Live data from Hacker News

Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

bbc.com

951–960 of 1001 posts

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just in time" is a phrase I hate with vehement passion. You aren't optimizing the system, you're reducing safety marigns - and consequences are usually similar to Challanger. This is a solution that teenager put in management position would think of(along with hire more people as solution to inefficient processes), not a paid professional. Systems like electric grid, internal water management (anti-flood) shouldn't…

JIT isn’t about reducing safety margin. It was pioneered by Japanese companies, namely Toyota. They are known for risk adverse, safety first. > This is a solution that teenager put in management position would think of(along with hire more people as solution to inefficient processes), not a paid professional. What kind of comment is this? Toyota has been using and refining it for decades. It wasn’t invented yesterday…

> its goal isn’t “reducing safety margin”

Sure it is. That's exactly how it achieves the higher profitability. Safety margin costs money. Otherwise known as inefficiency.

Slack in the system is a good thing, not a bad thing. Operating at 95% capacity 24x7 is a horrible idea for society in general. It means you can't "burst mode" for a short period of time during a true emergency.

It's basically ignoring long tail risk to chase near-term profits. It's a whole lot of otherwise smart people optimizing for local maxima while ignoring the big picture. Certainly understandable given our economic and social systems, but still catastrophic in the end one day.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#953
post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you remember this scene?!

If you were the right age when it came out in theaters in '93 (roughly between 11-15), Jurassic Park was a huge deal. Titanic was another of those in that era (although mainly to certain females).

Yep, I can still remember the immediate after-effect seeing it for the first time in theaters when I was 7.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#955
post #704
post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capacitor circuit network warning for alarm for "main grid is drawing on this bank - bad things may happen if capacity is not increased." Another "trick" is those burner inserters are black start capable. They can pick up fuel and feed themselves to keep running without an electrical network. I also tend to put Schmitt triggers in low priority areas. They've got a battery on the main grid next to them and if the batt…

Can't wait for a Factorio mod that simulates the grid frequency and damages equipment when it drifts too far!

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/k16oom/better_pow... discusses the idea a bit.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#956

This sounds big enough to require a black start. Unfortunately, those are slow and difficult. If an entire nation trips offline then every generator station disconnects itself from the grid and the grid itself snaps apart into islands. To bring it back you have to disconnect consumer loads and then re-energize a small set of plants that have dedicated black start capability. Thermal plants require energy to start up…

Just to add, I was at a University campus when the entire building's electrics went out and there was a significant pull due to relatively powerful computers in every room. They initially tried to bring the building back online altogether and failed. Then they tried to bring it back in sections and failed too. In the end they ended up going into each lab, turning every computer off at the wall to bring each lab's power back, and then turn each computer on one by one.

I can only imagine the difficulty of bringing large parts of the grid back online, that rush current must be immense.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#957

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experience from Portugal, near Lisbon: fake news and made-up stories traveled fast! My wife called me (before phones went out) saying someone heard on the radio that Portugal was on red alert, it was WW3 (world war 3) and I think she even mentioned "missiles"! Also someone said it was a cyberattack and all Europe was off. Lots of panic reactions, many people buying toilet paper, water, candles, sausages and other can…

I have to ask: what's with "many people buying toilet paper" when there's the smallest probability of a disaster? Why? Why? Why?

It's because of Rule #3!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs8ayvLzqxY

At the point where the catastrophe has already started, it's too late to be taking up cardio, but rule #3 is one of the rare ones under your control.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#958

I experienced it first hand in Madrid. This was much scarier than I would have imagined. News travelled extremely slow: phone coverage was just barely enough to receive a couple text messages every 15 minutes or so. News spread on the street, I even saw a group of 20 people hunched around someone owning a hand-held radio in the streets. Just before power was restored, things started to get worse, as the phone coverag…

When the northeast blackout hit in 2003 in NYC I dont remember any panic. We still had house phones and they still worked in the blackout thanks to telcos being legally obligated to give a shit about reliability. I stopped by a friends house and we then went on a walk. Some stores were open and cash was accepted. We hung out later that night and had a few beers. The sky was amazing as there was next to no light pollu…

Like 10-15 years ago before VOIP I sold internet/landline services door to door for a summer. My biggest selling point was explaining to people (usually who had children) that the VOIP service they switched to would not work in an emergency where power wasn't available... Worked like a charm to get people to switch back.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#959
post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a good reason (in parts of the world where this is practical) to have some solar + battery storage. Doesn't even need to fully replace grid power, just enough to run the barebones when the grid goes out.

If we are talking about a 72 hours blackout, I would be concerned about water and sewer working before one even thinks about home electricity.

Houses have water tank that work as buffer for when the water stop, couldn't residential batteries work the same way?, it could detect drops in voltage and stop charging, so even if the grid is unstable in a black out, the residential isn't going to light up immediately, or only the houses without batteries

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#960
post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>an incredibly complex system that can fall over even if no-one's being stupid I only have a layman's understanding of power grids, but I thought they were incredibly hardened, with backups and contingencies in depth Are the grids at this scale really this brittle? Would there be a death toll from this? I also wouldn't blame malice without corroborating evidence

What Spain's PM is saying (and is being reported by Spanish newspapers), 15 gigawatts of energy production went down all in 5 seconds. Hardening to tolerate that much of a change, that fast is a more extreme event than a grid the size of Spain's preps for.

To be fair, a big deal of those 15GW probably went down as a result of the initial outage: equipment is designed to intentionally disconnect completely when the grid is behaving badly, rather than trying to force it into submission and potentially causing serious equipment damage.

In reality this means you might lose, say, 1GW due to a transmission line failing, have a big frequency dip as a result, and then have 14GW drop offline like dominoes because they sense a grid frequency outside of safe operating parameters; disconnect as they go into safety mode; cause the frequency dip to worsen; and pull even more plants offline with them. If you're not careful, a small outage can quickly cascade into an entire grid going offline.

Post reply on HN