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To: JDN who wrote (444266)	8/17/2003 2:01:26 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Based upon all the varied reports I've read, the failure mode looks to be, hmmmm.... I tried to think what say. Well as I think it's clear it still could be many things. The problem, defining what really happen in real time and why is very very complex. This article just lists a chronology of events. newsday.com Tens of thousands of events must be correlated. But the exact technical nature of what caused the shutdowns my be very different for all the affected power plants. What it direct human failure. Did not recognize problem or reacted incorrectly. Was it an monitoring equipment failure. A failure was not reported to a monitoring point or was reported incorrectly or a non failure was reported as a failure. And in many cases the power electronics are programmed to reacte to variation of voltage and current of some amplitude and duration combination. The duration may be sub second or several seconds depending. Were there to few retrys? But when one is monitoring the continuous generation of the energy equivalent of tens to hundreds of lbs of TNT per second what does not have long to decide to err on the side of killing off the power. The point is that the interconnect grid is mega complex. Did a unique set of timing in multiple failures cause an unforeseen surge in power and the timing of the surges fooled the monitoring equipment? This about was EEs do in doing design and testing. The best visual example to explain this is to think about what one sees at the sea shore. LOL, assuming anyone ever even looks and notices things like this. As the waves come in and the water from the previous wave recedes, Sometimes the timing is such that an incoming wave is slowed and then it is overtaken by a following wave and then both join and the water surges higher onto the beach. The varying phases of waves of electric power can also act the same way when the power surges. Other quasi human failures. The key guy monitoring was in the head or on vacation and a second string guy was in place. Second string is more likely to not see or respond correctly. In some utility somewhere did some low level worker decide to put the equivalent of a penny in the fuse box to prevent false tripping of monitoring equipment. System engineering failures. The tripping out of the power station in many cases was automatic. Was the tripping point set incorrectly in a few or many power plants. Can the system handle or be programmed to handle multiple concurrent trips. In general for the most reliable engineering solution to have 24/7 power one wants the fewest interconnections between the source of the power and the sink of the power. The use of the grid to ship power further and further from source to sink lowers reliability. The second best solution is add more grid and the best solution is to add more generation capacity closer to the sink points. More grid is redundant sources to the sink. In theory this makes for more reliability. And the highest energy density power source with the least impact on the environment is nuclear. Coal requires tons and tons, mountain of coal to burn. Natural gas needs a volatile fuel that is under pressure and the entire pathway of that fuel is also at risk. And those who propose alternatives are science, engineering ignoramus. The energy density is just not there by orders of magnitude.

To: JDN who wrote (444266)	8/17/2003 2:20:49 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 769670

We need regulation in the form of laws to safe guard many issues....................public safety for one. IF companies are left to their own choices they strongly tend to opt on the cheapest side for economic reasons. The telephone industry is another example of what what deregulation has done....higher costs everwhere. IN the old days they gave us the phone and paid for all the maintenance without fifty million extra charges on a bill that few can understand. THe energy industry is another industry that needs regulation...................there is no open market in energy distribution. How many companies will put up their own grid and spend to make a countrywide system of wire networks? Pat

To: JDN who wrote (444266)	8/17/2003 3:03:28 PM
From: gerard mangiardi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Well the FDA seems to have done some good as well as the faa. Drivers tests are a good idea too. So are margin requirements gee there are a lot of gov regulations that doo good. Handicap access? Point is that unnecessary regulation is bad but sometimes some regulation is good. Right now data trans mission lines should be regulated. We as a society are paying foe cable lines and phone line where one fibre optic line would do. The services can compete and don't need to be regulated but the fibre infrastructure should be and it should be subsidized. That might provide some real economic stimulus.