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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (443429)	8/15/2003 12:43:51 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

I find the topic of why fascinating. So on the Cannada thing. I found this. It's a report, hmmmm.... well someone wrote something. What does it mean?? time will tell. Hydro-Quebec Power Failure "On March 13, 1989, in the early morning hours, technicians at the Hydro-Quebec power company in Montreal were in their control room as usual, watching the maplike mimic board that allows them to monitor the condition of their power grid. That grid supplies electricity not only to Montreal but to all of Quebec Province, to a total of 6 million people. At 2:44 A. M., a light started flashing on the mimic board: there was trouble up north. A voltage regulator had shut down on one of the main lines that run from the La Grande hydroelectric complex in northern Quebec to Montreal and other cities in the south. As the startled technicians looked on helplessly, a cascade of broken circuits rippled around the province, cutting off the rest of Hydro-Quebec's generators. In all, it had taken less than 90 seconds for power to collapse in the entire grid. The mimic board was now blinking like a Christmas tree. But all over Quebec the lights were out. "The blackout cost Hydro-Quebec more than $10 million, and it cost the power company's customers tens if not hundreds of millions. Although power was restored to most of the province within nine hours, some places remained dark for days. In the post-mortem analysis, Hydro-Quebec engineers had little trouble figuring out what had happened. Their conclusion was reassuring in one sense, scary in another. The blackout had not been caused by a design flaw, nor by operator negligence, nor indeed by any human error at all. The source of the problem had been the sun." Eric Lerner/(c)1995 The Walt Disney Co. Reprinted courtesy of Discover Magazine.