[32733] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE[2]: California power - its cold, its dark
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joe McGuckin)
Fri Dec 8 02:29:27 2000
From: Joe McGuckin <joe@monk.via.net>
Message-Id: <200012080728.eB87Sog94228@monk.via.net>
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 23:28:50 -0800 (PST)
To: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <9DC8BBAD4FF100408FC7D18D1F0922869AA4@condor.mhsc.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
Roeland,
I think you're confusing the California Aqueduct with the "Los Angeles
Aqueduct". The LA Aqueduct's (designed by William Mullholland,
constructed 1907-1913) gravity-flow contruction requires no pumps.
It diverts eastern Sierra mountain streams from the Owens Valley and
Mono Lake basin to reservoirs in the metro Los Angeles area.
Joe
Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the links guys. Now, here's the summary.
>
> 1) California power load is still 10,000 MW below peak delivery of last
> Summer.
> 2) Slightly over 1/3 of the generation plants are down for "maintenance".
> 3) There was an unplanned 500 KW outage, which was compensated for by
> shuting down the pumps of the California Aquaduct sytem temporarily.
>
> 1) Blame is being placed on the early and extra cold winter. However, a
> quick perusal of the Farmers Almanac shows that this is expected and no
> surprise, or shouldn't be.
> 2) The REAL blame probably rests on the head of the yahoo that allowed so
> many plants to go on scheduled maintenance at the same time.
> 3) Shutting down the aquaduct is real bad. Some of Bill Mullholland's design
> depends on siphon effect and if the siphon breaks it takes weeks of massive
> power usage in order to resore it. Ergo, they can't shut it down too long or
> it'll cost too much power to bring it back up. Leaving it down isn't an
> option, too many people depend on that water.
>
> It's looking more like a management screw-up and more people are begining to
> realize it. The deregulators were so busy deregulating that future usage
> planning was foregone. Forcing the local utilities to sell off their
> generators may not have been very smart either. Current power capacity
> scheduling was also bungled. The timing can only be either gross
> incompetance or Machiavallien cunning.
>
> Thank you all for the additional links. I was actually researching this
> since a few days ago. Some of us are preparing grounds for suit,
> independently, in the event that they start long rolling black-outs. We have
> six-hours worth of bats, so we should be okay. But, our clients don't.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Nathan Stratton [mailto:nathan@robotics.net]
> > Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 7:47 PM
> > To: Sean Donelan
> > Cc: nanog@merit.edu
> > Subject: Re: California power - its cold, its dark
> >
> >
> >
> > On 7 Dec 2000, Sean Donelan wrote:
> >
> > > Approximately one-third of California's power generating capacitiy
> > > is off-line. The California system operator has called a "stage 3"
> > > power alert, requiring *interruptiable* customers be interrupted
> > > until 10pm tonight. They are not instituting rotating blackouts
> > > of other customers at this time.
> >
> > Any word on the cause of the outage, did several reactors scram at the
> > same time or is this a transmission issue?
> >
> > ><>
> > Nathan Stratton CTO, Exario
> > Networks, Inc.
> > nathan@robotics.net nathan@exario.net
> > http://www.robotics.net http://www.exario.net
> >
> >
--
Joe McGuckin
ViaNet Communications
994 San Antonio Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Phone: 650-969-2203
Cell: 650-207-0372
Fax: 650-969-2124