Power outages in US and Canada

[pax]

Recent studies in the state of the electrical infrastructure would make for good reading right now. Im sure there are issues in the public and private parts of the network. As for disconnecting the US from Canada I think a lot more power generation would be needed down there for that to happen. But is it politically viable? Plenty of coal but I wonder what the world's supply of uranium is... The US grid is more reliable because of the links to the Canadian grid, not less...

In Canada nuclear generation has been a disaster simply due to the technology not living up to any reasonable level of reliability and competitiveness vs about any other major form of generation. We're overhauling the current gen of reactors as its as pricey to close them down as to refurbish them. In any case the power they create is going to be expensive as the reactors are half as reliable as promised on top of having cost much more to build as originally projected for in the 60's to the 80's.

I like the idea of windmills and oddly enough the most windmills in the country are in the oiliest province: Alberta. Its pretty windy there too...

9 figures for upgrading and increasing capacity in the next 20 years or so for the NA grid makes sense to me. I dont get scared by numbers. If the consumption is there then build the system as long as rate payers continue to cover the costs. Such as is the case in Canada...

 

[Willmeister]

In Canada nuclear generation has been a disaster simply due to the technology not living up to any reasonable level of reliability and competitiveness vs about any other major form of generation.

The big reason is that there wasn't much competition. The government was paying so private contractors knew they could bilk the government. It happens all the time, everywhere. The sweetest deal as any businessman will tell you is a government contract.

We're overhauling the current gen of reactors as its as pricey to close them down as to refurbish them. In any case the power they create is going to be expensive as the reactors are half as reliable as promised on top of having cost much more to build as originally projected for in the 60's to the 80's.

A lot of this is substandard construction. Other forms of power are also turning out to be more expensive than first thought. The Mactaquac Dam is expanding earlier than expected, so they're drilling into the dike to remove water.

I like the idea of windmills and oddly enough the most windmills in the country are in the oiliest province: Alberta. Its pretty windy there too...

Windmills are UNBELIEVABLY expensive to integrate into a grid and UNBELIEVABLY unreliable as a constant source of power. Ditto for solar power. It's not because 'oil interests' keep them down with help of the government. Integrating these systems into a regional grid is extremely difficult since the power and phase can vary second to second. It could be done cheaply, but service would be sporadic and you'd never be guaranteed the correct power for your device. Timings of computers who be so f*cked up since most use a crystal that's tuned to the phase of the power supply.

Most people who push 'wind' have never looked at the nuts and bolts of just how difficult it is to actually get useful electrical power out of. Even using windpower to run specific systems (like light-rail in Calgary) is difficult and supplements it's system off the grid as a backup. If we did this for each and every system, we'd increase the complexity exponentially and there goes any hope of reigning in cost.

Turbine based power generation is here to stay unless we overhaul the ENITRE grid.

 

[RussSchultz]

Hrm? The output frequency of a crystal has nothing to do with the 'phase' applied. (You apply a DC voltage to a crystal to get it to oscillate)

Additionally, the power from solar and windmills are integrated into the grid using DC/AC inverters. The New England Grid (the one in the northeast that didn't go down) survived because it is isolated from the Candien grid by huge inverters, put in place because they didn't trust the Canadien grid.

 

[Willmeister]

Take a windmill and turn it into compatible three-phase power without massive technical expertise...

Your comment about 'trust' is rather odd, since the USA is NBPower's second biggest customer after New Brunswick and, if I recall, is NB's largest export. From what I've read, most of the larger US facilities are shutting down to cut down on acid rain (and also to remove very large fixed costs from the balance sheet) and are requiring more and more power from Canada (a central reason being NAFTA's insertions of defacto American control of Canadian power). And with Ontario Hydro having to shut down it's nuclear facilities and becoming a net importer of power during this time of year, the blackout was pretty much inevitable. It put more and more strain on the interlinks between the surrounding regional grids and then these grids tripped themselves out to protect the infrastructure...

 

[RussSchultz]

Take a windmill and turn it into compatible three-phase power without massive technical expertise...

The same problem exists with hydro power, or nuclear power. Unless you suggest that somehow those things magically rotate their respective turbines at some multiple of 60hz? (or 50hz if in other places that aren't important. )

 

[pcchen]

A paper factory close to my home (well, not that close) built two big windmills. Each have 1.75MW power capacity (total 3.5MW). The windmills are 60 meters high, with 33 meters blades. You can see them from miles away. The powers generated by the windmills are used for auxiliary power for the factory.

The windmills stops when wind speed is too low or too high. However, due to some unknown reason, it's quite frequently to see only one windmill running.

I have a picture of them in this album (Find the picture "Skyline" and you can see them on the right side).

 

[Willmeister]

The same problem exists with hydro power, or nuclear power. Unless you suggest that somehow those things magically rotate their respective turbines at some multiple of 60hz? (or 50hz if in other places that aren't important.

You actually synch the turbines up to the grid, then connect them to the grid. It's gotten so much easier now that computers essentially do it automatically (if it's been installed that is). I've seen it done and this issue was discussed in an EE class (I'm ME though) when three-phase power was discussed. If you had thousands of windmills and just *one* was slightly out of phase, you've just decreased the power of the system. Running any electrical grid is a lot more involved than people imagine...

People apparently have created solid state methods to do the same thing but they're specialized and because it's semiconductor based, there is only a certain amount of power you can run through them without being destructive.

This is the most direct problem. The second, and less discussed problem with wind power, is that these turbines are essentially thrown, pardon the pun, into the wind. A big problem with windmills is that the blades have a serious tendancy to vibrate themselves apart. Windmills are much much more costly to maintain since you cannot isolate the system from the elements like you can in a gas/coal/nuclear/hydro station... If someone wished to pay for creating a power system that's less destructive, then more power to them, but for the most part, consumers don't want ecofriendly, they want 'cheap'. And you can't generate cheap power if you have to constantly service thousands of generating stations unless you had the benefits of economy of scale (which isn't there, yet).

All power systems have drawbacks and it's usually a matter of practicalities. That's why wind power really has an uphill climb still in front of it.

Even if we produced massive amounts of energy, we'll always still have energy crises. Why? Because with more and cheaper energy, people will just continue to consume more. We'd be like that mythical Greek figure who was punished by the Gods by keeping the grapes above his head just out of his reach. Wind power is not a viable solution unless something in our societies change. If demand just continues to increase, wind power won't make a dent...