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...power lines to slacken. Trees near transmission lines are supposed to be pruned regularly - but this one hadn't been. When the line sagged too close to the tree, it faulted and tripped off-line. This is also something that happens pretty frequently on the U.S.'s massive electrical grid. But the breakdown of that line in northern Ohio began a cascade of failures that, in a little more than an hour, led to a near total power loss for more than 50 million people in the northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada. Full power wouldn't be restored...
Tracing the causes behind the 2003 blackout reveals just how unwieldy and vulnerable our electric grid has become. When that first transmission line in northern Ohio went off-line, it wiped out the redundancy and excess capacity built into the northeastern grid - and more things went wrong. First Energy, which was responsible for powering northern Ohio, should have detected the loss of that first line, but its energy management system wasn't working at the time (the company didn't know that). Higher up, the Midwest Independent System Operator's state estimator, which helps ensure reliability for several utility companies...
...until the lights went off in the First Energy control room itself that the utility realized the source and extent of the problem - but by that time the failure was out of control. As power lines shut off, electricity was channeled through an increasingly narrow part of the grid - until those lines automatically tripped off as well, to prevent damage from the unsafe levels of electrical current. The final result was midnight darkness in New York City's Times Square. "It required a number of things to go wrong on the same day," says Jeffrey Daigle, chief electrical engineer...
...year loan for the $64,500 system. Yes, his $550 loan payment is more than the $300 or so he used to spend each month on electricity bills--so far, he has generated enough solar power that he doesn't need to take any juice from the grid--but after he pays off the loan, his power will be free. And this year, he'll get a $16,000 rebate in the form of federal and state tax incentives for solar. "I really wouldn't have been able to do this without the financing," he says. "But with [the loan...
Game over? Not quite: Scrabulous' founding brothers, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, just launched Wordscraper, a build-your-own game that, coincidentally, uses a grid the same size as Scrabble's. If a Facebook player happens to make a board that's identical to Scrabble's--a feat that takes less than two minutes--well, it's a free world. Hasbro officials did not comment on the new application...