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Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
126
Good thing this did not happen on election day. Imagine Florida losing all its electrical votes! :laugh:
 

Alistar7

Lifer
May 13, 2002
11,983
0
0
Originally posted by: Rubycon
Good thing this did not happen on election day. Imagine Florida losing all its electrical votes! :laugh:

I thought Florida lost their right to vote after 2000.
 

Mr Pickles

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2006
4,104
1
0
Have no fear everyone. I'm reporting in safe and sound. Tampa\St. Pete was not affected. I'll be OK.
 

JohnCU

Banned
Dec 9, 2000
16,530
4
0
What apparently happened is what we call a LOOP = loss of offsite power. Nuclear plants have to have a reliable means of power, incase the reactor goes down and power is needed to take care of things like reactor core cooling pumps, etc. One source of offsite power is diesel generators BUT if you lose the grid, you shutdown the reactor automatically because even though you still may be producing power, you have no outside power should you have an accident and need it (although you have the diesels but it's best to be safe).

should add you also have batteries for backup power also but still required to shutdown in the event you lose the grid.
 

JohnCU

Banned
Dec 9, 2000
16,530
4
0
Originally posted by: BrownTown
Originally posted by: Xavier434
btw, the reason for the outage was determined to be a Nuclear Power plant in South Miami being shut down for safety reasons. We do not know what those reasons are.

That seems pretty unlikely unless the utility down there is idiotic, utilities are required to ave spinning reserve equal to their largest unit. Nuclear plants and coal plants shut down every down on a daily basis and don't cause blackouts unless someone REALLY REALLY screwed up. Especially not with this weather, maybe on a 105 degree day in the summer, but the load right now shouldn't be stressing anyone.

nuclear plants don't shut down unless they have to, they are base load and unless something is really messed up you don't shutdown (on purpose or if you have to refuel). we lose $1 million~ a day/unit when we are shutdown.
 

aphex

Moderator<br>All Things Apple
Moderator
Jul 19, 2001
38,572
2
91
Originally posted by: Rubycon
Good thing this did not happen on election day. Imagine Florida losing all its electrical votes! :laugh:

Well thank god tampa didn't get hit too hard with it, were all here taking the bar exam right now :(

I can imagine it now, middle of a convention center with 4,000 other people taking the worst exam of our lives and the lights go out ;)
 

invidia

Platinum Member
Oct 8, 2006
2,151
1
0
I'm in Broward county and didn't even know there was a massive power outage. Internet just went down for 15 minutes today and nothing else happened. I almost went completely insane during that 15 minutes.
 

MmmSkyscraper

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2004
9,475
1
76
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Nah, everyone knows that old people don't fuck.

That's what you tell yourself to block out the horrible images. It'll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night... mostly.
 

BrownTown

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
5,314
1
0
Originally posted by: JohnCU
Originally posted by: BrownTown
Originally posted by: Xavier434
btw, the reason for the outage was determined to be a Nuclear Power plant in South Miami being shut down for safety reasons. We do not know what those reasons are.

That seems pretty unlikely unless the utility down there is idiotic, utilities are required to ave spinning reserve equal to their largest unit. Nuclear plants and coal plants shut down every down on a daily basis and don't cause blackouts unless someone REALLY REALLY screwed up. Especially not with this weather, maybe on a 105 degree day in the summer, but the load right now shouldn't be stressing anyone.

nuclear plants don't shut down unless they have to, they are base load and unless something is really messed up you don't shutdown (on purpose or if you have to refuel). we lose $1 million~ a day/unit when we are shutdown.

yeah, but when you add 103 nuclear units and 1000 large coal units there is always a couple that will be crapping out that day. My point is simply that some big utility somewhere in the country is having a 1000MW unit trip offline every day, this summer working for TVA it happened at least 5 times between the nuclear units and largest coal units, I think Brown's Ferry 1 SCRAMed 3 times last summer (maybe 2). Although having said that, obviously it WASN'T the nuclear plant that was the problem, it was the problem that shut the nuclear plant down, so its not FPL screwing up their reserve margins, its just a bad storm knocking down some powerlines or someting and one of them was close enough to the nuclear plant to trip the unit off. Thats another thing that happens pretty often, 2 summers ago working for TVA all 10 units at Johnsonville Coal plant were tripped offline from a ground fault on a transformer, just part of "shit happens", but usually losing millions of customers is not the result unless the shit really hit the fan.
 

Dedpuhl

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
10,371
0
76
I have and never lost power at work (North Palm Bay). If I don't have power when I get home (South Palm Bay), I'll be heading back to work...

 

JohnCU

Banned
Dec 9, 2000
16,530
4
0
Originally posted by: BrownTown
Originally posted by: JohnCU
Originally posted by: BrownTown
Originally posted by: Xavier434
btw, the reason for the outage was determined to be a Nuclear Power plant in South Miami being shut down for safety reasons. We do not know what those reasons are.

That seems pretty unlikely unless the utility down there is idiotic, utilities are required to ave spinning reserve equal to their largest unit. Nuclear plants and coal plants shut down every down on a daily basis and don't cause blackouts unless someone REALLY REALLY screwed up. Especially not with this weather, maybe on a 105 degree day in the summer, but the load right now shouldn't be stressing anyone.

nuclear plants don't shut down unless they have to, they are base load and unless something is really messed up you don't shutdown (on purpose or if you have to refuel). we lose $1 million~ a day/unit when we are shutdown.

yeah, but when you add 103 nuclear units and 1000 large coal units there is always a couple that will be crapping out that day. My point is simply that some big utility somewhere in the country is having a 1000MW unit trip offline every day, this summer working for TVA it happened at least 5 times between the nuclear units and largest coal units, I think Brown's Ferry 1 SCRAMed 3 times last summer (maybe 2). Although having said that, obviously it WASN'T the nuclear plant that was the problem, it was the problem that shut the nuclear plant down, so its not FPL screwing up their reserve margins, its just a bad storm knocking down some powerlines or someting and one of them was close enough to the nuclear plant to trip the unit off. Thats another thing that happens pretty often, 2 summers ago working for TVA all 10 units at Johnsonville Coal plant were tripped offline from a ground fault on a transformer, just part of "shit happens", but usually losing millions of customers is not the result unless the shit really hit the fan.

true, but shutting down a coal plant and starting back up is nothing. nuclear is totally different, which you probably know but just stating for the others ;)
 

JohnCU

Banned
Dec 9, 2000
16,530
4
0
stupid fucking media trying to sensationalize the story "OMG REACTOR FAILED! MASSIVE OUTAGES!"

the reactor did what it was supposed to do.
 

overst33r

Diamond Member
Oct 3, 2004
5,762
12
81
Yeah I was in class when it happened. All of USF was without power for a while.
 

bamacre

Lifer
Jul 1, 2004
21,030
2
61
Originally posted by: allisolm
This is what the storms did in Tallahasse late this morning. next door to me

I live immediately to the right of this pic. The dirt/root chunk is 6 ft tall. Had 2 firetrucks, utility co. and tv news. My power and internet is fine. Hers next door, not so much. You can see her power line at the right of the pic going down under the tree.

I saw a lot of that in Memphis from a wind storm we had one night. In fact, I saw that pic on the host site and thought it was from a house I drove by on my way to work that next morning.

Edit: This storm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...s_Summer_Storm_of_2003
 

BrownTown

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
5,314
1
0
Originally posted by: JohnCU
true, but shutting down a coal plant and starting back up is nothing. nuclear is totally different, which you probably know but just stating for the others ;)

yeah, i was just stating that suddenly turning off a 1GW unit is bad no matter what type of unit it is, but at the same time there should be >1GW in spinning reserve to meet the demand. Like from working at TVA if one of their nuclear units craps out at a low demand time they will temporarilly turn Racoon Mountain (pumped storage plant) up to 1600MW and then ramp up the expensive coal units (like Kingston and Johnsonville) to meet the demand. At a higher demand time they would turn on ~20 combustion turbines to meet the demand.
 

mrSHEiK124

Lifer
Mar 6, 2004
11,491
2
0
Originally posted by: mariok2006
Yeah I was in class when it happened. All of USF was without power for a while.

My roommate told me it was surreal, everyone just huddled around the library :p

Originally posted by: aphex
Originally posted by: Rubycon
Good thing this did not happen on election day. Imagine Florida losing all its electrical votes! :laugh:

Well thank god tampa didn't get hit too hard with it, were all here taking the bar exam right now :(

I can imagine it now, middle of a convention center with 4,000 other people taking the worst exam of our lives and the lights go out ;)

The outage on Fletcher Ave. and on the entire USF Tampa campus was (apparently) caused by a car accident on Fletcher. Heard it from friends.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
49,606
166
111
www.slatebrookfarm.com
Originally posted by: lozina
Although one of my friends just called me from there says his power is back on now. was out for about 45 minutes

anyone in the Northeast remember that big blackout a couple years ago? Man that was a mess... you really take those electrons for granted until they stop flowing

The electrons "flow" in alternating current? I thought they just wiggled back and forth. :p
 

JohnCU

Banned
Dec 9, 2000
16,530
4
0
Originally posted by: DrPizza
Originally posted by: lozina
Although one of my friends just called me from there says his power is back on now. was out for about 45 minutes

anyone in the Northeast remember that big blackout a couple years ago? Man that was a mess... you really take those electrons for granted until they stop flowing

The electrons "flow" in alternating current? I thought they just wiggled back and forth. :p

slowly ;)