All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by paulvs » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

davps wrote: post #128

paulvs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Paraguayan news [1] (Spanish), the failure was on the Argentina side of the Yacyretá hydroelectric (which is shared by Argentina and Paraguay), not at the plant itself. Only a few Paraguayan towns close to the hydroelectric itself were affected, while Argentina and countries it resells electricity to were out of power.

I can confirm, at Paraguay, only two small towns (Pilar y Ayolas) where affected and for a short period of time. Source: I live at Paraguay.

Nice to see Paraguay present here on HN, I live here in Asunción.

I also heard of some people near Luque without power Sunday and Monday, but I'd guess it was an unrelated ANDE incident.

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

#142

Post by nnq » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 11:41 AM UTC

hfkajshfaks wrote: post #140

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 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.

> not obvious to me that cheap electricity is worth it.

Why would you say that? I mean sure, if you can't manage to get cost-effectiveness right then it's not worth it. But otherwise dirt-cheap and readily available electricity is absolutely needed to solve the world's problems! Think about what will happen when large swaths of land loose access to drinking water after climate + pollution wreck things up and the only alternative is ocean water filtration and desalination plants that will need huuuge amounts of power! Also think about massive irrigation and civil engineering projects that will be needed to fight desertifications etc. And to keep heavily populated costal cities above (the new, higher) sea level. That's terrawats upon terrawats of energy that will be needed to constantly shuffle earth and water around, and maybe even to power huge city-scale air filters etc.

We have and still are wrecking up the planet to such a high extent that sooner or later the bill will arrive and we'll need to put heavy effort into re-terraforming Earth to keep it inhabitable... And there really is no other answer than nuclear here, while cities filled with LED-lights and low powered devices and highly thermally efficient buildings can run on renewables, heavy civil engineering projects and land decontamination and producing drinking water etc. will need waaay more power than our blanket of communication equipment and drones.

We could decide not to, but then we'll end up fighting for resources and instead of nuclear power with it's inherent risks we'll get... nuclear wars!

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

#143

Post by segfaultbuserr » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

hfkajshfaks wrote: post #140

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 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.

> >...don't get it: why would you turn off your nuclear power plants, even if the grid failed?!

> reactors require triple redundancy for their power supply, including the grid.

Thanks for posting. I learned something interesting today.

I can imagine the consequences of a total loss of power in nuclear reactors...

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

#144

Post by segfaultbuserr » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

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…

> BlackStart()

I love how the people coming from different fields invented their own word for "the process of starting a system through external intervention because it cannot support itself at this point".

Kickstart. Jumpstart. Bootstrap. And now I learned a new one: blackstart.

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

#145

Post by kragen » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

cr0sh wrote: post #117

kragen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, electric showers are common in much of Latin America. In theory you could build them to be safe, but often they aren't. I showered with a tank-based electric shower today: you fill the tank, plug it in until it's hot, unplug it, step underneath, and open the valve. This arrangement has less risk of electrical shock, but it's far less convenient. Because the power was out, I filled it with hot water from the tan…

> In theory you could build them to be safe, but often they aren't. I showered with a tank-based electric shower today: you fill the tank, plug it in until it's hot, unplug it, step underneath, and open the valve. Do any homes have things set up like most homes in the United States - that is, a central water heater of 40 gallons or more that supplies all taps in the house? Something else we have here, but aren't as c…

I live in a shitty new apartment building without gas (not the one with the tank-based electric shower I mentioned above) and there's a central water heater in the basement for the entire building. Like all the other heating devices in the building, it is electric. I think it's about 2000 liters ("528 gallons" in medieval units). I don't know if it's equipped with a recirculation system, but the basement is about 10 meters below my apartment ("33 feet" in medieval units), and it sure doesn't seem like I have to wait for hot water to come up from the basement when I turn the hot water on, so possibly.

Most US cities discharge their treated sewage into bodies of water, allowing it to evaporate from the ocean before entering a potable-water plant. Perhaps yours is an exception?

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

#146

Post by sunkensheep » Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 3:32 AM UTC

Filligree wrote: post #135

snowwindwaves wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Water is a bit less forgiving than steam, it has great resistance to changes in position or velocity. I suspect that closing the generator created a water-hammer, which physically or mechanically destroyed the machine.