Blackout Pinned on Three Ohio Failures (claim they found "real" cause)

Atlanta Journal Cosntitution ^ | Aug. 16, 2003 | H. JOSEF HEBERT

[FairOpinion]

WASHINGTON (AP)--The failure of three transmission lines in northern Ohio was the likely trigger of the nation's biggest power blackout, a leading investigator said Saturday.

Experts are working to understand why the disruption spread throughout the Northeast and Midwest and into Canada, and was not contained.

``We are fairly certain'' that the problem started in Ohio, said Michehl Gent, head of the North American Electric Reliability Council. ``We are now trying to determine why the situation was not brought under control.''

Gent said the transmission system was designed to isolate problems such as those apparently involving the three lines in the Cleveland area.

``The system has been designed and rules have been created to prevent this escalation and cascading. It should have stopped, we think, after the first three'' line failures, Gent said in a telephone news conference at which he did not take questions.

His organization is a nonprofit, industry-sponsored group that is supposed to oversee power line reliability. The council earlier had released documents showing four transmission line problems in the Cleveland area in the hour before the blackout spread Thursday afternoon across eight states from New England to Michigan.

The transmission system in northern Ohio is operated by FirstEnergy Corp. Company officials have declined to discuss details of their investigation into the blackout.

Council investigators were examining more than 10,000 pages of data, including automatically generated logs on power flows over transmission lines, Gent said.

The investigation has become more difficult because at the time of the power breakdown, ``events were coming in so fast and furious that (some) ... weren't even being logged in a timely way,'' Gent said.

Nonetheless, Gent said he is convinced that no data was lost and whatever was not recorded will be recovered.

``We will get to the bottom of this,'' he said.

A federal task force of U.S. and Canadian officials was forming to investigate the outages that spread within seconds, affecting millions of people from New York City to Michigan.

AP-NY-08-16-03 1349EDT

[FairOpinion]

FoxNews just reported this as breaking news that they found the "real cause".

But Ihave a problem -- how could three separate transmission lines fail all at once?!

[Guillermo]

We all know what the "real cause" is...

W. Bush!

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Speed of light. One bit of failure overloads other lines too fast for the failsafes to kick in?

[Commiewatcher]

"We all know what the "real cause" is..."

Kinda hoping it was Dennis Kucinich...but wait a minute, he ain't real - even an alien couldn't dream him up. You're right, I guess, if it ain't President Bush's fault then it certainly must be those "tax cuts for the rich".

[norraad]

Cheez & crackers, we've been doing this a 100 years!

How long does it take to get it right?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Its not a bad failure rate - one major blackout every 25 years or so. I don't think Europe does as well.

It would probably be wise to split that grid, though.

[null and void]

But I have a problem -- how could three separate transmission lines fail all at once?!

Act of God allah???

[varon]

But Ihave a problem -- how could three separate transmission lines fail all at once?!

Two possums and a big fat squirrel ;-)

[FairOpinion]

Then they would have said it started with ONE line, which spread. This article says distinctly that THREE lines failed.

[AF68]

But...but...Prime Minister Cretin of Canuckistan said lightning hitting the Niagara Falls plant was the cause.

[FairOpinion]

"Two possums and a big fat squirrel ;-) "

===

Did they synchronize their watches to sit on three different tranmission lines at the same time?

One line failing is rare, 3 lines failing should have an infiniessimal probability, then 3 lines failing AND all other safety measures which were there to prevent spread also failing at the same time is starting to really stretch my credulity.

[AlexW]

Flying on a commercial jet is the safest way you can travel, but they still crash.
Do you REALLY expect something like a power transmission system to never fail?
Geesh, I can only recall twice since 1965.
If this were once a year you have a right to complain, but get over it..Things do break.

[kylaka]

Sh*t Happens.

[albertabound]

What makes you think Chretien would have the slightest idea as to what happened.

[jpthomas]

six sigma happens

[Cold Heat]

Transmission of electricity takes three hot wires and a common ground. Failure of one line causes a single phase condition and put extreme loads on the other two.

Although failure of the transmission lines is a interesting part of the grid failure, to call it the cause is premature. And yes, the failure of the three lines at one time is a bit rare. The safeties should have caught the overload and faulted which would disconnect the area from the grid.

Personally, I think someone is pulling my leg, (or my finger)

This mess was caused by the grid destabilizing. As various plants dropped off line to protect their assets the problem mushroomed.

What or whom destabilized the grid? The loss of the transmission lines SHOULD NOT be enough to do this.

[VRWC_minion]

If the same failures cascaded through liberal heaven (also known as Canada), how can we blame Bush for them ?

[lelio]

This mess was caused by the grid destabilizing.

I heard it was the result of power flying back and forth. A major request on the East coast then followed by a major request on the West, which was then dropped. So power flew back East and it knocked out some systems that didn't anticipate the rapid switching back and forth of the flow.

Seems to make sense too -- not one plant is at fault, its a problem of the entire infrastructure.

[jrushing]

how could three separate transmission lines fail all at once?!

One 3 phase transmission line is 3 seperate wires. If 1 wire broke, the other 2 can overload causing circuit breakers to shut down all 3 lines. News reports on electricity usually confuse the facts thru ignorance of electrical operation.

[Sabertooth]

Speed of light. One bit of failure overloads other lines too fast for the failsafes to kick in?

You sure you want to say that electricity travels down wires at the speed of light?