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To: chimera
Imagine you are sitting in the "hot seat" of the regional grid control center (as I have).

You must smoke a lot...and drink a lot of coffee. That is how I always picture grid operators. I remember the 'outages' we had here last April when it got hot beyond expectation at a time when it was normally cool and they had to 'shed' some areas to save the grid. People were pissed...and one representative had called in to a local talk show and had to listen to people gripe about what they did and did not do...in a decision they had 45 seconds to make...or the grid could have been down for some time.
101 posted on 07/03/2007 8:23:36 PM PDT by P-40 (Al Qaeda was working in Iraq. They were just undocumented.)
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To: P-40
You must smoke a lot...and drink a lot of coffee.

Ha! Like our colleagues in the ATC business? No smoking for me, and just one cup of caffeine in the morning to get my eyes open. Fortunately, I didn't spend too much time in the dispatching center. You don't do four years of college and six years of grad school to work shifts. But I wanted to have the experience to understand the technology better and to be able to broaden my background as preparation for consulting work. Nothing like learning by doing.

No one notices when the power is on, but they sure notice it when the power is off. Modern grid reliability is in the range of 99.99999% availability, but the 0.00001% unavailability causes a lot of griping. I'm no better, even though I understand the complexity of the technology and have experience with it. Having to deal with an evening of power outage and whiny kids who can't get their MTV and Cartoon Channels is bad enough. One can imagine the "inconvenience" (more like life-hreatening) those who need electricity to literally stay alive go through.

134 posted on 07/04/2007 8:46:50 AM PDT by chimera
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