Word: hydros
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...Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission operations center in suburban Toronto, a technician twisted a control handle to the right to raise the voltage. In the next three seconds, the $265 million 16-turbine Sir Adam Beck Generating Station No. 2 (see map) sent 1,600,000 kw. of power careering out of control through 80,000 sq. mi. of the northeastern U.S. and Canada. Thus, at 5:16 p.m. on Black Tuesday, began history's biggest power failure (TIME cover...
...fault of the technician. The disruption began, Ontario Hydro explained last week, when a backup relay -a breadbox-size fuse-blew on power line Q-29BW after Ontario had been requested by Syracuse to up the voltage. The blowout disconnected the line from service; when Q-29BW's load transferred automatically to four other trunk lines running westward out of Beck, they were knocked out as well. With no place to go, the peak-hour power buildup reversed its flow, cascaded eastward through two 230,000-volt tie lines across Niagara Gorge. In a wave that lasted only five...
...Ontario Hydro officials said that they could find no mechanical defect in Q-29BW's backup fuse. Then why did it blow? The question created a behind-the-scenes divergence between U.S. and Canadian power experts. Privately, American officials expressed doubts about the design of the backup relay system in service at the Beck plant. But Ontario Hydro officials claimed that its protective safeguards were comparable to those in use on U.S. high-voltage lines. Robert H. Hillery, Ontario Hydro's operations director, insisted that the disconnect-setting of Beck's backup fuses "was well above...
...trouble came at 5:16 p.m. Moving clockwise, millions of kilowatts of electricity were coursing through the vast network of cables to meet the early-evening needs of the Western Hemisphere's most heavily populated, most power-dependent region. In the humming central control room of the Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission, ink pens tracing the flow of power suddenly shuddered. At the Rochester Gas & Electric Corp. on the other side of Lake Ontario, the dials on a wall lurched out of control...
...capacity another 60% just to stay even with the country's ever-expanding, chronically power-starved markets. Next year, when two more generators go on line, Furnas alone will grow to 1,200,000 kw. (v. 1,974,000 kw. for Grand Coulee, the U.S.'s largest hydro operation...