Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Five: The 1977 New York Blackout 53again … and short-circuited two more [high-voltage] … lines. Again there was amalfunction. One line closed automatically [but] … the other remained openbecause a relay had been set primarily to protect a nuclear reactor (which, ironically,was out of service) rather than to facilitate reclosing of the line … The lossof the line … caused a temporary power surge that tripped out another [high-voltage]… line. This should not have happened but did, because of a bent contact ona relay.Con Ed’s control room succumbed to confusion and panic … [The] systemoperator [assumed] … a particular transmission line was still in service [and] …failed to read a teletype [saying it was down].… Moreover, because of Con Ed’santiquated control room layout, he was unable to see a more dramatic indicator inanother room—a flashing screen with a high-pitched alarm. The personnel thereknew the line was out but failed to tell him.... [H]e ignored [seven] … suggestionsfrom the power pool that he shed load. Then, as the situation deteriorated, he …dumped his … responsibility on his boss, the chief system operator, who sat athome in the dark reading diagrams by a kerosene lantern and issuing orders overthe phone … The chief ordered voltage reductions—but these were too little andtoo late. Eventually he also ordered that a block of customers be disconnected.Whereupon the confused operator [rendered the load-shedding control panel inoperableby apparently turning] … a master switch the wrong way.The performance of Con Ed’s generators was equally erratic. Con Ed’s systemoperator delayed eight minutes … before requesting a fast load pickup fromgenerators that were supposedly able to respond in ten minutes. He [then] got onlyhalf the power he expected—and only thirty percent of what Con Ed had incorrectlytold the power pool it could provide. Some equipment malfunctioned; otherunits were undergoing routine inspection but had not been removed from the faststartcapability list; some were not even manned. [All the night-shift operators hadbeen sent home, and the remote-start capability had been removed some years earlier.7 At most fifty-five percent of Con Ed’s total in-city generating capacity wasactually operable. 8 ] Similarly, when Con Ed sounded the maximum generationalarm some ten minutes after the second lightning strike, it again failed to get theanticipated response from its thirty-minute reserve generators.As the system cascaded toward collapse, heavy overloads caused the failure ordeliberate disconnection of all remaining ties to neighboring utilities. Con Ed[’s] …last hope was an automatic load shedding system that had been installed after the1965 blackout. [It] worked beautifully to disconnect customers.... But it also unexpectedlycaused a rapid rise in system voltage that caused a major generator to shutdown.... The remaining generators could not restore equilibrium. Eventually, protectiverelays shut them down to prevent damage … [and] the city was blacked out. 9Nearly twelve weeks later, on 26 September 1977, another thunderstormtripped four transmission lines with six lightning bolts. Automatic reclosingequipment again failed to perform, shutting down forty percent of Con Ed’s