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Yes, having too much energy in the grid is seriously a bad thing. No. The absolute worst thing that could happen is BPA failing to curtail power production spi

by Sukotto 16y ago

Yes, having too much energy in the grid is seriously a bad thing. No. The absolute worst thing that could happen is BPA failing to curtail power production spikes that end up disabling the entire network. If the spike of power is big and sustained enough, and if the supply isn't cut back quickly enough, you could blow out the whole grid. Want a couple of weeks of a state-wide power outage? The grid is just a large web of wires. Unlike packets in a tcp/ip network, you cannot control which wire an electron will travel upon (except that you can deny a wire any electrons by severing it from the grid) Each wire can handle a maximum amount of load, before it starts to heat up. Heat it up enough, the line will short out. The BPA balances the amount of electricity entering the grid against the amount of demand. They need to worry about the overall grid, and also each local area. If a local area starts getting a lot more power, they have to make someone in that area cut back production before the infrastructure gets damaged. Power units generally don't just cycle on or off. There's a lot of work involved in shutting down individual power units and some of them need a lot of lead time to cycle back up to their normal output. get more export lines and sell the excess elsewhere It's extremely expensive and time consuming to build long-haul transmission. Between the environmental groups and NIMBY people, it takes 10 years to build out additional capacity. What do you propose BPA do in the meantime? [edit: spelling]

derefr 16y ago
You know how they're talking about using earth-based lasers to power satellites, or, alternately, satellite-based power collectors to power the Earth? I'm no engineer, but why not combine the two ideas, and create a network of power reallocation satellites (essentially mechanically-operated mirrors in space?) If the satellites could reorient quickly enough, you could basically get "packet-switched wireless electricity."
- Sukotto 16y ago
  Giant lasers? What could possibly go wrong? :-D I have no idea how plausible something like that might be.
- Groxx 16y ago
  And lose massive amounts of power in each direction. With a better grid in the first place, and controls to prevent this, the loss is far smaller (down to "nothing", ideally).
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>Unlike packets in a tcp/ip network, you cannot control which wire an electron will travel upon (except that you can deny a wire any electrons by severing from the grid) That's not quite true, true at an electron scale, but you can alter the resistance of a particular line to alter the current (the gross electron flow) that passes on it. Severing is just the extreme (operationally equivalent to infinite resistance added). [Electronics was always a weak point for me.]

by Sukotto 16y ago

derefr 16y ago

You know how they're talking about using earth-based lasers to power satellites, or, alternately, satellite-based power collectors to power the Earth? I'm no engineer, but why not combine the two ideas, and create a network of power reallocation satellites (essentially mechanically-operated mirrors in space?) If the satellites could reorient quickly enough, you could basically get "packet-switched wireless electricity."

Sukotto 16y ago
Giant lasers? What could possibly go wrong? :-D I have no idea how plausible something like that might be.
Groxx 16y ago
And lose massive amounts of power in each direction. With a better grid in the first place, and controls to prevent this, the loss is far smaller (down to "nothing", ideally).

pbhjpbhj 16y ago

>Unlike packets in a tcp/ip network, you cannot control which wire an electron will travel upon (except that you can deny a wire any electrons by severing from the grid) That's not quite true, true at an electron scale, but you can alter the resistance of a particular line to alter the current (the gross electron flow) that passes on it. Severing is just the extreme (operationally equivalent to infinite resistance added). [Electronics was always a weak point for me.]