[60773] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: East Coast outage?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Iljitsch van Beijnum)
Fri Aug 15 18:30:59 2003
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 00:25:14 +0200
Cc: nanog list <nanog@merit.edu>
To: alex@yuriev.com
From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch@muada.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10308151752530.1563-100000@s1.yuriev.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On vrijdag, aug 15, 2003, at 23:58 Europe/Amsterdam, alex@yuriev.com
wrote:
> Amount of energy generated must be balanced with the amount of energy
> used
> at any time. Otherwise Bad Things (tm) will happen. The shutown of the
> grid is a very good thing compared to what it would have been had it
> not
> shutdown.
It seems to me that the power guys are still living somewhere in the
last century. Is it really impossible to absorb power spikes? We can go
from utility to battery or the other way around in milliseconds, so it
should be possible to activate something that can absorb a short spike
much the same way. Balancing intermediate-term generation/usage
mismatches should be possible by simply communicating with users. There
is lots of stuff out there that switches on and off periodically (all
kinds of cooling systems, battery charging, lights), so let it switch
on or off for a few minutes when the power network needs it to.
I think the idea that the power should be always present and always
reliable is actually harmful, as it doesn't provide for any "congestion
contnrol" by bringing the users into the loop.
