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I seem to recall a tree falling in Ohio knocked out the power to NYC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No
by hersko 1y ago
I seem to recall a tree falling in Ohio knocked out the power to NYC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
- jcranmer 1y agoThat wasn't tree falling in Ohio, that was overloaded line sagged and shorted into a tree, compounded with several other factors that contributed to the grid instability and the inability of the grid operator to realize how unstable the grid was.
- scoot 1y ago"Same difference" to use an Irish turn of phrase. If a short to ground takes out power to an extensive area does it mater what touched what?
- eldaisfish 1y agoYes, it absolutely does. A tree falling can be addressed by vegetation management and trimming. A power line sagging because of excess heat is operator error. These are not remotely the same.
- spongebobstoes 1y agoIt seems like both are a monitoring problem and both have a maintenance fix. A tree falling is more forgivable though.
- mikepurvis 1y agoI think the point is that neither of those events should take out a whole city; the design is such that there is considerable redundancy in the system.
- Matthyze 1y agoIndeed. For instance, power grids ideally operate with N-1/N+1 redundancy, i.e., the disablement of any single power line should not cause a cascading failure.
- 0_____0 1y agoThe proximal cause was a race condition in a piece of software, so as usual it comes back to you keyboard ticklers!
- pavel_lishin 1y ago> keyboard ticklers I hate this term, and look forward to using it all the time.
- conductr 1y agoRelying on vegetation management along millions(?) of miles of lines is the definition of thinking you're in control without even knowing what risks exist. I see this every year in Texas, they trim back trees thinking they have solved the problem - except - they are allowed to trim them back I think 6-8 feet from the lines, ignoring the fact the trees are 20-40 feet taller than the lines. Nobody seems to see the risk that they left there but it's quite obvious to me, we're not eliminating risks at all. We're minimizing them at best, and even then the labor required to trim all the branches around lines every year is impossible to keep up with from an economic feasibility standpoint.
- applied_heat 1y agoThey trim back what poses the highest risk with the budget they have. As you have identified A wider right of way costs more. Usually for lines above some voltage, perhaps 200kV, the cost of an outage due to a tree strike outweighs the cost of additional vegetation management so they will clear the right of way wide enough that no tree can fall and hit the power line. Around here for 130kV the right of way is still as narrow as it can be and we annually take down the riskiest trees as this is the best for our budget, which is not unlimited.
- genewitch 1y agoConcur, they have huge fire breaks they put high tension lines in, where the easement is easily 100' to either side of the lines. This is in Louisiana. When there's a hurricane these lines still break, but not because of trees. During heavy storms, smaller trees hit smaller (480? Some KV?) Lines that go along highways to residences. A high tension line down means a few days without power (about 3-4), a tree on a lower voltage line is usually fixed within hours. They go through and remove damaged trees near the easements of the highway lines, as well as branches that could break into lines. As an aside we lived on the same section of grid as the sheriff, and our power was rock solid for a few years, then he left office and now our power is better than average (at least better than our neighbors who's power line cones from the other direction).
- 1y ago
- vel0city 1y agoBoth of these are operator error issues.
- ksenzee 1y agoIs “same difference” more common in Ireland than in Britain? It’s certainly common in the US and seems to have originated there: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/277142/etymology-of-same-difference https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/277142/etymology...
- closewith 1y agoDefinitely not an Irish turn of phrase. An unfortunate import.
- Wobbles42 1y agoThe tree had malicious intent. You can't convince me otherwise.
- riskable 1y agoThey've had a grudge against humanity since the fall. Ever since—once a year—they send a clear message, "leaf" but do the humans listen? No.
- jpmattia 1y agoCan you blame them? Just look at how they've been treated in the last few hundred years.
- HenryBemis 1y agoI vaguely remember an episode of some thriller series when I was too young to be watching it, perhaps Twilight Zone (or similar) where someone was hearing screaming, they went out a d saw trees being cut.
- Ayesh 1y agoA monkey took out the whole grid in Sri Lanka this year https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/13/asia/sri-lanka-power-outages-monkey-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/13/asia/sri-lanka-power-outa...
- hirako2000 1y agoIf that's all it took to turn Srilanka off.Even if that country lags behind western Europe, what would it take for a few humans who intentionally cut off power. Trying to stay on the facts, this incident is likely accidental but some people even the very workers at energy companies could send a message for, I don't know. A pay raise?
- pjc50 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent Yes, you can try to hold the country hostage for your salary by going on strike, but that's the sort of thing that results in very energetic union-busting. Actually sabotaging the infrastructure would result in terrorism charges, or at the very least the JSO treatment.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y agoI mean i'm pretty sure there are laws in place everywhere to avoid a single pay raise strike doing nation wide catastrophic events. Hospitals for example are usually limited in how they can strike.
- genewitch 1y agoThat's assuming the people who want to strike care about having a job afterward. I know the state hospitals stop loss people when there's a disaster, so I keep abreast of predictable disasters and tell my wife and friends "hey you're sick, go get a doctor's note for the rest of the week" and then they're not stuck at the hospitals for days during a disaster. Not that type of hospital.
- 1y ago
- bobthepanda 1y agoThere was also a race condition in some management software that hadn’t tripped in over thirty years of usage.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]