Power outage

[Don Cooper]

Hope everyone is OK. I lived in NYC for the 1965 and 1977 ones.


Be safe,

Don

[Dale Farmer]

Don Cooper wrote:

> Hope everyone is OK. I lived in NYC for the 1965 and 1977 ones.
>
> Be safe,
>
> Don

Anybody lose anything when the lights went out?

--Dale

[BESTnewEnglandDJ]

i knew this was comming a long time ago. im a electrician. so many people take
power for granted.
vk

[0junk4me@bellsouth.net]

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On 2003-08-15 scotfraser@aol.com(ScotFraser) said:
>PRI's 'Marketplace', an avowedly pro-business syndicated radio show,
>pretty squarely laid the blame on utility deregulation today. They
>say the move away from smaller independent local municipal-run
>utilities toward big conglomerate for-profit energy providers has
>significantly weakened the robustness of the infrastructure. Check
>out this morning's show for a better nuts & bolts explanation.
HEre we have it once again. GOvernment aided and abetted greed
lowering the quality of life and weakening the infrastructures we
depend on. SOunds like business as usual don't it?

Just try selling a little bit of excess capacity from your small wind
farm back to the grid. <hmmmm> I have a buddy back in Iowa where I
lived told me some horror stories 'bout that one.

<Oops, don't sound like libertarian me, but I get rather frosted when
the corporate greedmongers can drive out local business in favor of
bigger bottom lines for themselves and then fail to deliver on waht
they tell the consumers the benefits are.

I dare all the sheep to elect Dubya again in '04.

<hrrumph>




Richard Webb
Electric Spider Productions
replace anything before the @ symbol with elspider for real email.


--

[0junk4me@bellsouth.net]

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On 2003-08-14 Drummer@ImJohn.com said:
>Could you explain how this sort of
>multi-state outage can even happen? If it's really that fragile of
>a system it seems like it wouldn't take much of a natural disaster
>or terrorist strike to put the whole of North America in darkness.

Um, it's called dominoes. ONe major powerplant goes offline for some
reason. the grid can't use its capabilities. everybody's still
drawing the same amount of juice for the air conditioners; washers;
dryers; Tv/radio transmitters; etc. etc. THe load falls on those
remaining. Another one goes down because it can't meet the demand,
and on and on and ...

wHich is why my ham radio station runs on some float charged gel cell
batteries.

REgards,




Richard Webb
Electric Spider Productions
replace anything before the @ symbol with elspider for real email.


--



Amazing how much tape is on a 10" reel, when it's not, isn't it?

[John L Rice]

"BESTnewEnglandDJ" <bestnewenglanddj@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030814224517.07201.00000014@mb-m26.aol.com...
> i knew this was comming a long time ago. im a electrician. so many people
take
> power for granted.
> vk

I remember something similar happening a few years ago that affected several
states in the southwest US ( about a week before the sci-fi move
Independence Day came out, prompting me to muse that it might be a real
alien invasion or a publicity stunt for the movie ). Supposedly they traced
the cause to an oak tree branch touching a power line???

Could you explain how this sort of multi-state outage can even happen? If
it's really that fragile of a system it seems like it wouldn't take much of
a natural disaster or terrorist strike to put the whole of North America in
darkness.


Best wishes for a safe return to electric power to everyone affected by the
blackout.

John L Rice
Drummer@ImJohn.com

[Bryson]

They can't hear you, Don.



Don Cooper wrote:

> Hope everyone is OK. I lived in NYC for the 1965 and 1977 ones.
>
>
> Be safe,
>
> Don

[Bryson]

AN

BESTnewEnglandDJ wrote:

> i knew this was comming a long time ago. im a electrician. so many people take
> power for granted.
> vk

[Don Cooper]

Bryson wrote:

> They can't hear you, Don.


It's just like Wolf Blitzer's repeated warnings about the dangers of
using candles. At least we have archives.


Don

[Dale Farmer]

John L Rice wrote:

> "BESTnewEnglandDJ" <bestnewenglanddj@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20030814224517.07201.00000014@mb-m26.aol.com...
> > i knew this was comming a long time ago. im a electrician. so many people
> take
> > power for granted.
> > vk
>
> I remember something similar happening a few years ago that affected several
> states in the southwest US ( about a week before the sci-fi move
> Independence Day came out, prompting me to muse that it might be a real
> alien invasion or a publicity stunt for the movie ). Supposedly they traced
> the cause to an oak tree branch touching a power line???
>
> Could you explain how this sort of multi-state outage can even happen? If
> it's really that fragile of a system it seems like it wouldn't take much of
> a natural disaster or terrorist strike to put the whole of North America in
> darkness.
>
> Best wishes for a safe return to electric power to everyone affected by the
> blackout.
>
> John L Rice
> Drummer@ImJohn.com

Whatever caused this particular outage. ( It will be something stupid, like a
lightning strike on a transmission line, or an failed component in a generator
plant. ) The root cause it the huge amount of power we use in urban society,
and the immense distances that the power has to travel from generator to
consumer. There is very little margin, and the huge costs of building more
generator plants, transmission lines, etc. especially in these days of NIMBY
and the eco-luddites, work against the power companies building spare
capacity.

--Dale

( Hmmmm.... NIMBY and the eco-luddites. Sounds like a bad band name. )

[ScotFraser]

<< Could you explain how this sort of multi-state outage can even happen? If
it's really that fragile of a system it seems like it wouldn't take much of
a natural disaster or terrorist strike to put the whole of North America in
darkness. >>

PRI's 'Marketplace', an avowedly pro-business syndicated radio show, pretty
squarely laid the blame on utility deregulation today. They say the move away
from smaller independent local municipal-run utilities toward big conglomerate
for-profit energy providers has significantly weakened the robustness of the
infrastructure. Check out this morning's show for a better nuts & bolts
explanation.


Scott Fraser

[ScotFraser]

<< especially in these days of NIMBY
and the eco-luddites, >>

More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
"eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.

Scott Fraser

[Kurt Albershardt]

ScotFraser wrote:
>
>> especially in these days of NIMBY and the eco-luddites
>
> More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
> "eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
> decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.

The utilities like the idea of distributed generation, too--but in their
version the distributed generators live in your neighborhood but are
still owned by the utility. Read up a bit on the laundry list of dirty
tricks and backroom deals the utilities have pulled (and continue to
pull) with net metering.

IOUs have caused a world of grief over the past couple of decades.
Anyone else notice that the municipal utilities were suffering a bit
less during all the CA power shenanigans awhile back? LADWP and SMUD
customers were the lucky ones.

[LeBaron & Alrich]

ScotFraser <scotfraser@aol.com> wrote:

> << especially in these days of NIMBY
> and the eco-luddites, >>

> More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
> "eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
> decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.

And reduction of demand. We're not far from the point at which more
cannot be delivered. We better start thinking about this.

--
hank alrich * secret mountain
audio recording * music production * sound reinforcement
"If laughter is the best medicine let's take a double dose"

[Dale Farmer]

ScotFraser wrote:

> << especially in these days of NIMBY
> and the eco-luddites, >>
>
> More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
> "eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
> decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.
>
> Scott Fraser

Well, the most recent ongoing example of NIMBY eco-luddites up here
around Boston is the opposition to the wind farm offshore of Martha's
Vineyard. Totally clean power, Built on a barely submerged hazard to
navigation several miles away from the island. The real reason is that
the folks on the island feel that the towers will spoil their view, and since
they have money, lawyers, and the liberal left, they are trotting out all
the usual eco-luddite mantras, slightly snipped and molded to fit this
particular situation. *feh*
For an older local example, the Seabrook, NH power plant. Direct
legal costs added up to something like 15% of the total plant cost. Indirect
costs, basically rebuilding things to meet the latest court order, and the
costs of stopping and starting construction dozens of times made the plant
construction cost more than double.
Most of these people mean well, and have a surface understanding of
some of the issues, but their understanding is systematically been
propagandized by extremists. Scientific thought and logical thinking get
replaced by sound bites and articles of faith that are never questioned by
the faithful. ANyone who questions these base beliefs is labeled an
"industry shill" and driven away by the horde with fingers in their ears
chanting their slogans. Joe Stalin had a name for these kinds of folks.
He called them useful idiots.

--Dale

[Les Cargill]

LeBaron & Alrich wrote:
>
> ScotFraser <scotfraser@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > << especially in these days of NIMBY
> > and the eco-luddites, >>
>
> > More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
> > "eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
> > decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.
>
> And reduction of demand. We're not far from the point at which more
> cannot be delivered. We better start thinking about this.
>
> --
> hank alrich * secret mountain
> audio recording * music production * sound reinforcement
> "If laughter is the best medicine let's take a double dose"

Yeah, but this does not show up in price at all. Until
we get it in the wallet, there is no problem. And I'm
still unsure if there really is one or not - it's too
hot a potato to get good stats about.

--
Les Cargill

[Bill Thompson]

0junk4me@bellsouth.net wrote:
> Just try selling a little bit of excess capacity from your small wind
> farm back to the grid. <hmmmm> I have a buddy back in Iowa where I
> lived told me some horror stories 'bout that one.

I really should know better by now...

there are two sides to every coin... co-generation, the name commonly
applied to folks trying to sell a little energy back to the grid suffers
from one glaring problem... these small providers are not required to be
on-line, they aren't even required to let the utility know when they are
going off-line (at least that's how it works in PA.)

So utilities try to weed out the lunatics early on in the process, since
the further along one gets in the process the harder it is to stop. And
their methods probably wouldn't make the average person happy.

But it has to be this way because the loss of generation, even from a
small wind farm or hydro plant can cause disturbances in the grid. You'd
be surprised at just how little it takes to shift from stable to
unstable operation, especially under high load conditions. It doesn't
take much.

We had a hospital that operated a steam generator of the laundry steam.
I don't remember the exact capacity, but it didn't generate a whole lot
of power, and they used most of what they generated. So when they
dropped off line, which they did with some regularity, not only was
there a loss of generation, but there was an increase in load.

And you could see it on the meters in dispatch... every time.

When the folks operating small generation sources agree to play under
the same rules that the utilities have to play under I think arguments
against co-generation will decrease.

Bill

[Bill Thompson]

LeBaron & Alrich wrote:

> And reduction of demand. We're not far from the point at which more
> cannot be delivered. We better start thinking about this.

Well, we have to do something... either increase supply, decrease
demand, or accept the consequences of burying our heads in the sand.

Sadly there are a lot of folks out claiming there is no problem other
than the greedy capitalists trying to wring every last cent from the system.

When power generation was regulated there weren't a lot of folks trying
to wring anything out of it... the stocks were generally considered safe
for widows and orphans!

And, if additional generation was required to meet demand the utility
was required to find a way to meet that demand. Now that the generators
are no longer regulated they don't have to build a plant until they know
it will make a profit, and a big one at that!

Meanwhile, the utilities still have tariffs defining how they will
deliver power to homes and businesses in a safe and cost effective manner.

Go figure...

[Bill Thompson]

Dale Farmer wrote:

> Well, the most recent ongoing example of NIMBY eco-luddites up here
> around Boston is the opposition to the wind farm offshore of Martha's
> Vineyard. Totally clean power, Built on a barely submerged hazard to
> navigation several miles away from the island. The real reason is that
> the folks on the island feel that the towers will spoil their view, and since
> they have money, lawyers, and the liberal left, they are trotting out all
> the usual eco-luddite mantras, slightly snipped and molded to fit this
> particular situation. *feh*

I hadn't heard that tale... sheesh!

> For an older local example, the Seabrook, NH power plant. Direct
> legal costs added up to something like 15% of the total plant cost. Indirect
> costs, basically rebuilding things to meet the latest court order, and the
> costs of stopping and starting construction dozens of times made the plant
> construction cost more than double.

That one however is in the textbooks... along with most nuclear plants
built towards the end of the era.

> Most of these people mean well, and have a surface understanding of
> some of the issues, but their understanding is systematically been
> propagandized by extremists. Scientific thought and logical thinking get
> replaced by sound bites and articles of faith that are never questioned by
> the faithful. ANyone who questions these base beliefs is labeled an
> "industry shill" and driven away by the horde with fingers in their ears
> chanting their slogans. Joe Stalin had a name for these kinds of folks.
> He called them useful idiots.

A very balanced observation... doesn't really belong in a thread about
public policy and energy now does it<G>???

Bill

[Dale Farmer]

Bill Thompson wrote:

> Dale Farmer wrote:
>
> > Well, the most recent ongoing example of NIMBY eco-luddites up here
> > around Boston is the opposition to the wind farm offshore of Martha's
> > Vineyard. Totally clean power, Built on a barely submerged hazard to
> > navigation several miles away from the island. The real reason is that
> > the folks on the island feel that the towers will spoil their view, and since
> > they have money, lawyers, and the liberal left, they are trotting out all
> > the usual eco-luddite mantras, slightly snipped and molded to fit this
> > particular situation. *feh*
>
> I hadn't heard that tale... sheesh!
>
> > For an older local example, the Seabrook, NH power plant. Direct
> > legal costs added up to something like 15% of the total plant cost. Indirect
> > costs, basically rebuilding things to meet the latest court order, and the
> > costs of stopping and starting construction dozens of times made the plant
> > construction cost more than double.
>
> That one however is in the textbooks... along with most nuclear plants
> built towards the end of the era.
>
> > Most of these people mean well, and have a surface understanding of
> > some of the issues, but their understanding is systematically been
> > propagandized by extremists. Scientific thought and logical thinking get
> > replaced by sound bites and articles of faith that are never questioned by
> > the faithful. ANyone who questions these base beliefs is labeled an
> > "industry shill" and driven away by the horde with fingers in their ears
> > chanting their slogans. Joe Stalin had a name for these kinds of folks.
> > He called them useful idiots.
>
> A very balanced observation... doesn't really belong in a thread about
> public policy and energy now does it<G>???
>
> Bill

Especially on rec.audio.pro. *laughs*
Rule one of having clean power in your studio. Have power in the power
system feeding your building.

--Dale

[Arny Krueger]

"Don Cooper" <dcooper2880@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:3F3C0FC0.E5FB7ABF@comcast.net
> Hope everyone is OK. I lived in NYC for the 1965 and 1977 ones.

It was mostly a lark. We had running water for the duration. It was an
unofficial day off. Traffic was very light, and most people just chilled,

However, it reflects very poorly on the management of our power grids. Once
upon a time I worked for a large gas utility, so no amount of incompetence
from utility managers can surprise me.

[Kurt Albershardt]

Bill Thompson wrote:
>
> When the folks operating small generation sources agree to play under
> the same rules that the utilities have to play under I think arguments
> against co-generation will decrease.

Small (in terms of most net metering laws) means under 10 kW. Small (in
terms of most utilities) means under 1 MW. The whole raison d' etre for
these laws is that meeting the traditional standards for generating
facilities is economically plain unfeasible with 'plants' of such small
size.

[Rob Adelman]

LeBaron & Alrich wrote:

>>More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
>>"eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
>>decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.
>
>
> And reduction of demand. We're not far from the point at which more
> cannot be delivered. We better start thinking about this.

My brother's solar powered house in Poway with his electric car is
looking a little smarter these days. He is probably laughing about all
this.

The oil companies bought the patents for the batteries for the electric
cars. You know they stopped making the electric cars?

I wonder if Arnoold thinks much about this as he is riding high up in
his SUV?

[Rob Adelman]

Dale Farmer wrote:


> the folks on the island feel that the towers will spoil their view, and since
> they have money, lawyers, and the liberal left, they are trotting out all
> the usual eco-luddite mantras, slightly snipped and molded to fit this


Huh? You are blaming the liberal left?

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 18:13:35 GMT, walkinay@thegrid.net (LeBaron &
Alrich) wrote:

> We better start thinking about this.

Hank, you're never going to get elected if you keep
talking like this. Ix-nay the Inking-thay.

Chris Hornbeck
http://www.votetoimpeach.org/

[Rob Adelman]

Kurt Albershardt wrote:

> Anyone else notice that the municipal utilities were suffering a bit
> less during all the CA power shenanigans awhile back? LADWP and SMUD
> customers were the lucky ones.


Well then, vote for Arnoold, that's it, umm,

"Schwarzenegger and Lay

Independent candidate Arianna Huffington has criticized Schwarzenegger
for meeting with former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay in May 2001 in
Beverly Hills. The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that Lay gave
Schwarzenegger and other business and political leaders a four-page plan
detailing his solution to California's energy crisis.

"I don't remember the meeting," Schwarzenegger said Thursday."

How conveeen-ient, he don't remember.

<http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/08/15/davis.recall.ap/index.html>

[Dale Farmer]

Rob Adelman wrote:

> Dale Farmer wrote:
>
> > the folks on the island feel that the towers will spoil their view, and since
> > they have money, lawyers, and the liberal left, they are trotting out all
> > the usual eco-luddite mantras, slightly snipped and molded to fit this
>
> Huh? You are blaming the liberal left?

No, the liberal left is one of the tools on the NIMBYites in this case.

--Dale

[Darrell Klein]

> I dare all the sheep to elect Dubya again in '04.
>
"again"? Huh?

[David Satz]

Dale Farmer wrote:

> Anybody lose anything when the lights went out?

A fuse blew in one VCR; that's all here. Thanks for asking.

I'd just finished buying some equipment in lower Manhattan and was waiting
for the subway back home to Brooklyn when the power went out. The station
was evacuated in near-total darkness. All we knew at the time was that
there was a power outage in the lower Manhattan subway.

After it became clear that the problem was more widespread and would not
be solved very soon, I joined tens of thousands of other people walking
across the Brooklyn Bridge (with my 30+ pounds of equipment and a bottle
of water). It was a rather festive time, actually. People sat out on
the steps of their buildings and met and talked with one another.

I'd say, there should be one evening a month with no television. It's
amazing the degree to which our particular means of transportation and
communication isolate people and set us against each another.

--best regards

[ScotFraser]

<< Well, the most recent ongoing example of NIMBY eco-luddites up here
around Boston is the opposition to the wind farm offshore of Martha's
Vineyard. Totally clean power, Built on a barely submerged hazard to
navigation several miles away from the island. The real reason is that
the folks on the island feel that the towers will spoil their view, and since
they have money, lawyers, and the liberal left, they are trotting out all
the usual eco-luddite mantras, slightly snipped and molded to fit this
particular situation. >>

What any of these rich folks opposing wind power have to do with what you label
the liberal left is beyond me.
Scott Fraser

[nmm]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 3:43 pm, Bill Thompson
<mailto:bill@audioenterprise.com> wrote:
>Well, we have to do something... either increase supply, decrease
>demand, or accept the consequences of burying our heads in the sand.
>

From most reports the problem wasn't with Generation as much as
Transmision.


>Sadly there are a lot of folks out claiming there is no problem other
>than the greedy capitalists trying to wring every last cent from the
system.
>

The system seemed to work fine when it was a public utility. Now that there
are private consortiums running Ontario Power Generation, all we hear about
are problems.

The battles between Tesla and Edison determined the direction the USA took
in electrical distribution, and here was the failure of that policy. Not
the ACvs DC as much as the availability to the geberal public. Though the
battle of AC vs DC can be seen as the money power backing an inferior
system due to it's control of the pattens.

The Public should be educated to what a fraud Thomas Edison really was.
The guy who used to Electrocute Cats to show the dangers of Alternating
Current.

[Justin Ulysses Morse]

Bill Thompson <bill@audioenterprise.com> wrote:

> there are two sides to every coin... co-generation, the name commonly
> applied to folks trying to sell a little energy back to the grid suffers
> from one glaring problem... these small providers are not required to be
> on-line, they aren't even required to let the utility know when they are
> going off-line (at least that's how it works in PA.)

> But it has to be this way because the loss of generation, even from a
> small wind farm or hydro plant can cause disturbances in the grid. You'd
> be surprised at just how little it takes to shift from stable to
> unstable operation, especially under high load conditions. It doesn't
> take much.

> When the folks operating small generation sources agree to play under
> the same rules that the utilities have to play under I think arguments
> against co-generation will decrease.


Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage a much larger number of
co-generators so that their individual starts and stops would be
averaged out by all the others? With enough small generators, we
wouldn't BE running close to capacity all the time and if those
generators were distributed with the population it would solve a lot of
our transmission difficulties and inefficiencies at the same time.
This doesn'y happen with a few dozen co-generators, but it could happen
with a few THOUSAND co-generators in any given area. Am I wrong?

ulysses

[Justin Ulysses Morse]

Darrell Klein <darrelldklein@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > I dare all the sheep to elect Dubya again in '04.
> >
> "again"? Huh?


Right, as the bumper stickers say, "Let's not elect him in '04 either."

ulysses

[Justin Ulysses Morse]

I think it's time for us (people) to start looking at how we can solve
the problem for ourselves rather than trying to get industry to
regulate itself, or worse yet get government to do it. I can think of
all sorts of ways I can reduce my consumption of electricity, and I can
also think of plenty of ways to get the electricity I do use from
someplace other than "The Grid." I think I've changed my mind about
leaving the studio equipment on all the time. This is as good a reason
as anything else. I've gotten a lot better about shutting down my
computer when I'm not using it, too. I've done the math and now I know
how much cheaper it is to use those small fluorescents as a replacement
for incandescent bulbs. They're NOT noisy OR ugly. The only catch is
the extra junk you throw in the trash when they burn out. But they
last a year instead of a month. There have been some HUGE advancements
in efficiency in recent years, including lighting, batteries,
computers, displays (TFTs use WAY less power than CRTs), refrigeration,
etc. We should be able to decrease rather than increase our
consumption, if we actually make an effort.

What's I'd LIKE to see is people using their treadmills and excercise
bikes and Nordik-Traks to charge their laptops or even run their
refrigerators. I'd like to see a gigantic flywheel in everybody's
garage that would stor energy from every available source: Wind,
solar, childrens' hyperactivity, wind-up cranks, weights on chains
(like a big cuckoo clock) etc. I bet that with the right equipment,
the average home could be powered by the family living in it. This
sort of thing would be easy to phase in incrementally because you can
always use a little mains power on the side.

Of course, it's 97 degrees outside and I do have the AC cranked up
today.

ulysses


Rob Adelman <radelman@mn.rr.com> wrote:

> LeBaron & Alrich wrote:
>
> >>More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
> >>"eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
> >>decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.
> >
> >
> > And reduction of demand. We're not far from the point at which more
> > cannot be delivered. We better start thinking about this.
>
> My brother's solar powered house in Poway with his electric car is
> looking a little smarter these days. He is probably laughing about all
> this.
>
> The oil companies bought the patents for the batteries for the electric
> cars. You know they stopped making the electric cars?
>
> I wonder if Arnoold thinks much about this as he is riding high up in
> his SUV?
>

[Justin Ulysses Morse]

Rob Adelman <radelman@mn.rr.com> wrote:

> "I don't remember the meeting," Schwarzenegger said Thursday."


Wow, maybe he IS the next Reagan.

ulysses

[Rob Adelman]

Yes, I thought that was a very Reganesque. I think he would remember. I
wouldn't trust Arnold as a politician. And these kinds of responses and
the lack of anything substantive to say are making me even more suspicious.

Justin Ulysses Morse wrote:
> Rob Adelman <radelman@mn.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
>>"I don't remember the meeting," Schwarzenegger said Thursday."
>
>
>
> Wow, maybe he IS the next Reagan.
>
> ulysses

[nmm]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 2:19 pm, LeBaron & Alrich
<mailto:walkinay@thegrid.net> wrote:
>nmm <voximan@arvotek.net> wrote:
>
>> The system seemed to work fine when it was a public utility. Now that
>there
>> are private consortiums running Ontario Power Generation, all we hear
>about
>> are problems.
>
>Indeed, but since that time population has expanded significantly and
>we're consuming a whole lot more juice. The thing about the regulated
>situation is that supply concerns get addressed as if they were
>necessities, instead of peripheral ameneties the provision for which
>stands on whether those greedy capitalists get earn their money drug.
>
>Whooops, I wound up right back where you started. <g>

There are no incentives to conserve power. IF it's there, it gets used. If
you have the money the prvate utility will take that money from you. More
the better.

And back to my favourite author. In "A Critical Path" Buckminster Fuller
mention plans for a worldwide power grid, and that more smaller generators
could be a more efficient supply of electricity. A small windmill on every
second utility pole could supply up to 65% of the electrical needs of a
large city.

Why this won't happen? Because of the industry mindset. Something
established by George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison way back.

What about the "transmision of electricity through natural media"? Those
plans were long ago sealed or destryed.

[Bob Cain]

Dale Farmer wrote:
>
> Well, the most recent ongoing example of NIMBY eco-luddites up here
> around Boston is the opposition to the wind farm offshore of Martha's
> Vineyard. Totally clean power, Built on a barely submerged hazard to
> navigation several miles away from the island. The real reason is that
> the folks on the island feel that the towers will spoil their view, and since
> they have money, lawyers, and the liberal left, they are trotting out all
> the usual eco-luddite mantras, slightly snipped and molded to fit this
> particular situation. *feh*

When was the last time you saw any property owner of any
political, philosophical or religous orientation welcome,
without challenge, any plan that might potentially threaten
the value or even the esthetic utility of the property they
own and call home? What would be practically without
precedent would be for anyone, regardless of their
orientation, to welcome such a sacrifice for the common
good. That's just the way we're built when push comes to
shove.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <BB63E52D-98921@64.56.247.87>, nmm <voximan@arvotek.net> wrote:
>
>The battles between Tesla and Edison determined the direction the USA took
>in electrical distribution, and here was the failure of that policy. Not
>the ACvs DC as much as the availability to the geberal public. Though the
>battle of AC vs DC can be seen as the money power backing an inferior
>system due to it's control of the pattens.

It was much more of a battle between George Westinghouse and Edison.
Guys like Tesla and Steinmetz were on the side, and at the time there
were some real big issues with AC distribution that hadn't been figured
out. It wasn't until the Heaviside Calculus was introduced around the
turn of the century that anyone even got a notion of what harmonic distortion
on the lines did.

>The Public should be educated to what a fraud Thomas Edison really was.
>The guy who used to Electrocute Cats to show the dangers of Alternating
>Current.

Not only cats, don't forget the elephant! Edison was one hell of a showman
and a good marketing guy even when he wasn't so good an engineer. But he
was a businessman first and foremost.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Crowley]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
> It was much more of a battle between George Westinghouse and Edison.
> Guys like Tesla and Steinmetz were on the side, and at the time there
> were some real big issues with AC distribution that hadn't been figured
> out. It wasn't until the Heaviside Calculus was introduced around the
> turn of the century that anyone even got a notion of what harmonic
distortion
> on the lines did.

I've never seen a coherent explanation of how DC distribution would
have ever worked on a large scale. Trading off voltage for current and
vice-versa for long-distance travel vs. local distribution is easy with
AC transformers. But no simple/inexpensive equivalent for DC has
ever existed, has it?

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Crowley <rcrowley7@xprt.net> wrote:
>
>I've never seen a coherent explanation of how DC distribution would
>have ever worked on a large scale. Trading off voltage for current and
>vice-versa for long-distance travel vs. local distribution is easy with
>AC transformers. But no simple/inexpensive equivalent for DC has
>ever existed, has it?

Motor-generator sets. Also, you can take a high voltage line and drop a
bunch of low-voltage loads in series across it. You have to be constantly
adjusting the thing dynamically to balance it off as the loads change during
the day, but they tried it in New York.

Not very convenient or practical, but also remember that at the time nobody
was really thinking about distribution on anything like the scale we have
today.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[ScotFraser]

<< What about the "transmision of electricity through natural media"? Those
plans were long ago sealed or destryed.
>>

Tesla? Odd that most of his revolutionary ideas have been quietly ignored since
the beginning.


Scott Fraser

[ScotFraser]

<< I think it's time for us (people) to start looking at how we can solve
the problem for ourselves rather than trying to get industry to
regulate itself, or worse yet get government to do it. >>

Actually government did a very good job of regulating power. That's why the
industry has poured hundreds of millions into initiative measures to get states
to deregulate, so they can help themselves to your wallet, which is impossible
with government oversight.


Scott Fraser

[Roger W. Norman]

Can we make that TVless night when Arnold's giving a speech for the next
couple of months? <g>

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See
how far $20 really goes.




"David Satz" <DSatz@msn.com> wrote in message
news:e6a68193.0308152016.57bd289c@posting.google.c om...
> Dale Farmer wrote:
>
> > Anybody lose anything when the lights went out?
>
> A fuse blew in one VCR; that's all here. Thanks for asking.
>
> I'd just finished buying some equipment in lower Manhattan and was waiting
> for the subway back home to Brooklyn when the power went out. The station
> was evacuated in near-total darkness. All we knew at the time was that
> there was a power outage in the lower Manhattan subway.
>
> After it became clear that the problem was more widespread and would not
> be solved very soon, I joined tens of thousands of other people walking
> across the Brooklyn Bridge (with my 30+ pounds of equipment and a bottle
> of water). It was a rather festive time, actually. People sat out on
> the steps of their buildings and met and talked with one another.
>
> I'd say, there should be one evening a month with no television. It's
> amazing the degree to which our particular means of transportation and
> communication isolate people and set us against each another.
>
> --best regards

[ScotFraser]

<< I
wouldn't trust Arnold as a politician. And these kinds of responses and
the lack of anything substantive to say are making me even more suspicious. >>

The fact that he has filled his campaign committee with people like George
Schulze, Pete Wilson, & most of Wilson's former staff make me absolutely not
trust him. Arnold will be the pretty face, but the policy will come from these
dinosaurs of the Republican power structure. No thanks, I'll take Davis.

Scott Fraser

[dmills@spamblock.demon.co.uk]

Justin Ulysses Morse <ulysses@rollmusic.com> wrote:

> Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage a much larger number of
> co-generators so that their individual starts and stops would be
> averaged out by all the others? With enough small generators, we
> wouldn't BE running close to capacity all the time and if those
> generators were distributed with the population it would solve a lot of
> our transmission difficulties and inefficiencies at the same time.
> This doesn'y happen with a few dozen co-generators, but it could happen
> with a few THOUSAND co-generators in any given area. Am I wrong?

There are other issues with this. I am not a power systems expert but
some that come to mind are the increased difficulty with the control loop
stability (which IIRC is already an area of intense study & computer
modelling) & handling of harmonics (many of these small sets would likely
be single phase machines?). There are also potential issues with how
circuit protection would work in an extremely distributed scheme.

The sort of thing which comes to mind is the following: Area drops off
the general grid & load sheds until its local generation can cope, now
how do you get it back onto the grid? And in fact with a distributed
generation scheme how do you load shed? These small local machines will
most likely have poor speed regulation and there is no one single point
to throttle in order to achive phase sync. Granted with enough grid
capacity available you can just close the switches but the owners of the
small local plants will not much like that (think *huge* current until
everything is spinning in sync)....
The only way I can see to work this trick would be to drop all the local
generators off line, then bring the grid feed up, then bring the local
plant back on line once the grid was providing a stiff phase reference.

This is probably relativly easy where the generators feed a network with
well controlled connectivity to the local low voltage user network, as a
plant can be taken off line without anyone noticing. But where a area is
running on small local plants connected directly to the local LV network
due to a fault isolating it from the grid I can see some political problems
with the grid operators insisting that all these plants be taken off line
(causing a total power failiure) before the area can be reconnected to the
grid proper. You would ALWAYS get some wanker who "was only trying to help"
leaving his 100KVA@61.5Hz on line, then wondering why he has ended up with a
flywheel embedded in the wall.

Sync and control of multiple small plants (and particularly their recovery
after system failiure) seems likely to be a hard problem.

Would any power systems type care to comment?

Regards, Dan (who is looking at putting a gas fired CHP plant in at work for
peak lopping purposes).
--
** The email address *IS* valid, do NOT remove the spamblock
And on the evening of the first day the lord said...........
..... LX 1, GO!; and there was light.

[Rob Adelman]

ScotFraser wrote:
> << I
> wouldn't trust Arnold as a politician. And these kinds of responses and
> the lack of anything substantive to say are making me even more suspicious. >>
>
> The fact that he has filled his campaign committee with people like George
> Schulze, Pete Wilson, & most of Wilson's former staff make me absolutely not
> trust him. Arnold will be the pretty face, but the policy will come from these
> dinosaurs of the Republican power structure. No thanks, I'll take Davis.

I hope Californians can put 2 and 2 together in time. The future is
looking pretty bleak.

[Mike]

scotfraser@aol.com (ScotFraser) wrote in message news:<20030815133729.22965.00000038@mb-m05.aol.com>...
> << especially in these days of NIMBY
> and the eco-luddites, >>
>
> More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that the
> "eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is small
> decentralized local power generating ability through alternative sources.
>
> Scott Fraser


It's all a double edged sword. Theoretically, if the power system is
more decentralized, then outages and problems would occur more
frequently in the regional areas because they can't rely on getting
the power from adjoining areas. And that would also create a
potential for much longer outages in those decentralized areas.

Mike http://www.mmeproductions.com

[Chris Hornbeck]

On 17 Aug 2003 13:30:24 -0500, "nmm" <voximan@arvotek.net> wrote:

>I'm not sure how far this project got off the ground but there aparently is
>a long DC transmission lines between Manitoba and Ontario. I heard this
>from the guys at Darlington Nuclear station when i was working there.

There's a 500KV DC line from the coal regions (Minnesota?) to
the west coast in the US. If I hadn't seen a picture of the
SCR's at the receiving end, many stories high, I wouldn't
have believed it. People look like ants.

Not really any crazier than nuke plants, I guess. Gotta do
what you gotta do.

Chris Hornbeck
http://www.votetoimpeach.org/

[Dale Farmer]

nmm wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 17, 2003 12:46 am, Richard Crowley <mailto:rcrowley7@xprt.net>
> wrote:
> >I've never seen a coherent explanation of how DC distribution would
> >have ever worked on a large scale. Trading off voltage for current and
> >vice-versa for long-distance travel vs. local distribution is easy with
> >AC transformers. But no simple/inexpensive equivalent for DC has
> >ever existed, has it?
>
> I'm not sure how far this project got off the ground but there aparently is
> a long DC transmission lines between Manitoba and Ontario. I heard this
> from the guys at Darlington Nuclear station when i was working there.
>
> They are also spending a lot of time and money on an experimental fusion
> reactor at Darlington. So far it takes more energy out of the grid than it
> puts in.

There are a number of high voltage DC lines in service out there. There
is one laid in the ocean from Oregon down to California someplace. Another
is connecting the two main islands of New Zealand. Just off the top of my
head. They really didn't get economical until solid state DC-DC converters
were invented. Some of the real pioneering work in the field was done by
Bell Labs, for getting usable power down to the repeaters for undersea
cables.

--Dale

[nmm]

On Sun, Aug 17, 2003 8:50 am, Scott Dorsey <mailto:kludge@panix.com>
wrote:
>Not very convenient or practical, but also remember that at the time
nobody
>was really thinking about distribution on anything like the scale we
have
>today.
>--scott
>--
>"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
>

"As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New
York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type
at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from
his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without
any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive
instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear
anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political
leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an
eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In
the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be
transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments
can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than
this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which
will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction. These few
indications will be sufficient to show that the wireless art offers
greater possibilities than any invention or discovery heretofore made,
and if the conditions are favorable, we can expect with certitude that
in the next few years wonders will be wrought by its application."=D1
Nikola Tesla


---------------------------------------------------------
"Our Nations Must Come Together To Unite"
- George W Bush - Tampa FL . June 4th -2001
---------------------------------------------------------

[Kurt Albershardt]

Dale Farmer wrote:
>
> There are a number of high voltage DC lines in service out there. There
> is one laid in the ocean from Oregon down to California someplace. Another
> is connecting the two main islands of New Zealand. Just off the top of my
> head. They really didn't get economical until solid state DC-DC converters
> were invented. Some of the real pioneering work in the field was done by
> Bell Labs, for getting usable power down to the repeaters for undersea
> cables.

And Texas:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Texas might face a glut of electricity, but that won't aid rest of U.S.

Wire service reports Sunday May 13th, 2001

While California struggles to keep its lights on and New York City
braces for possible electricity shortages this summer, Texas utilities
soon could face the opposite problem: a power glut.

Texas' wide-open spaces and relatively weak zoning and environmental
rules have helped make the Lone Star state a magnet for power-generation
companies as it prepares to deregulate its electricity market next year.

The result: Texas' electricity-production capacity this summer is
expected to exceed its peak power demand by 11,000 megawatts--nearly
enough to light up New York City. By the summer of 2002, the excess
could be closer to 15,000 megawatts, enough to power 15 million homes.
And with 27 new generating plants being built, more than any other
state, some power producers fear that overbuilding ultimately could send
Texas' wholesale electricity prices into a tailspin.

All this sounds like good news for the electricity-starved East and West
Coasts--but it isn't. That's because the nation is divided into three
major power grids--with the West on one, the East on another and most of
Texas on a third, with very few links to the rest of the country. In the
world of electricity, that makes Texas "an island with a couple of
little footpaths over to it," said Larry Makovich, senior director for
electric power research at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a
Massachusetts consulting firm.

Some Texas utility executives argue that their state's island status is
principally an accident of geography.

But no one disputes the fact that good old Texas pride--and a
deep-seated skepticism toward federal regulation--also played a role in
shaping the state's grid. So, too, did a renegade utility's desperate
1976 bid to save itself from a corporate breakup and the resulting
four-year legal battle, which the industry later dubbed the "Texas Range
War."

Texas' isolation isn't expected to end anytime soon.

If Texas became fully interconnected, its big utilities said, the state
could become more susceptible to blackouts, if other regions drew off
too much power.

"From a reliability standpoint, it would be a degradation to the Texas
grid," said Steve Schaeffer, a senior vice president at Reliant Energy
Inc., the former Houston Lighting & Power Co.

Moreover, utilities estimate building the transmission lines needed for
a full connection to the nation's other grids would take at least three
years and cost Texas ratepayers about $600 million. They don't want to
invest that much money to sell power to California or New York to ease
what they view as temporary imbalances.

Some in the state also believe low rates and excess power could give it
an advantage in attracting businesses there.

"America will be shy enough electricity that this will be one of our
greatest inducements for growing Texas," said Matthew Simmons, Houston
investment bank Simmons & Co. president.

Texas is an extreme example of the haphazard way electricity grids
developed in the United States.

Until the 1960s, most power plants were built near the customers they
served. Then, utilities began building larger, more-efficient coal and
nuclear plants, connecting them with their neighbors to ensure that if
one of these big plants went down, there would be a backup ready to keep
power flowing.

But the old-line Texas utilities, which have long benefited from
plentiful supplies of fuels such as natural gas and lignite coal, were
reluctant to join this wave of interconnections. Back then, in the mid-
to late-1970s, electricity outside Texas was generally more costly. And
surrounding states weren't planning big enough plants to back up the
huge new ones Texas was building to power its fast-growing cities and
energy-thirsty petrochemical industry.

"There was no big money to be made by shipping power one way or the
other over the lines," said Reliant's Schaeffer.

By confining the grid to Texas, utilities avoided oversight by the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Thus, FERC could not force Texas
to send power out of state in an emergency.

The state's dominant utilities--Texas Utilities Inc., the Dallas-based
predecessor of what is TXU Corp., and Houston Lighting--went to great
lengths to ensure there were no interstate connections. The switches at
a hydroelectric plant on the Texas-Oklahoma border were wired to prevent
power from flowing between states. Elsewhere on the border, a system of
relays was installed to prevent unauthorized interstate transmissions.

Only one big utility didn't like the setup: Central & South West Corp.,
a Dallas holding company that owned power plants in both Texas and
Oklahoma. In 1976, it faced a crisis. If it couldn't show that its
plants in both states were interconnected, it ran the risk of being
broken up under a federal law. The law, which barred holding companies
from owning unconnected utilities in separate states, was decades old.
But, until then, it wasn't enforced.

On May 4, 1976--eight days before the Securities and Exchange Commission
was set to consider the matter--Central & South West took an
extraordinary step. At 5:30 a.m., it sent one of its line crews to
secretly rewire a substation in Vernon, Texas, near the Oklahoma border,
allowing power to flow freely between the two states. For a few hours,
the grids were connected by a minuscule thread. Later that morning,
officials at Central & South West phoned other Texas utilities to tell
them the company was engaged in interstate commerce.

Texas' other major utilities reacted angrily. "The sons of *****es are
trying to steal my lignite!" Texas Utilities Chairman Louis Austin
bellowed, according to former Texas Public Utility Commissioner George
Cowden, who recalls Austin making the remark during a private meeting
between the two men.

Around noon, Houston Lighting cut its system off from the rest of the
state's utilities. Texas Utilities followed suit hours later. By day's
end, the state's utilities had broken the grid into a half-dozen pieces.
That same day, one of Texas Utilities' chief lawyers, a 6-foot-6 former
college-football star named J.A. "Tiny" Gooch, dispatched one of his
company's crews to disconnect the link Central & South West had made
between Vernon and Altus, Okla.

"They made it so it was physically impossible to (connect) it again,"
said Gooch's son, Gordon, then a lawyer representing Houston Lighting.
The elder Gooch, who died in 1986, is considered the patron saint of
Texas' electrical independence.

At an emergency meeting of the utility commission three days later, Mr.
Austin of Texas Utilities expressed disgust at the prospect of having to
burn Texas lignite and natural gas to satisfy "Yankees," according to a
transcript. And, he added: "I don't like federal regulations." (Mr.
Austin died in 1997.) A wire reputed to have formed part of Central &
South West's brief Texas-Oklahoma interconnection later was cut into
pieces, encased in Lucite and given out as paperweights by Dallas law
firm Worsham, Forsythe & Woolridge, which represented Texas Utilities.

Alan Erwin, a state utility commissioner in 1976 who still has the
souvenir on his desk, used the wiring episode as fodder for a 1979
novel, "The Power Exchange," in which a winter storm cripples Northeast
power production and the nation turns to Texas for electricity. Texas
refuses to ship the electricity, fearful that other regions would drain
it of "what little cheap fuel was left." Ultimately, Texas becomes a
scapegoat and ends up seceding from the union.

In reality, the outcome was less dramatic.

The grid conflict wound its way through many courtrooms. Central & South
West--recently acquired by American Electric Power Co. of Columbus,
Ohio--lost almost every round. After about four years, the utilities
hashed out a compromise, at the urging of the federal government.

Rather than link the Texas grid to the East, so that electricity could
flow freely across state borders through alternating-current cables,
they agreed to build two direct-current lines. Operators could control
the flow over these bridges, which at peak capacity could carry a mere
820 megawatts. The parties to the deal, which included the federal
government, agreed these links wouldn't bring the Texas grid under
federal jurisdiction. Today, Texas power continues to be regulated in
Austin, not Washington.

"It's just a Texas thing," said Pat Wood III, chairman of the state
utility commission and a recent Bush administration nominee to FERC. "We
want control of our own destiny."

That independent attitude has extended in recent years to Texas'
business-friendly approach to deregulating its power industry. Unlike
California, with its stringent emissions and zoning rules, Texas has
made it quick and easy for power companies to locate their plants almost
anywhere they can find a place to hook up to the grid. Last year, Texas
completed a major upgrade to alleviate bottlenecks on the grid, and it
has six similar projects under way. Unlike most other states, it decided
to charge grid users a flat rate to move power anywhere in the state, so
they could put plants in low-cost rural areas, far from their customers.

Those policies, as well as projections that the state's electricity
demand would grow by a robust 3.5 percent a year, set off a flurry of
power-plant construction, beginning in 1998. Since then, $11 billion
worth of power plants have been completed or started in Texas, and more
are on the drawing board.

By contrast to California's approach to deregulation, which largely
failed to bring new plants online, Texas' strategy "encouraged an
overbuild," said Mr. Makovich, of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
Consider tiny Seguin in south central Texas, where Constellation Energy
Group Inc. of Baltimore is building an 800-megawatt gas-powered plant in
a former cornfield. Fifteen miles to the west, Texas Independent Energy
LP of Dallas recently finished a 1,000-megawatt plant. About the same
distance to the north, American National Power, a Houston-based unit of
Britain's International Power PLC, is building a 1,100-megawatt plant.

If generators don't get cold feet, Texas is on track to have a capacity
surplus of 9 percent this summer and 11 percent by summer 2002, said
Cambridge Energy Research Associates. That's in addition to the 15
percent surplus that most experts consider an adequate cushion. Some
areas of the country, including parts of the Southeast, Upper Midwest,
New York City and the West, are struggling with razor-thin capacity
margins. After factoring in a similar 15 percent cushion, the West has
an 8 percent capacity deficit and the Upper Midwest has a 4 percent deficit.

As a result, while electricity futures prices for summer are running at
as much as $400 per megawatt hour in the Northwest and around $100 in
the Northeast, Texas futures prices are averaging only $72 to $74 per
megawatt hour.

Calpine Corp. of San Jose, Calif., is making the boldest wager that
overcapacity and a lack of export possibilities won't sink Texas'
wholesale electricity prices. The company has six plants under
construction in the state, two of which are expected to come on line
next month. And it plans to add an additional five plants over the next
two years. Altogether, Calpine plans to spend about $2.8 billion in the
state, its largest investment outside California.

"People from day one probably thought Calpine was crazy," said Darrell
Hayslip, a company vice president. "But so far, we are absolutely
convinced that this is the right bet." He said Calpine's newer gas-fired
plants are 40 percent more efficient than older plants in the state, a
third of which are at least 30 years old. Calpine expects that edge to
force rivals to retire older plants, thus keeping electricity prices
from sagging.

Others aren't so sure. After initially planning new plants in Texas,
Duke Energy Corp. began to worry that the state was getting overbuilt.
Last May, Duke, of Charlotte, N.C., sold its 80 percent stake in a plant
under construction in south Texas to Calpine. "We sized up the market
early, and then realized too many followers were doing the same thing,"
said Jim Donnell, president and CEO of Duke Energy North America.

If the electricity situation outside Texas grows too grim and too much
supply sinks prices in the state, there could be "renewed pressure" for
Texas to study interconnection options, said John Stauffacher, vice
president for regulatory affairs at Houston-based Dynegy Inc., which has
1,000 megawatts of capacity in Texas.

Calpine, for one, wouldn't mind sharing Texas power with the East and
West. "I would love to be able to wheel power from Texas to California,"
said Mr. Hayslip. But, so far, the Texas utilities haven't budged in
their opposition to exports.

A few generators are trying to find the best of both worlds. Tenaska
Inc. of Omaha, Neb., is building plants at the border between the Texas
and eastern grids. Though utilities aren't allowed to be connected to
both grids at once, the plants are designed to allow the company to
switch between grids as demand and prices warrant.

In rural Grimes County, about 90 miles outside Houston, Tenaska plant
manager Frank Carelli boasts that his 830-megawatt plant could
disconnect from one grid, connect to the other and be back at full power
within an hour. A similar Tenaska plant is slated to begin operations
this month in Rusk County, near the Louisiana border.

©2001 Reno Gazette-Journal

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 12:12:45 -0700, Kurt Albershardt <kurt@nv.net>
wrote:

<cool stuff snipped>

I've also heard that only two places in North America are
not synced in phase to the grid: Texas and Quebec.
If true, go figure.

Chris Hornbeck
http://www.votetoimpeach.org/

[Rob Adelman]

Chris Hornbeck wrote:

> I've also heard that only two places in North America are
> not synced in phase to the grid: Texas and Quebec.
> If true, go figure.


Wow. That does make it complete then, yes?

[zip by]

In article <20030817121105.23011.00000159@mb-m05.aol.com>, ScotFraser
<scotfraser@aol.com> wrote:

> Actually government did a very good job of regulating power. That's why the
> industry has poured hundreds of millions into initiative measures to get
> states
> to deregulate, so they can help themselves to your wallet, which is impossible
> with government oversight.

amen

It will be most interesting to see who "owned" those facilities in Ohio
that failed.....

[Richard Crowley]

"Dale Farmer" wrote ...
> There are a number of high voltage DC lines in service out there.
> There is one laid in the ocean from Oregon down to California
> someplace.

Yeah, a big 1.5Mw DC line between Ceilo, Oregon (east of the
Bonneville dam, east of Portland, on the Columbia River) and
Sylmar, California (north of LA on I-5). It is not only above ground,
but a hundred miles inland from the ocean. During the California
"power crisis" we were sending the majority of our power down to
light/cool LA. That single line is reputed to be able to run LA-proper
all by itself.

But only economical for very large-scale bulk transmission. It avoids
actually losing power by electromagnetic radiation (where the line
becomes a significant fraction of the wavelength). And it also side-
steps the phase problem as the conversion (and synchronization
is done locally). The line and converters are half-duplex. They can
be run in either direction. We get power from LA during our colder
winters, and we send power to LA during their warmer summers.

Even today with the power semis we have available, it is not
practical to break DC down to suburban, neighborhood, street,
and house-by-house distribution.

[Ben Bradley]

In rec.audio.pro, Chris Hornbeck <guyville@removethisaristotle.net>
wrote:

>On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 18:13:35 GMT, walkinay@thegrid.net (LeBaron &
>Alrich) wrote:
>
>> We better start thinking about this.
>
>Hank, you're never going to get elected if you keep
>talking like this. Ix-nay the Inking-thay.

This looks like as good a place as any to drop in this link. Go
here and scroll down a few pages to the (politically loaded) subtitle
"REPUBLICANS HATE THE ENVIRONMENT":

http://www.boortz.com/dec02-02.htm

It's a few paragraphs of argument, but this is surely just one
example of how bumper-sticker sized governmental and political
concerns can keep a Good Thing from happening. It's a shame and scary
that such regulations are passed due to a near-total lack of technical
understanding.

>Chris Hornbeck
>http://www.votetoimpeach.org/
>

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <20030817120605.23011.00000157@mb-m05.aol.com>,
ScotFraser <scotfraser@aol.com> wrote:
><< What about the "transmision of electricity through natural media"? Those
>plans were long ago sealed or destryed.
> >>
>
>Tesla? Odd that most of his revolutionary ideas have been quietly ignored since
>the beginning.

Mostly because pumping vast amounts of RF into the atmosphere would not only
make for very inefficient transmission, but it would also make communication
by radio totally impractical.

Power line RF leakage is bad enough as it is.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Chris Hornbeck <guyville@removethisaristotle.net> wrote:
>On 17 Aug 2003 13:30:24 -0500, "nmm" <voximan@arvotek.net> wrote:
>>I'm not sure how far this project got off the ground but there aparently is
>>a long DC transmission lines between Manitoba and Ontario. I heard this
>>from the guys at Darlington Nuclear station when i was working there.
>
>There's a 500KV DC line from the coal regions (Minnesota?) to
>the west coast in the US. If I hadn't seen a picture of the
>SCR's at the receiving end, many stories high, I wouldn't
>have believed it. People look like ants.

And this kind of thing only became possible in the 1980s, with modern
high power semiconductors. The advantage of DC power transmission is
that you need to size insulation materials for the maximum voltage the
line carries... and on the average, an AC line with a sine wave is only
carrying 70% of the maximum voltage. A DC line carries full voltage
all the time, so you can get 40% more power through the same line.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[ryanm]

"Justin Ulysses Morse" <ulysses@rollmusic.com> wrote in message
news:160820031515510053%ulysses@rollmusic.com...
>
> Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage a much larger number of
> co-generators so that their individual starts and stops would be
> averaged out by all the others? With enough small generators, we
> wouldn't BE running close to capacity all the time and if those
> generators were distributed with the population it would solve a lot of
> our transmission difficulties and inefficiencies at the same time.
> This doesn'y happen with a few dozen co-generators, but it could happen
> with a few THOUSAND co-generators in any given area. Am I wrong?
>
Doesn't solve the basic problem. If those co-generators were all solar
powered, then at dawn everyone's generation would surge and the load would
drop, and the opposite would happen at dusk. Same with windmills, when the
wind picks up, everyone in the area is generating, when it dies down, the
generation drops out and the load surges.

Now, if some kind of highly efficient storage device were invented it
could alleviate the problem. During peak generation times the power goes to
the "battery" which feeds the power back into the grid at a steady pace.
During the lowest generation periods, the batteries could still feed a
steady stream of power back into the grid, with ample warning before the
battery runs dry so that the power providers can manage the load changes. Or
something like that.

ryanm

[Rob Adelman]

I think Bustamante's "vote no on the recall, but yes for me just in
case" was a very smart move and seems to be working, at least at the moment:


"Results of the Field Poll released on Saturday showed Bustamante
leading Republican actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger by
three percentage points, though the gap was within the poll's margin of
error.

Steve Westly, who became a multimillionaire as a senior executive of
online auctioneer eBay Inc. and was elected California's controller last
November, this weekend endorsed Bustamante in the recall.

Westly adopted Bustamante's tactic of urging Californians to vote "no"
on the question of recalling Davis but "yes" to Bustamante as his
successor should the recall pass."

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030817/ts_nm/politics_california_dc&e=3&ncid=578>



Roger W. Norman wrote:
> Can we make that TVless night when Arnold's giving a speech for the next
> couple of months? <g>
>

[Kurt Albershardt]

dmills@spamblock.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> These small local machines will
> most likely have poor speed regulation and there is no one single point
> to throttle in order to achive phase sync. Granted with enough grid
> capacity available you can just close the switches but the owners of the
> small local plants will not much like that (think *huge* current until
> everything is spinning in sync)....
> The only way I can see to work this trick would be to drop all the local
> generators off line, then bring the grid feed up, then bring the local
> plant back on line once the grid was providing a stiff phase reference.
>
> This is probably relativly easy where the generators feed a network with
> well controlled connectivity to the local low voltage user network, as a
> plant can be taken off line without anyone noticing. But where a area is
> running on small local plants connected directly to the local LV network
> due to a fault isolating it from the grid I can see some political problems
> with the grid operators insisting that all these plants be taken off line
> (causing a total power failiure) before the area can be reconnected to the
> grid proper. You would ALWAYS get some wanker who "was only trying to help"
> leaving his 100KVA@61.5Hz on line, then wondering why he has ended up with a
> flywheel embedded in the wall.
>
> Sync and control of multiple small plants (and particularly their recovery
> after system failiure) seems likely to be a hard problem.

Modern inverters don't have these issues. They sync to the grid
automagically and are non-islanding (compliant with IEEE929 which was
rolled into UL1741.) All solar and fuel cell generators require an
inverter and many modern wind and gas turbine setups also use them.

[Kurt Albershardt]

ryanm wrote:
> "Justin Ulysses Morse" <ulysses@rollmusic.com> wrote in message
> news:160820031515510053%ulysses@rollmusic.com...
>
>> Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage a much larger number of
>> co-generators so that their individual starts and stops would be
>> averaged out by all the others? With enough small generators, we
>> wouldn't BE running close to capacity all the time and if those
>> generators were distributed with the population it would solve a lot of
>> our transmission difficulties and inefficiencies at the same time.
>> This doesn'y happen with a few dozen co-generators, but it could happen
>> with a few THOUSAND co-generators in any given area. Am I wrong?
>
>
> Doesn't solve the basic problem. If those co-generators were all solar
> powered, then at dawn everyone's generation would surge and the load would
> drop, and the opposite would happen at dusk. Same with windmills, when the
> wind picks up, everyone in the area is generating, when it dies down, the
> generation drops out and the load surges.

The solar case is interesting precisely for this reason--as the sun gets
brighter, electrical loads tend to increase.




> Now, if some kind of highly efficient storage device were invented it
> could alleviate the problem. During peak generation times the power goes to
> the "battery" which feeds the power back into the grid at a steady pace.
> During the lowest generation periods, the batteries could still feed a
> steady stream of power back into the grid, with ample warning before the
> battery runs dry so that the power providers can manage the load changes. Or
> something like that.

Ever tried feeding AC into a battery? You'd need an inverter and a
rectifier (charger) for batteries or fuel cells. There are mechanical
(flywheel) surge smoothers but they don't store long duration power.

Now if you're running a DC transmission line, all you need is a battery
string matched to the line voltage and it just floats across the line
(like the telephone company has been doing for nearly a century.)

[ryanm]

"Kurt Albershardt" <kurt@nv.net> wrote in message
news:1061170258.889136@nnrp1.phx1.gblx.net...
>
> Ever tried feeding AC into a battery? You'd need an inverter and a
> rectifier (charger) for batteries or fuel cells. There are mechanical
> (flywheel) surge smoothers but they don't store long duration power.
>
> Now if you're running a DC transmission line, all you need is a battery
> string matched to the line voltage and it just floats across the line
> (like the telephone company has been doing for nearly a century.)
>
Well, I'm not claiming to be smart enough to figure out the details, I
just know enough to know that some kind of buffer would be absolutely
necessary for a scenario like the one mentioned to work. From what I
understand of it, though (and keep in mind that I have a nice red wine buzz
going right now), the existing batteries and inverters required to convert
to DC, store, and then convert to AC and push back out to the power grid are
inefficient enough to not be worth the trouble. More energy is lost as heat
than would be transferred to the power grid and you would be better off
simply storing the power and using it in your own house. And forget about
trying to cool the room with all the equipment in it (we don't have
basements in Texas).

I did look at adding solar cells to my house about a year ago, but the
$10k-$20k price tag dissuaded me. I know someone who does this in Kansas and
receives something like a $20-$30 check from the power company every month
for the power he's putting back into the grid, but here in Texas I found
that it would take me 10-15 years to actually see any return on my
investment, let alone ever actually get any money back from the power
company. I don't plan to be in this house that long, so I'll consider it
again when I build my next house.

ryanm

[Roger W. Norman]

One could see some reasonable return within cities by using windmills.
After all, it's a microcosm that generates it's own wind.

And just a little note here. Deregulation started with Bush41, was
executive ordered back into being by Clinton, and then deregulated again by
Bush43 within the first two weeks of being in office. Remember, executive
orders don't have to be made public, so no one heard of it. Except maybe
Ken Lay and Bush's other energy consortium buddies.

FDR started regulation of the utilities in order to stop the Power Pirates
from robbing American's blind. Bush's history lessons don't seem to go back
that far.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See
how far $20 really goes.




"nmm" <vohhxman@arvotek.net> wrote in message
news:BB641C65-D1375@64.56.247.87...
> On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 2:19 pm, LeBaron & Alrich
> <mailto:walkinay@thegrid.net> wrote:
> >nmm <voximan@arvotek.net> wrote:
> >
> >> The system seemed to work fine when it was a public utility. Now that
> >there
> >> are private consortiums running Ontario Power Generation, all we hear
> >about
> >> are problems.
> >
> >Indeed, but since that time population has expanded significantly and
> >we're consuming a whole lot more juice. The thing about the regulated
> >situation is that supply concerns get addressed as if they were
> >necessities, instead of peripheral ameneties the provision for which
> >stands on whether those greedy capitalists get earn their money drug.
> >
> >Whooops, I wound up right back where you started. <g>
>
> There are no incentives to conserve power. IF it's there, it gets used. If
> you have the money the prvate utility will take that money from you. More
> the better.
>
> And back to my favourite author. In "A Critical Path" Buckminster Fuller
> mention plans for a worldwide power grid, and that more smaller generators
> could be a more efficient supply of electricity. A small windmill on every
> second utility pole could supply up to 65% of the electrical needs of a
> large city.
>
> Why this won't happen? Because of the industry mindset. Something
> established by George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison way back.
>
> What about the "transmision of electricity through natural media"? Those
> plans were long ago sealed or destryed.
>
>

[Roger W. Norman]

I've been mentioning becoming power self-sufficient for a long time here.
When one has to redo the shingles on their roof, which can easily be a $4k
to $25k cost depending on the size of the job and the materials used, it
would behoove anyone with a clear shot to a south facing surface to use
photovoltaic shingles and generate electricity. These things look like
regular shingles. And as unsightly as it might be, people with a little
more wide open space might just consider putting up a bank of solar panels,
again, with photovoltaic cells, and store themselves some electricity. And
as much as the little replacement flourescent lights do a good job of using
less electricity, switching over to runs of low voltage 12V lights would go
a much further way of lessening the power drain. Hell, even lightboxes with
fiber strands can do a good job of lighting work areas in kitchens and such
for the price of operation of one lightbulb. As you need it water heaters
could cut down on consumption too, although now I'm lumping in the cost of
gas in lieu of electricity, but every time one cuts down on dependency on
utilities such as electrical and gas, we're cutting back on demand, and
ultimately still being able to maintain our normal way of day to day life.

So if it's time for us to step into the fray then I'd suggest that we call
our representatives in Congress and get them to push through a law that
allows people who invest in being independent from the utilities be given
BIG tax incentives to do so. That would include geothermal heating/cooling,
methods of controlled lighting so that one's work area is lit, not the
entire room, not heating up water in holding tanks that require continued
heating until you use it, also requiring running a few gallons or more to
"get the heat up", thereby wasting less water and putting a smaller drain on
our sewage systems.

The technology is available, and with tax credits, such as those enjoyed by
people who purchase hybrid or alternative fuel cars, these improvements and
moves towards self-sufficiency would be affordable. I'm not saying cheap,
but if you've got power stored when everybody else's lights go out,
apparently the party is going to be at your house.

For some small reference http://www.eere.energy.gov/power/success_stories/.
And to think, not too long ago wasn't some Republican trying to shut the
Department of Energy down? With all the pushing of new technologies and
alternative fuels, it's not that surprising. Most of what's in this website
are most certainly commercially viable, but there's some information on the
technologies that apply to housing.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See
how far $20 really goes.




"Justin Ulysses Morse" <ulysses@rollmusic.com> wrote in message
news:160820031530041350%ulysses@rollmusic.com...
> I think it's time for us (people) to start looking at how we can solve
> the problem for ourselves rather than trying to get industry to
> regulate itself, or worse yet get government to do it. I can think of
> all sorts of ways I can reduce my consumption of electricity, and I can
> also think of plenty of ways to get the electricity I do use from
> someplace other than "The Grid." I think I've changed my mind about
> leaving the studio equipment on all the time. This is as good a reason
> as anything else. I've gotten a lot better about shutting down my
> computer when I'm not using it, too. I've done the math and now I know
> how much cheaper it is to use those small fluorescents as a replacement
> for incandescent bulbs. They're NOT noisy OR ugly. The only catch is
> the extra junk you throw in the trash when they burn out. But they
> last a year instead of a month. There have been some HUGE advancements
> in efficiency in recent years, including lighting, batteries,
> computers, displays (TFTs use WAY less power than CRTs), refrigeration,
> etc. We should be able to decrease rather than increase our
> consumption, if we actually make an effort.
>
> What's I'd LIKE to see is people using their treadmills and excercise
> bikes and Nordik-Traks to charge their laptops or even run their
> refrigerators. I'd like to see a gigantic flywheel in everybody's
> garage that would stor energy from every available source: Wind,
> solar, childrens' hyperactivity, wind-up cranks, weights on chains
> (like a big cuckoo clock) etc. I bet that with the right equipment,
> the average home could be powered by the family living in it. This
> sort of thing would be easy to phase in incrementally because you can
> always use a little mains power on the side.
>
> Of course, it's 97 degrees outside and I do have the AC cranked up
> today.
>
> ulysses
>
>
> Rob Adelman <radelman@mn.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > LeBaron & Alrich wrote:
> >
> > >>More cluelessness blaming the environmentally aware. The truth is that
the
> > >>"eco-luddites" have maintained all along that the cure for this is
small
> > >>decentralized local power generating ability through alternative
sources.
> > >
> > >
> > > And reduction of demand. We're not far from the point at which more
> > > cannot be delivered. We better start thinking about this.
> >
> > My brother's solar powered house in Poway with his electric car is
> > looking a little smarter these days. He is probably laughing about all
> > this.
> >
> > The oil companies bought the patents for the batteries for the electric
> > cars. You know they stopped making the electric cars?
> >
> > I wonder if Arnoold thinks much about this as he is riding high up in
> > his SUV?
> >

[Roger W. Norman]

Yep and blame GW for killing Clinton's executive order that re-established
regulation of the power industry and specifically forbade Enron from dealing
in California any more. Hell, Bush's new chair wasn't even warmed up
properly before he recinded that executive order. And blame GW's daddy for
deregulating in the first place.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See
how far $20 really goes.




"ScotFraser" <scotfraser@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030817121105.23011.00000159@mb-m05.aol.com...
> << I think it's time for us (people) to start looking at how we can solve
> the problem for ourselves rather than trying to get industry to
> regulate itself, or worse yet get government to do it. >>
>
> Actually government did a very good job of regulating power. That's why
the
> industry has poured hundreds of millions into initiative measures to get
states
> to deregulate, so they can help themselves to your wallet, which is
impossible
> with government oversight.
>
>
> Scott Fraser

[Roger W. Norman]

It's all strategy and means naught. Gray Davis can't campaign because he's
not on the election ballot. That's a major strike against him because they
can't use donations. I think the court screwed up there. He should be able
to be on the ballot. Then it would be possible to recall him and elect him
again at the same time. Now he needs to fight to not be recalled and
continue to act like a governor. Fighting against Arnold just doesn't
really play into this because, again, Gray Davis can't use donations to run
against Arnold.

And the stupidest thing is that there's another election rather than Davis
being recalled and his Lieutenant Governor should then become the Governor
and appoint his successor with the approval of the two California houses,
like any other local, state and federal government we have does.

I mean, just look at the logistics and technical planning it takes to have a
change in government. You usually have about a three month turnover, where
the incoming have access to all acts of state, etc., and can start working
their transition team into place. So it will take whomever, except maybe
Bustmante's team at least three months to get everything in place before the
business of government can continue.

I don't know who actually worded this piece of crap, but they ought to go
back to law school. This is non-functional government by design. By this
design the Chinese could immigrate and establish residency, establish a
recall, run their own popular candidate and move right into running the 5th
largest economy of the union. Might take them ten or twenty years, but
that's nothing in terms of Nations and planning.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See
how far $20 really goes.




"Rob Adelman" <radelman@mn.rr.com> wrote in message
news:N8U%a.93375$7O4.2283829@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com...
> I think Bustamante's "vote no on the recall, but yes for me just in
> case" was a very smart move and seems to be working, at least at the
moment:
>
>
> "Results of the Field Poll released on Saturday showed Bustamante
> leading Republican actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger by
> three percentage points, though the gap was within the poll's margin of
> error.
>
> Steve Westly, who became a multimillionaire as a senior executive of
> online auctioneer eBay Inc. and was elected California's controller last
> November, this weekend endorsed Bustamante in the recall.
>
> Westly adopted Bustamante's tactic of urging Californians to vote "no"
> on the question of recalling Davis but "yes" to Bustamante as his
> successor should the recall pass."
>
>
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030817/ts_nm/politics_
california_dc&e=3&ncid=578>
>
>
>
> Roger W. Norman wrote:
> > Can we make that TVless night when Arnold's giving a speech for the next
> > couple of months? <g>
> >
>

[Bill Thompson]

Justin Ulysses Morse wrote:
> Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage a much larger number of
> co-generators so that their individual starts and stops would be
> averaged out by all the others? With enough small generators, we
> wouldn't BE running close to capacity all the time and if those
> generators were distributed with the population it would solve a lot of
> our transmission difficulties and inefficiencies at the same time.
> This doesn'y happen with a few dozen co-generators, but it could happen
> with a few THOUSAND co-generators in any given area. Am I wrong?

Wrong is too strong a word... but there are a few practical issues that
you sort of skipped over.

First and formost is safety. The rules that the utilities use to operate
their grids are not there for grins... people start switching generation
and load in and out and people can get killed.

Second is network stability. People start switching generation and load
in and out and the network can become unstable.

The idea of thousands of small generation plants is not new, and it has
been investigated, primarilly as a way to reduce the stability issues
associated with just a few small plants.

But it is really tricky while going from just a few plants to enough
plants that any one of them can't cause problems. And at least when I
worked there, the curve actually got worse as you approached enough
plants. Wierd!

Then there is the problem that some folks simply don't want a plant of
any size anywhere near their precious mcmansion.

The power grid is a really fascinating system to study, even without the
financial consideration. When you add those in it becomes really
complex. Each company is tasked with bringing on their least expensive
generation source, until the demand is covered, with a little extra
capacity to provide a margin of error. In some areas, like the PJM
interconnect, there is a separate group responsible for managing this
puzzle, in other areas it's up to the individual utility.

This worked really well when public utilities owned both generation and
transmission, but it becomes a little more difficult when the generation
is removed from the regulated environment.

When you add a bunch of smaller plants that are all privately owned, it
really gets difficult. Most co-gen owners do not want to be beholden to
anyone, especially a governing body that will tell them when they can
and can not connect to the grid.

This is not a simple problem, and while I have great respect and trust
in an open market, I believe that there are some things that just have
to be regulated for the public good. This of course opens up the whole
slippery slope thing, and now that we've deregulated power I agree that
it will be that much more difficult to go back... but you know, it
really wasn't broken, and it is a shame that a few shortsighted folks
felt the need to "fix" it, whether the driving force behind the fix was
political, philosophical, or just plain greed.

Bill

[Scott Dorsey]

Kurt Albershardt <kurt@nv.net> wrote:
>dmills@spamblock.demon.co.uk wrote:
>> with the grid operators insisting that all these plants be taken off line
>> (causing a total power failiure) before the area can be reconnected to the
>> grid proper. You would ALWAYS get some wanker who "was only trying to help"
>> leaving his 100KVA@61.5Hz on line, then wondering why he has ended up with a
>> flywheel embedded in the wall.
>>
>> Sync and control of multiple small plants (and particularly their recovery
>> after system failiure) seems likely to be a hard problem.
>
>Modern inverters don't have these issues. They sync to the grid
>automagically and are non-islanding (compliant with IEEE929 which was
>rolled into UL1741.) All solar and fuel cell generators require an
>inverter and many modern wind and gas turbine setups also use them.

How good are the output waveforms? I know that one of the big things the
utilities get pissed off at cogeneration facilities are about is when they
backhaul harmonics onto the power line.

I have seen some small generators and inverters with really nasty waveforms,
and I have seen some with pretty good waveforms too. Surprisingly enough,
the old GE/Studebaker Cyclone was one of the cleaner ones even though the
frequency regulation was next to nonexistent.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[ScotFraser]

<< I don't know who actually worded this piece of crap, but they ought to go
back to law school. This is non-functional government by design. >>

It's called mob rule, & until the Republicans foisted it on us with this
attempt to buy an election they already lost, both sides previously had the
good sense to avoid going there.

Scott Fraser

[ScotFraser]

<< I hope Californians can put 2 and 2 together in time. The future is
looking pretty bleak.
>>

That would require critical thinking, & the fact that we've come to this point
leads one to conclude that the electorate has **** for brains.

Scott Fraser

[ScotFraser]

<< Mostly because pumping vast amounts of RF into the atmosphere would not only
make for very inefficient transmission, but it would also make communication
by radio totally impractical.
>>

But wasn't he also messing with using earth as a hot conductor for power?


Scott Fraser

[ScotFraser]

<< A DC line carries full voltage
all the time, so you can get 40% more power through the same line. >>

Doesn't resistance cause an enormous waste over any kind of distance typical in
North America?


Scott Fraser

[Roger W. Norman]

Ohio is saying they didn't fail. Canada wants an apology for pointing the
finger at them first, and so far nobody really has a clue as to what caused
the problem. Ah, but it can't be terrorists, now can it.

I always thought that deductive logic required that all possibilities be on
the table until you can use facts to remove them. Since the only fact they
know is we had a major power outage and they have no cause, then they have
no reason to disclude a terrorist act, either outright in a physical sense,
or via some well trained computer geek terrorist. China has them, why
shouldn't we think Al Qaeda doesn't?

Now I'm not saying that they did do this, but without proof to the contrary,
as far as I'm concerned it's still on the table. Just like the crash of
flight 597 into Queens, which hardly even hit the ground before it was
declared an accident, not a terrorist act (nor have we heard a follow up
finding from the investigation yet, nor are we ever likely to hear one). Or
Flight 800, which has extensive proof behind it that supports it WAS a
terrorist act and yet two weird things happened. First, the instant claim
it wasn't a terrorist act, but secondly, the investigation being run by the
FBI, not the NTSB as all other plane accidents have been.

This is the problem of an administration that uses misinformation and
outright lies to promote it's agenda and maintain secrecy. We can no longer
trust what they say. This event now makes knowing what went on behind
closed doors at the White House with the secret Energy Consortium even more
imperative. Could this have been a "blackout blackmail"?

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See
how far $20 really goes.




"zip by" <kilgore@trout.com> wrote in message
news:170820031647019588%kilgore@trout.com...
> In article <20030817121105.23011.00000159@mb-m05.aol.com>, ScotFraser
> <scotfraser@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Actually government did a very good job of regulating power. That's why
the
> > industry has poured hundreds of millions into initiative measures to get
> > states
> > to deregulate, so they can help themselves to your wallet, which is
impossible
> > with government oversight.
>
> amen
>
> It will be most interesting to see who "owned" those facilities in Ohio
> that failed.....

[Roger W. Norman]

You know, bad laws can be repealed! <g> I'd suggest any Californian who
wants to eliminate this from happening again simply bring forth an
initiative to rescind the law. Put in the impeachment process if necessary,
but do not remand the control of the government to a mob, or the highest
bidder or the prettiest face or best known name. That's how we had
lynchings for all those years. And essentially, this is a political
lynching by the Republican party. Overall, I still don't see how it's going
to help them in the future, but you can believe that it's in their plans and
has some reason. They've become quite good at looking at plans for the long
term, going 20 or more years into the future. ****, the Iraq thing has been
on the neocon's list since Reagan and that's one reason Bush41 didn't get
re-elected. The Republicans didn't give him anywhere near the support GW
got before he even became an candidate.

Maybe I was wrong. Looks like GW might have picked up much more in those
smoke-filled backroom sessions than I'd originally given him credit for.
Maybe it was actually Daddy that was the dullard all along.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See
how far $20 really goes.




"ScotFraser" <scotfraser@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030818120503.10819.00000150@mb-m14.aol.com...
> << I don't know who actually worded this piece of crap, but they ought to
go
> back to law school. This is non-functional government by design. >>
>
> It's called mob rule, & until the Republicans foisted it on us with this
> attempt to buy an election they already lost, both sides previously had
the
> good sense to avoid going there.
>
> Scott Fraser

[nmm]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 11:31 am, Roger W. Norman
<mailto:rnorman@starpower.net> wrote:
>Ohio is saying they didn't fail. Canada wants an apology for
pointing the
>finger at them first, and so far nobody really has a clue as to what
caused
>the problem. Ah, but it can't be terrorists, now can it.

After hearing that the terrorists have been trying to hack into the
grid for the last four years, I lean towards that .. but here is
another opinion from the Rense site about the reasons:

Sherman Skolnick <skolnick@ameritech.net> wrote:


THE MIDDLE-FINGER NEWS
Sticking It to the Poobahs
News Hot Enough to Fry Eggs
by Sherman H. Skolnick and Lenny Bloom
www.skolnicksreport.com/www.cloakanddagger.ca
<http://www.skolnicksreport.com/www.cloakanddagger.ca>
8/15/3

SAUDI BLACK-OUT MONEY

Daddy Bush had a falling out with private business partner, Saddam
Hussein. and the rest is called Persian Gulf War One. The Bush Crime
Family is having a divorce from the Saudi Royals, and it is called the
Great Black-Out of 2003.

With the true nature unraveling of the U.S./British high-level crazies
having created the monstrous disaster called
9-11, the Saudis are not standing still while the Bushies and the
Carlyle Group blame it on supposed "terrorist" hi-jackers financed by
the Saudis. Part of an espionage/political assassination-type trick,
called The Parallel Track, the Arabs now realize they were all the
latter-day "Lee Harvey Oswalds", purely patsies.

What to do? Simple. The Saudis, until now paid for their oil treasure
in "U.S. Dollars", have on deposit in U.S. money center =CAbanks,
mainly New York, more than One Trillion Dollars. The largest such,
Citibank New York, has as its heaviest shareholder, with the
Rockefellers, a top-member of the Saudi royals.

The U.S. Treasury got wind of the Saudi plan for Thursday, August 14,
2003, to begin the wire-transferring of 98 Billion Dollars. The
recipients? Why, French banks and other enterprises in Quebec and
through Toronto, Canada. In greater part, that is, the French
Rothschilds, official bankers of the Vatican.

Shortly after noon of U.S. Financial Doomsday, the U.S. Treasury
ordered their unit, Internal Revenue Service, Manhattan, to
immediately revert to back-up power. This according to a wire service
story used once and later, dropped down the Orwell =CA"1984" media
hole. Three hours later, began the greatest U.S./Canadian black-out,
blamed by the U.S. monopoly press on the Canadian side of Niagara
power. The Canadians immediately rejected the fake U.S. explanation of
a "lightning" strike. That the treacherous Brits, and the Queen of
England, having recently bought into a key portion of the U.S. grid,
and tied to the Bushies, remains generally unknown.

So in a State of Emergency, by a created mess, the Saudi money escape,
for now, has been blocked.

Just earlier than the U.S. Treasury command, the Financial Times of
London, showed how Federal Reserve Commissar, Alan Greenspan, is
trapped in a U.S. Bond Collapse, causing interest rates to spike,
(according to some, perhaps worse than 21-1/2 per cent, for the most
solvent creditors, =CAas in 1981).

Now what? Perhaps a new fabricated crisis. Such as, a strange ship
entering New York Harbor with "nuclear terrorists". =CAOr, maybe
thirty nuclear suitcase bombs (code-named "Red Mercury") known to be
located in or near Manhattan. The problem? Simple. Stop the Saudis.
The oil-soaked, spy-riddled pro-British American monopoly press can
hollar that the Saudi royals are secretly financing the Iraqi
underground killing our troops.

The solution? By U.S. Military force, divide up Saudi Arabia. The
non-oil western part with the two religious sites, to house the
Royals. The eastern part, seized for oil for the U.S. and such.

Can there be any question that the U.S. Treasury had prior knowledge
of the Great Black-Out of 2003? Does the Treasury intend to finger the
Vatican plan to seize Jerusalem as their capital? Or admit the Saudi
attempted money escape? Or admit that the Bush Crime Family should be
arrested for treason against the American people?

[NOTE: stories like this are posted and archived through MAIN PAGE,
left-hand side of Page, COLUMNISTS Sherman Skolnick of www.rense.com
<http://www.rense.com/>=CAOften posted there sooner than
www.skolnicksreport.com <http://www.skolnicksreport.com/>

To hear live, or later hear from archives, of two-hour weekly program
"Talk Radio for Spies", click on www.cloakanddagger.ca
<http://www.cloakanddagger.ca/>=CAProgram is on each Thursday evening,
11 p.m. Eastern Time, 10 p.m. Central, 9 p.m. Mountain, 8 p.m.
Pacific. Documents are often attached as links to upcoming programs on
"Cloak And Dagger".]

[Arny Krueger]

"nmm" <vohhxman@arvotek.net> wrote in message
news:BB641C65-D1375@64.56.247.87

> And back to my favourite author. In "A Critical Path" Buckminster
> Fuller mention plans for a worldwide power grid, and that more
> smaller generators could be a more efficient supply of electricity. A
> small windmill on every second utility pole could supply up to 65% of
> the electrical needs of a large city.

> Why this won't happen?

Windless or nearly still days, which abound in many cities.

Anybody know of a solar cell that generates more energy over a reasonable
life span than it takes to make?

....especially in the great lakes states where at least partly cloudy days
abound.

[Roger W. Norman]

****, you n