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All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

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Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#131

Post by snowwindwaves »

MisterTea wrote: post #106
ics wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, our most recent replacement a few weeks ago came in at almost 900,000lbs with oil. Depending on the speed of the replacement you can't always move the transformer dry because you need a certain amount of time between filling it and putting it in service.

That sounds like quite the transformer. That must have been at one of the big 345kV subs. And I assume shipping filled is to avoid the time needed to remove air bubbles. I know a few people in the ConEd trenches, one guy is a lineman who does all the >=69kV stuff and the other guy worked in substations and was in mott haven last I spoke to him (cushy job). I'm always amazed how much new tech con ed has installed and…

They are shipped without oil and full of nitrogen gas to reduce the weight.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#132

Post by snowwindwaves »

hfkajshfaks wrote: post #8
kasperni wrote: post #3

Argentina is world’s eighth largest country. I find it mind blowing that you can have a power outage that covers the whole country (+ some more).

It isn't really though. A cascading failure can knock out an entire grid. The Northeast blackout is an example. A line goes out. while (there some lines are still live): The current redistributes itself among neighboring lines. Neighboring lines trip end BlackStart() BlackStart() is fun. Having your plants and grid down is like having a dead battery (plants use ~30% of the electricity they gen on themselves) and no o…

What type of power plant has 30% of nameplate rating on station service loads?

I've been to about 30 stations under 50 MW and the biggest station load might have been 300 kW if they had all the heaters, fans, pumps, crane, welders, air compressors, and gates operating at the same time.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#133

Post by snowwindwaves »

pjc50 wrote: post #99
nnq wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neighboring lines trip > As a last step you turn on your nuclear plants ...don't get it: why would you turn off your nuclear power plants, even if the grid failed?! Won't it make more sense to keep it running as usual maybe just using the power to generate steam that you throw into the atmosphere? ...mainly because stopping and restarting a nuclear power plant is expensive af.? (It still boggles my mind why are ele…

I'm not an expert, but there's an interesting discussion on Quora: https://www.quora.com/Can-an-American-nuclear-power-plant-bl... The key factors seem to be: 1) the plant must be capable of running as an island. It seems not all of them are; I suspect the problem is the plant consuming a variable amount of self-power e.g. 1MW being connected to a 100MW generator results in a very unstable system. 2) whatever safety…

Most of the plants I've worked on can't island themselves by design. It costs more to do it and sometimes requires additional or more expensive equipment, more attention to details in the design, and there is no point for a lot of generators that just get paid for MWh and they probably aren't going to generate many MWh islanded over the life time of the plant. Some generators even get paid for the energy they would have generated if the grid is down.

How many people have a manual transmission car just so they can pop the clutch if the batter is dead.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#134

Post by fit2rule »

ralusek wrote: post #126
soyyo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very sad that while you are going through all this, in other parts of the world where the situation is far better, the only interest in Venezuela seems to be how they can use it to support their political claims. For instance in Spain, leftist people refuse to acknowledge how bad the situation is because they link Chavez and Maduro with their ideas and somehow think that it would show weakness in their ideology,…

In the United States it's the same, but the left don't even take it as an example of socialist failures. Instead they attribute the state of Venezuela to having been the consequence of American interventionism. It's actually a tragedy, because the lessons to be learned from the failure of socialism come at the cost of countless lives, the least we could do is come away with something of utility.

Alas, your argument is tragic because with just a simple switch of a phrase, it becomes even more truthful:

>It's actually a tragedy, because the lessons to be learned from the failure of western imperialism come at the cost of countless lives, the least we could do is come away with something of utility.

We in the West all too often ignore the victims of Americas heinous illegal wars - over 500,000 innocent people have lost their lives because America believes it has a right to interfere in sovereign states across the globe.

Whether you are left- or right- oriented, you will be doing yourself and your culture a favour by stopping the very poor habit of ignoring the real victims of America's wars, who have too long been swept under the covers, because its either too embarrassing or the inherent evils too obvious upon inspection.

Americans of all political persuasions really need to stop America's war machine. It is, undeniably, the most negative influence in the world today.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#135

Post by Filligree »

snowwindwaves wrote: post #130
Filligree wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of a sort. If it's a phase mismatch of a few degrees, the generator may attempt to physically rotate to match the phase. This kills the generator. Also, less amusingly, anyone nearby at the time. If it's a larger mismatch, then that's more likely to fry the wiring before too much other damage happens. On rare occasions generators get connected while they are (exactly) 180 degrees out of phase; this is a dead short, a…

I've synced 10 mw 900 rpm hydro units as much as 7 degrees out of phase. There is a bit more of a thunk as the unit snaps in to sync but it's not the end of the world. Diesel units in hospitals will sync to each other as much as 30 degrees out of sync because just get thing online because it the load is critical. I've also been told two second hand reports of the breaker closing drastically out of sync. One was a per…

It depends entirely on how much inertia there is on the shaft, in various forms. The example I was told about was a 200MW peltier, constructed such that rotating it backwards implies pushing back against the water. The shaft itself also had some sort of extra equipment on it, but I'm not sure of the details.

Well, when it was connected about 30 degrees out of phase, the entire unit pretty much exploded. It tore out of the concrete base, and was found to have rotated nearly halfway to the "correct" position.

I haven't seen anything nearly that dramatic myself, so I can't be sure how much it's exaggerated. There's probably a report somewhere.

And I love that party trick. There's no direct equivalence in DC transmission, of course, but I've done similar things with voltage-matching in Electrical Age. It always amazes me how much that game ends up reflecting reality.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#136

Post by sergiomattei »

imjustsaying wrote: post #86
sergiomattei wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puerto Rico was without power for months after Hurricane Maria.

parts, not the whole island. correct me if im wrong

The whole island didn't have power for a few weeks, probably about a month.

Source: born and raised here

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#137

Post by imjustsaying »

sergiomattei wrote: post #136
imjustsaying wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

parts, not the whole island. correct me if im wrong

The whole island didn't have power for a few weeks, probably about a month. Source: born and raised here

thanks

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#138

Post by ralusek »

fit2rule wrote: post #134
ralusek wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States it's the same, but the left don't even take it as an example of socialist failures. Instead they attribute the state of Venezuela to having been the consequence of American interventionism. It's actually a tragedy, because the lessons to be learned from the failure of socialism come at the cost of countless lives, the least we could do is come away with something of utility.

Alas, your argument is tragic because with just a simple switch of a phrase, it becomes even more truthful: >It's actually a tragedy, because the lessons to be learned from the failure of western imperialism come at the cost of countless lives, the least we could do is come away with something of utility. We in the West all too often ignore the victims of Americas heinous illegal wars - over 500,000 innocent people h…

I oppose all American interventionism. I think it's horrible. That being said, it's not the reason why the Venezuelan state failed.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#139

Post by fit2rule »

ralusek wrote: post #138
fit2rule wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, your argument is tragic because with just a simple switch of a phrase, it becomes even more truthful: >It's actually a tragedy, because the lessons to be learned from the failure of western imperialism come at the cost of countless lives, the least we could do is come away with something of utility. We in the West all too often ignore the victims of Americas heinous illegal wars - over 500,000 innocent people h…

I oppose all American interventionism. I think it's horrible. That being said, it's not the reason why the Venezuelan state failed.

Venezuela would be in a much better condition today if the CIA was not interfering in its internal politics. There can be absolutely no doubt about this - the evidence is absolutely clear to those who care to look.

To discount the negative effect that CIA interference in the normal operation of sovereign states has on the world, one has to be willing to fall for a hell of a lot of propaganda and lies. The CIA is one of the most evil organisations on the planet today.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#140

Post by hfkajshfaks »

nnq wrote: post #94
hfkajshfaks wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't really though. A cascading failure can knock out an entire grid. The Northeast blackout is an example. A line goes out. while (there some lines are still live): The current redistributes itself among neighboring lines. Neighboring lines trip end BlackStart() BlackStart() is fun. Having your plants and grid down is like having a dead battery (plants use ~30% of the electricity they gen on themselves) and no o…

> Neighboring lines trip > As a last step you turn on your nuclear plants ...don't get it: why would you turn off your nuclear power plants, even if the grid failed?! Won't it make more sense to keep it running as usual maybe just using the power to generate steam that you throw into the atmosphere? ...mainly because stopping and restarting a nuclear power plant is expensive af.? (It still boggles my mind why are ele…

I'm not in this field (university friends are), but reactors require triple redundancy for their power supply, including the grid.

A better question is, should we have nuclear power at all? I took classes in nuclear engineering, by friends are nuclear engineers, ect. but it's not obvious to me that cheap electricity is worth it.

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