[spacefreak]

So what's up with Canada's mixed bag of explainations?

Several hours after the power went out, Jim Munson, a spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said: "We have been informed that lightning struck a power plant in the Niagara region on the U.S. side." The premier's office later said a fire at the Niagara plant in New York caused the blackout, while the defense minister said the fire was at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant.

"That is absolutely not true," said Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Maria Smith. "It's bizarre. We have a direct line to each of our five (nuclear) power plants and they are all running at 100 percent ... There's not even a trash can fire, we would know."

"The New York Power Authority's Niagara Power Project has at no time during this incident cease to operate. We also have not experienced a lightning strike at that facility," he said.

[Face Ache]

The Cananadians can pull the plug on you any time they choose.

So play nice.

[ambush]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
So what's up with Canada's mixed bag of explainations?

What's up with that? Well no one knows. Duh.

[Spliffdaddy]

It's about time to liberate those poor Canadians. Their oppressive government is causing great anguish to Americans - and this most certainly will not do.

I think we have a vacancy in the axis of evil.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
It's about time to liberate those poor Canadians. Their oppressive government is causing great anguish to Americans - and this most certainly will not do.

I think we have a vacancy in the axis of evil.

Celine Dion could be classified as a WMD.

[3gg3]

I suspect it's all DBursey's fault. Someone here piss him off?

[xtal]

Originally posted by Face Ache:
The Cananadians can pull the plug on you any time they choose.

So play nice.

The city of Toronto is buying a small percentage of its power from the Americanians these days.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by ambush:
What's up with that? Well no one knows. Duh.

That's exactly what American officials were saying..."we don't know yet".

The questions was more like, "Why the heck are Canadian officials offering ridiculous, off-the-wall explanations if 'no one knows'?"

They should keep their mouths shut if they don't know, Duh.

[Logic]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
That's exactly what American officials were saying..."we don't know yet".

The questions was more like, "Why the heck are Canadian officials offering ridiculous, off-the-wall explanations if 'no one knows'?"

They should keep their mouths shut if they don't know, Duh.

My guess is that they had some good intelligence coming through that they have not made public yet. This they do to a) not endanger the informants life, b) to build up a case strong enough to get the UNSC onboard c) .................. and so on and so on.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by Logic:
My guess is that they had some good intelligence coming through that they have not made public yet. This they do to a) not endanger the informants life, b) to build up a case strong enough to get the UNSC onboard c) .................. and so on and so on.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Logic:
My guess is that they had some good intelligence coming through that they have not made public yet. This they do to a) not endanger the informants life, b) to build up a case strong enough to get the UNSC onboard c) .................. and so on and so on.

I forgot:

They have only been one day looking for the proof that will make the rest of the world believe them! Give them a break!!!

I also hear that they have found proof but they will not go public with it at this time. And I tell you, they are finding strong evidence to build up the case!

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by Logic:
I forgot:

They have only been one day looking for the proof that will make the rest of the world believe them! Give them a break!!!

I also hear that they have found proof but they will not go public with it at this time. And I tell you, they are finding strong evidence to build up the case!

What the hell are you talking about? This has to do with the power outage in the US. Perhaps you should read the topics, or enroll in a summer class to improve your reading comprehension.

Actually, it may be your hurtin' G3 that is mixing threads up. Maybe upgrade your computer, then come back and see if you can then differentiate thread topics.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by Logic:
My guess is that they had some good intelligence coming through that they have not made public yet. This they do to a) not endanger the informants life, b) to build up a case strong enough to get the UNSC onboard c) .................. and so on and so on.

I see. Too bad you're nowhere near what's going on, so your input is puurely from a spectator's point of view. But your used to that...spectating. Maybe someday, Iceland will be bold enough to actually affect and influence the world stage. Until then, enjoy the show.

[nonhuman]

Spacefreak, do you understand the concept of humor? Try looking it up. You may be specifically interested in sarcasm and satire.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by nonhuman:
Spacefreak, do you understand the concept of humor? Try looking it up. You may be specifically interested in sarcasm and satire.

Sure do...my last two posts were rich in sarcasm. Notice the smily-face icons in my posts. By way of comparison, I do not see such amicable emoticons present in the posts to which I was replying.

Apparently you don't understand sarcasm, however, or you would have spotted my use of such.

[DBursey]

Originally posted by 3gg3:
I suspect it's all DBursey's fault. Someone here piss him off?

I figured our Kyoto commitment needed a kick-start.

Seriously though, electrical generation feeds into regional transmission grids that are configured irrespective of political boundaries. There are multiple interconnecting switch points on the transmission grid which connect regional load areas. On very hot days, power system loading approaches - and in areas exceeds - the anticipated load, and so the local (or regional) utility is obliged under the regional market operating system to purchase additional power from neighboring utilities having excess capacity. This process can result in some convoluted supply routings for power, such as Quebec-generated hydroelectricity being purchased by Ontario from New York state, as direct Quebec-Ontario transmission capacity is small, and currently represents a significant bottleneck in supply for southern Ontario.

These power exchanges between utilities are automated, monitored and controlled by regional system operators, and occur generally at the blink of an eye through said interconnect points.

Thursday saw near record breaking temperatures in southern Canada and northeastern US. Ontario, which is in dire need of nuclear generation capacity currently offline for extensive retrofitting and upgrade, had been importing nearly 12% of its electricity from New York State (at a tidy profit to Con Ed and others). Since loading was extremely high throughout the northeastern grid, everyone was at the time either a buyer or seller of power. Excess capacity was at a minimum. This left the transmission grid vulnerable to overloading and to loss of supply.

In such hot conditions, station transformers experience considerable thermal loading from within and without. Equipment sometimes fails when operating at or near its full capacity, which decreases as equipment ages. Somewhere (and here I'm speculating, but indications are somewhere in Michigan or Ohio) supply was lost. Perhaps a transformer station failed. Local transmission is arranged to connect the load centre to an alternate supply once the fault is isolated. This is fine when load is normal, but there are safeguards, put into place following regional blackouts in the 60's and 70's, to prevent the type of cascading overload and resulting power failures that spread in a large ripple throughout the northeastern grid over the course of 9 seconds (this according to a technical analyst speaking to the media earlier today) on Thursday afternoon. They obviously didn't work.

Why these safeguards failed to prevent the domino-like transfer of load to neighboring utilities that ultimately brought down the northeastern north american power grid will be the subject of much intensive investigation and speculation in the coming days.

Immediately following the blackout, regional transmission areas and entities on the grid began to 'unstitch' from one other and to gradually bring load back online. As an analogy, imagine trying to reset your home's main AC breaker with a live rock band ready to play in every room. Getting the grid online takes time and cooperation from power consumers given the heatwave and resulting ac load we're experiencing.

The political underpinnings to the present deregulatory power mess we all seem to be joining in on these days would be the subject of another post entirely. Since we sunbaked southern Ontarians have been asked to conserve power as the restoration continues, I obligingly sit here in my sweltering upstairs office with the central air conditioning turned off. It's 31C outside, with high humidity giving a 'humidex' of something that feels closer to 40C. For the next little while at least it seems that conservation will by necessity be the order of the day ('though I'll be switching the central air back on once the suppertime peak has passed). Remember; save it 'till 7, people!

[zigzag]

I just got my friggin' power back this afternoon. Two whole days.

I'm just hoping that the people in charge use this as an opportunity to ban the Power Ballad. I hear that Styx was launching into a particularly feverish rendition of "Lady" when the grid failed. The transmission lines simply couldn't tolerate them any further.