Hi Mike
On (22 Jan 98) MIKE ROSS wrote to Elvis Hargrove...
 -> Ice Storm of '98 refugee.
 MR> What gave everyone here such a shock was the realization of their utter
 MR> dependance on electricity for their very survival. Some 80% of homes in
 MR> the greater metropolitan area depend for their heat on electric power
And my geriatric cousins in Derbyshire, winter of 1990/91 almost died in a 
ne
week long power cut, because their GAS cooking and GAS central heating and 
AS
hot water service, were all AC- dependent thru hi tech microprocessor
controllers etc.
After two days, the Social Service health visitor showed them how to use
matches, to light a gas cooker top burner.
HEY when will there be a gas operated TV set? Or telephone?
 MR> The sensible policy of using more locally distributed electrical
 MR> generation had been bulldozed aside starting about 40 years ago by
 MR> political motivations that eventually in the 1960's promised hundreds of
 MR> thousands of jobs to win elections. Smaller local dams were in fact even
 MR> shut down.
To criticize now those changes, is being parochial and wise after the event.
The modern use of a few huge plants very far away, has made electricity so
cheap. You wanna treble the charges? And, the city smog and ash problems
drove the old Central stations out of those thousands of cities. The public
interest was served. What a pity maybe that we use about twenty times the
elec energy per capita, as previously!
I guess that if your ice storm occurrences are frequent, then diversity of
supplies [gas distribution, multiple transmission paths, disaster planning]
would be more cost effective than re- siting with lotsa wee generators. And
for the greenies, fifty units of 10MW probably deliver ten times as much
poison per person, as one unit of 500 MW.
The freezing and consequent breaking of overhead lines, can be minimised by
circulating current between substations. This was once done in UK on city
railways, to avoid track switches from freezing. Now they use LP gas burners.
The circulating current trick, involves putting line transformer tapchangers
deliberately out- of- step so that sub A fights sub B. Thus a 3 am load of
say 100 amps might be supplied by each trannie loaded to 1000 amps: 1000 amps
thus heats the wires and  melts ice, but 900 of those amps are circulating
from sub to sub. No revenue from those amps. Who will pay $$$$$?
HV line conductors used to be copper or bronze. Small diameter, attracts 
mall
mass of ice.
HV line conductors today are aluminum or Al alloy. Fat, very fat and attract
huge ice load.
The coldest time of day sadly, is the time of least electric load. Get more
off- peak heating into the homes. Get more pumped storage schemes so
efficient thermal stations can pump water up into hydro storages, during the
long cold nights.
Cheers....ALEC
... The light fades. What will you DO with your Family History?
--- PPoint 1.92
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