't have many more questions, I'm at about the end of my knowledge.
Barry Natchitoches
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Some here might argue that I am wrong, but I have purposefully OMITTED a power generator from our emergency supplies.
In a short run type disaster, like Hurricane Elvis in July 2003, we just trucked it out of here and over to our mobile home in the country, which still had power. If both had been out of power, well, I have plenty of lanterns and battery powered fans (and solar rechargers for the batteries). We would make due.
My reluctance to use a generator stems from the fact that they set you up as a easy and obvious target for roving bands of thugs looking for supplies.
When Hurricane Elvis hit in 2003, lots of people went out and bought gennies to hook to newly bought window air conditioning units to keep cool. After all, we had 250,000 electrical meters knocked off the grid for as long as two weeks.
Know what happened?
Lots of people had their gennnies and/or their newly purchased window air condition units stolen.
Hurricane Elvis was not a bad enough storm to create roving bands of hungry thugs. So we didn't have breakins just to steal food and water, it was pretty limited to stealing window air conditioners and portable gennies.
But in a larger, more long term scenerio like is being discussed here, looking like you don't have anything is the best defense.
A generator is noisy, and is bound to attract attention to you and your supplies.
That's an open invitation to attack, IMHO.
Worrier King
Inactive
You'll eventually need parts and maintenance that are produced then transported
(often imported) by a working grid to keep the plant up for any length of time. If you are talking coal, you need the coal delivered, and then you need to support the railroad infrastructure. Then you have to support the mining infrastructure producing the coal. Then the infrastructure that supports the workers and their families needs to be functional.
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Situational awareness
Barry,
Many things to address here. Some of it comes down to situational awareness, some to pure tech advantages as survival considerations
Electrical generation does not have to be noisy at all. Solar manages to be pretty quiet and even many engine-driven gennies can be incredibly quiet. In my earlier post, I used the example of a vehicle driving an inverter. Most vehicles idling in a driveway or better, an enclosed garage (with appropriate ventilation, etc.) are very quiet indeed. My listeroid is moderately noisy, though I am adding a proven muffler design which will make the clatter of the valves noisier than the exhaust.
Yes, the 3600 rpm consumer gennies tend to be noisy, but this is as much of an economic design and manufacturing consideration as anything. They can be made - or modified to be - considerably quieter.
Using a gennie in a disaster or collapse scenario should be contingent on many things. Some considerations would be the need for power, the length of the power outage, the safety of a given location and the ability of the owner to protect and secure their property.
If, for example, a loved one needed electricity for life supporting medical equipment, there would be little question of using the machine. Even then, basic considerations of security and discretion should be addressed. Generator use in a "bad" urban neighborhood would obviously necessitate different concerns than using one in the barn of a rural Montana ranch. The use of a gennie for a two day outage would likely draw different threats than its use would imply after a two month outage.
In the longer term, the advantage of generating electricity can mean communications, the ability to freeze (and otherwise preserve) food, charge large and small batteries and the ability to use a wide variety of tools. Power can be extremely useful in enhancing safety and security, as well.
A generator supplying a battery bank allows the option of using the machine at safer times and relying on battery power when lower-profile operations are indicated.
As far as banditry is concerned, I look at my generators similarly to the way I look at weapons: Though usually taking a low-profile approach, there are times when publicly appearing heavily armed may be the wiser course as a deterrent. After Katrina, I made it a point to have a very visible .44 Magnum on my hip and a 12 gauge pump visible to the few nosey types who'd come down our remote street from time to time. There was some theft in the area (though nothing like New Orleans) and I'm certain that had I hidden and made the place look vacant, it would've attracted more unwanted attention. When travelling off the property, I kept a .357 concealed under my clothes. Different circumstances, different approaches.
Similarly, thieves may well look for easier pickings if they believe their nocturnal activities are likely to be met with an array of floodlights. Electric generation allows me to recharge my night vision batteries. In some cases, I may want everything to be absolutely dark and be completely under the radar! I do want the choice, though.
I would strongly suggest that you not eschew a generator purely - or even primarily - from a fear of criminals. Ultimately, you should position yourself so that the criminals have greater reason to fear you. The smart use of a gennie can be a part of that equation.
Best regards
Doc
Barry,
Many things to address here. Some of it comes down to situational awareness, some to pure tech advantages as survival considerations
Electrical generation does not have to be noisy at all. Solar manages to be pretty quiet and even many engine-driven gennies can be incredibly quiet. In my earlier post, I used the example of a vehicle driving an inverter. Most vehicles idling in a driveway or better, an enclosed garage (with appropriate ventilation, etc.) are very quiet indeed. My listeroid is moderately noisy, though I am adding a proven muffler design which will make the clatter of the valves noisier than the exhaust.
Yes, the 3600 rpm consumer gennies tend to be noisy, but this is as much of an economic design and manufacturing consideration as anything. They can be made - or modified to be - considerably quieter.
Using a gennie in a disaster or collapse scenario should be contingent on many things. Some considerations would be the need for power, the length of the power outage, the safety of a given location and the ability of the owner to protect and secure their property.
If, for example, a loved one needed electricity for life supporting medical equipment, there would be little question of using the machine. Even then, basic considerations of security and discretion should be addressed. Generator use in a "bad" urban neighborhood would obviously necessitate different concerns than using one in the barn of a rural Montana ranch. The use of a gennie for a two day outage would likely draw different threats than its use would imply after a two month outage.
In the longer term, the advantage of generating electricity can mean communications, the ability to freeze (and otherwise preserve) food, charge large and small batteries and the ability to use a wide variety of tools. Power can be extremely useful in enhancing safety and security, as well.
A generator supplying a battery bank allows the option of using the machine at safer times and relying on battery power when lower-profile operations are indicated.
As far as banditry is concerned, I look at my generators similarly to the way I look at weapons: Though usually taking a low-profile approach, there are times when publicly appearing heavily armed may be the wiser course as a deterrent. After Katrina, I made it a point to have a very visible .44 Magnum on my hip and a 12 gauge pump visible to the few nosey types who'd come down our remote street from time to time. There was some theft in the area (though nothing like New Orleans) and I'm certain that had I hidden and made the place look vacant, it would've attracted more unwanted attention. When travelling off the property, I kept a .357 concealed under my clothes. Different circumstances, different approaches.
Similarly, thieves may well look for easier pickings if they believe their nocturnal activities are likely to be met with an array of floodlights. Electric generation allows me to recharge my night vision batteries. In some cases, I may want everything to be absolutely dark and be completely under the radar! I do want the choice, though.
I would strongly suggest that you not eschew a generator purely - or even primarily - from a fear of criminals. Ultimately, you should position yourself so that the criminals have greater reason to fear you. The smart use of a gennie can be a part of that equation.
Best regards
Doc