Re: US Power Outages

["Z.B." <zachb@netcom.com>]

>From what I read, this wasn't a "small localized disturbance".  
Apparently, a fire underneath one of the main towers on the CA-OR border 
was the cause of the problem.  Now that may not sound like too much, but 
the lines were carrying at least 3000Mw of electricity, enough "to power 
3-1/2 Seattles for a day" (quote from local newspaper).  My guess is that 
when there is a problem involving that much power with no place to go, 
the safety systems shut everything down to prevent damage.

Zach Babayco

zachb@netcom.com  <----- finger for PGP public key
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4127


On Sun, 11 Aug 1996, Lucky Green wrote:

> At 18:15 8/11/96, Dave Farber wrote:
> >The avalanche behavior of power systems is still not
> >well understood and techniques to prevent such failures are not obvious.
> >Same can be said of telephone and computer networks at different levels.
> 
> Does somebody here have a pointer to literature on this topic? A system in
> which small localized disturbances can amplify, propagate through the
> system, leading to catastrophic failure is the worst of all possible
> designs. I fail to understand why a system as important as the power grid
> would display this type of behavior. Why is the grid negatively dampened?
>