Yep, they had these things fifty years ago. The trucks used to be in our neighborhood almost every night, resetting these things. The development grew quite fast, at the same time electricity demand was growing even faster. The transformers didn't keep up and in the summer a few would blow every night around supper time. The transformers had overload lights on them and every one in the area ( a square mile, or so) was lit. I once asked my father (a power engineer and EE prof) what the lights were for. His answer was that they were to tell you that the power company was making money.
...and a lot of fuel, one supposes. How much did you lose in Fay/Gustov/Hanna/Ike?
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J
Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 8 Jul 2012 09:42:25 -0500) it happened "Tim Williams" wrote in :
I can follow many of your arguments, but the economic damage from power interrupts is vast. Also expensive is if you have to 'rewire' your over-ground net after every storm, while here that never happens. For longer distances we have masts that are higher than the trees, so falling trees do not damage the power lines. And the masts very rarely get damaged by weather. So I still think US has some work to do:-)
K
krw
interrupts is vast.
storm,
You assume that you're smarter than the utility companies. That's a *big* assumption, since they have all the data.
trees do not damage the power lines.
I want to see your 150' "masts". I think you have some learning to do.
J
Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 08 Jul 2012 11:06:00 -0400) it happened " snipped-for-privacy@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote in :
Since when am I a socialist? And paranoid? I do not smoke or grow the stuff. I think the ones that do now use their own RTGs ;-)
(After the helis with IR detectors went after them).
C
Chieftain of the Carpet Crawlers
Which makes a $500 back up generator purchase a trivial decision to make.
Ok, so no dope... lemmie guess. Someone as dumb as you is on the steak pyramid scam bandwagon!
You are that asshole who goes around selling triple overpriced steaks, right? so that $12k stock is really only worth about $3k.
C
chiron613
I'd call the supplier (the one you've been dealing with) to see whether it's their doing. You might also consider writing a letter or e-mail, to develop a paper trail in case things get dodgy.
Most likely, it's not going to be a problem. Still, taking a few simple steps now could help avoid having to prove you didn't OK the change, if it ever comes to that.
You might also want to check with neighbors or your municipal government to see if there's any sort of scams going on.
Integrity has no need for rules.
J
Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 08 Jul 2012 11:55:33 -0400) it happened " snipped-for-privacy@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote in :
interrupts is vast.
storm,
trees do not damage the power lines.
Actually we use meters, makes all the diffrence, try it some time ;-)
R
Rich Webb
All of this is true. However, we do have buried service for water, gas, and sewage. Granted, elevated sewer lines would be pretty goofy.
WRT the trenching and servicing costs, the city did come through the neighborhood a couple of years ago to refurbish the sewer lines to support a vacuum sewage service. They replaced the traditional gravity pumped system and that meant trenching, doing whatever they did to the lines/valves, and then paving along the curb line down all of the streets. Whatever that fraction of the cost was that was spent on trenching and paving it wasn't too much to pay for, well, s*it.
So we'll pay for buried sewers but not for electrical service? Is it just (or largely) the cost of the cables, where elevated high voltage lines can be isolated (partly) by distance but a buried cable needs to withstand decades of burial with HV conductors in close proximity and in potentially waterlogged soil? The cost per foot of that cable grade is surely much higher than sewer pipe or the elevated HV service lines.
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA
K
krw
You're addicted to OPM.
"What? Me paranoid?"
And their own power source is going to do exactly???
K
krw
interrupts is vast.
storm,
trees do not damage the power lines.
You put your meters on 150' masts? Your meters are 150' tall?
J
Joerg
formatting link
Yo, Jim, still there? So was it RF in the end?
[...]
Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
C
Chieftain of the Carpet Crawlers
You should not post using this paradigm without following it with a MAD smiley face ascii art.
Hey man, like the 70's are over man. You cynic :-)
bunch of a*hole anyways.
power.
Never lost anything. We had a transformer go bad across the street, I got out my first generator (had to assemble it) got fuel and got all my freezers working. My wife and I went out to eat, two hours later my new generator failed. Luckily the transformer replacement was completed about 4 hrs later. The NEW generator was about 3 years old by the time I used it. I found an overheated winding in the generator stator. I removed it and wound a new one, varnished it and baked it in the oven while the wife was working :-). It worked fine after that, but I sold it and bought a Miller welder with an 11KW AC output. That reminds me, I need to run a load on that for an hour. Mikek
F
Fred Abse
Ever driven Lincoln Boulevard, in LA? They're all over.
I wouldn't go there at night, BTW.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
(Richard Feynman)
D
David Lesher
PG&E == Pacific Gas and Electric.....
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
M
Michael A. Terrell
I have Progress energy for electricity. It would be TECO, if we had natural gas available in this area. Otherwise, it's the propane dealer of choice, if you insist on gas for heat & cooking. I prefer an electric stove, and haven't used the gas furnace in over 10 years.
M
Michael A. Terrell
How long does it take them to find & repair damaged underground electric lines, VS overhead? Is there ever any flooding or heavy rain in your area? You can be without power for days or weeks longer, if the lines are underground. If the area has flooded, they can't even begin to restore power until all of the water has receded.
I
Ian Field
Some people don't have a choice, the flat where I live has no gas main and the landlord forbids any LPG appliances.
Recently in the UK a street was devastated by a gas explosion - that may have been intentional in the aftermath of a domestic violence incident, but houses being levelled by gas explosions isn't exactly rare!
They probably need to shift the emphasis from registered engineers safety checking gas appliances, to testing the fitness of doddering old fools to be using it!
J
Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:26:03 -0400) it happened "Michael A. Terrell" wrote in :
I think that is not correct.
Those cables are pretty much water proof. the only 'out' I have experienced is from workers accidently cutting a cable with digging machines. Do not forget cities like Amsterdam, and the surrounding areas are way below sea level, and somehow things keep working, also even with streets flooded[1]. It stops if the transformer houses flood, but then it is a mter high.. E'Trickcity is very reliable here. [1] Heavy rain, it sometimes happens.
T
Tim Williams
I heard they're considering elevated water or gas in Alaska or something, because the 'quakes keep cracking the buried mains. Like the oil pipeline up there, zig-zagging across the countryside on elevated pylons.
Gas, water, sewer and storm drains are also a low 'slower', i.e., if you get a leak, fine you get a leak and lose some water or whatever. This happens fairly frequently. Sometimes, the leaks wash away the soil in the process, and a sinkhole quickly forms, sucking in roadway, parked cars, even houses and city blocks. In contrast, a "leaky" electrical line turns into a short circuit rather quickly.
Of course, you're inviting a higher frequency of maintenance with airborn lines too, but since Jan doesn't actually live here, he doesn't know just how stable our power actually is. Outages are quite uncommon, with 99.9%+ uptime typical. Outages are usually seconds (really hard winds whipping power lines around; fuses self-reset) to hours (downed lines).
Probably.. far as I know, it's like multilayer coax, typically unbalanced because it's not RF. They might put a 10AWG solid inside a few layers of polyethylene or related stuff, wrap with a loose braiding of nickel plated wire, then wrapped over all with lead cladding. The casing is grounded to shunt leakage, but it doesn't carry neutral. My direct experience with this material is in public lighting, where a constant current transformer sends perhaps 10A at a few kV down a chain of lamps; if a lamp fails, it "antifuse" shorts (rather than going open like a traditional fuse), taking it out of circuit. Usual streetlamp drops about 240V each, and they put
10-20 in series down a couple city blocks. Different cities and circuits are wired differently, of course. The constant current transformer is an interesting, old design.
Tim
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms
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