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> It is hard to fathom the devastation a total shutdown would have wreaked. […] “What my team and the folks at the utilities in Texas would be doing is an exerc
by Scoundreller 5y ago
> It is hard to fathom the devastation a total shutdown would have wreaked. […] “What my team and the folks at the utilities in Texas would be doing is an exercise called ‘black start,’ ” he said. A black start would have required carefully rebooting a few power plants at a time and using them to jump-start others, thereby restoring the grid piece by piece. […] No one knows how long that process would take, because no one has ever needed to do it. Magness said it would have been weeks at least.
Why weeks? I “survived” the “great” northeast blackout and most areas were back up in 16-48 hours. And that involved a bigger network across multiple jurisdictions.
- reincarnate0x14 5y agoSignificant parts of the eastern interconnect successfully islanded the blackout areas during the cascade failure in 2003, while the blackout was huge the interconnect itself was still up and running for (geographically) most of it, so thousands of generators worth of power were available to feed in via dozens of major transmission paths to re-energize the faulted areas. In a real "black start" none of that external capability and coordination exists. Imagine the entire US and Canada east of roughly Kansas being dark.
- riskneutral 5y ago> Imagine the entire US and Canada east of roughly Kansas being dark. For weeks? Without ATMs, gas pumps, grocery stores, etc? It all runs on electricity. It would get pretty grim. According to risk assessments of EMP risk, 90% of Americans of die after 1 year of not having electricity.
- Filligree 5y agoThis is why we don't try to test it, yeah. Black starts take forever in part because there's no solidified procedure for it, but producing such a procedure would require causing the disaster we're trying to avoid. So far nothing quite as bad as a real black start has yet happened, and here's hoping it never will.
- naveen99 5y agohttps://www.quora.com/If-a-massive-solar-event-suddenly-had-a-severe-EMP-effect-on-the-Earth-and-all-electronics-went-dead-what-would-you-do-first/answer/Mark-Fergerson?ch=17&oid=88230503&share=401be70a&srid=hh0m3&target_type=answer https://www.quora.com/If-a-massive-solar-event-suddenly-had-... solar flares are predictable with enough notice. If it’s an h bomb, we will have enough problems with or without the empl. So, please stop writing old fashioned fairy tales here.
- riskneutral 5y agoIs your whole argument that a solar flare will be predicted with enough notice and the grid will be shutdown in time to save us?
- naveen99 5y agoYes. Of course a comet could also annihilate us at any time.
- riskneutral 5y agoLet's hope it works out that way, and not like this Texas electric grid story.