Robert Kile forward the Solar Cycle report, which included:
>>Electrical hydro operators have enjoyed several years of quiet
>>conditions. Nothing similar in magnitude to the events of March 1989
>>have been observed, where almost the entire electrical grid of
>>electricity supplied to the province of Quebec collapsed within less than
>>2 minutes due to powerful electrical currents that were induced into
>>Hydro Quebecs electrical power lines during one of the strongest
>>geomagnetic storms on record. Since most of the electrical power lines
>>and companies interconnect their lines, this outage had impacts all
>>across North America. The additional load drawn from other power
>>companies to compensate for the loss observed during the Quebec blackout
>>brought many other power companies close to similar failure conditions.
>>If the situation was slightly worse, other blackouts across North America
>>could have been observed - possibly making this a much larger
>>continent-wide type of power blackout instead of a relatively localized
>>province-wide Quebec blackout.
>>
Oak Ridge National Laboratory studied the effects that a geomagnetic storm
might have on the U.S. economy if the storm was only slightly larger than
the one observed in March 1989. Their estimate of the impact of such a
disturbance to the Gross Domestic Product alone put total economic costs in
the U.S. in the $3 to $6 BILLION dollar range! This assessment, along with
reviews conducted by the North American Electric Reliability Council placed
the 1989 and 1991 geomagnetic storm events in a category equivalent to
hurricane Hugo and the San Fransisco earthquake in its relative impact to
the reliability of the electric power grids in North America. That's a
sobering thought for hydro operators and everyone reliant upon electricity!
This is an interesting, if "gee whiz" bit of reporting. The reporter seems
to imply several erroneous assumptions about hydroelectric power and it's
susceptability to disruption due to geomagnetic storms, as well as the
overall percentage of hydroelectric versus other sources of generation in
the overall power grid. Unless I have overlooked something in "Power
Distribution 101" about Hydro, it is no more and no less suspectible than
any other source of generation. In fact, it is the distribution system and
not necessarily the generation system that is susecptible to outage.
Because a disturbance originated with Quebec Hydro does not mean it
couldn't have just as easily originate at a fossil-fueler or nuclear plant.
As interdependent as the power grids are, a system disturbance anywhere can
sometimes mean big trouble for all plants and distribution systems.
As far as hydro's overall contribution in percentage terms to overall
electric production in the US or North America, I'd be very surprised if it
were as much as 30% of the total. In fact, hydro is just about 30% of the
total generation in the western US, which has the highest percentage of
hydro anywhere in the US. BC Hydro and Hydro Quebec contribute more in each
of their provinces, but are less in comparison to overall installed
generation in NA.
But the rest of the article seemed good, and was certainly interesting
reading. I for one am looking forward to"increased HF communications
opportunites".
But I'm not going to lose any sleep over loss of power (except in the
Control Room). Any amplifying comments, Gary K7FR?
Steve Zettel KJ7CH and Chief Operator
Libby Dam Hydroelectric Project, near Libby, MT USA
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