Word: kv
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...blueprint, perfected by the Southwest experience, is now being adapted to the Northern Plains. One of the first of many projects is an 800 kilovolt (kv) transmission line from Underwood, North Dakota, to Delano, Minnesota, linking into the Midcontinental Area Power Pool, a grid system of public and privately-owned utilities and members of the National Electrical Reliability Council. From Underwood the line is direct current; at Delano it is converted into three separate 345 kv alternating current lines and fed into the power grid...
...Cooperative Power Association began projecting costs in the early 70s, they claimed that the low-grade lignite mined in North Dakota would be cheap enough to make up for the $220 million more it would cost to build the plant in North Dakota and to construct the 800 kv line. Once that decision was made, the cost of lignite quadrupled...
...kv line is the largest so far in North America, but others in the planning will pass from Canada to South Dakota and will be even larger. Over such long distances, the power lines lose half of their electricity, which permeates the environment. Studies in Sweden and the USSR have detected decreased crop yields and incidences of nausea, dulled reflexes and sterility, among other side effects, in the people in the vicinity of the lines. United States studies point to similar health hazards. On the other hand, government-contracted research done by the Bonneville Power Association (a federal corporate agency...
Before that happens, people who live along the existing 765-kv. lines feel that a few problems should be worked out. The main one is that the high-voltage alternating current sets up a powerful electromagnetic field that induces voltages and currents in any electrical conductor-generally metallic objects-within about 200 ft. of the lines. In addition, the field ionizes the air (ordinarily a good insulator) surrounding the lines, turning it into a fairly good conductor of electricity. That allows some of the current in the lines to leak off, creating a blue glow around the wires. This happens...
While all this is annoying, there is apparently another, even more remarkable effect of the 765-kv. lines. Says Ruggles: "I've noticed that corn won't mature under the line. The ears come out, but they won't mature, and you have to chop them up for silage." In her recent book on the subject, Power Over People (Oxford University Press; $7.50), Physicist Louise B. Young gives one possible reason: the discharge of high voltages into the air can produce ozone, a form of oxygen with three (rather than two) atoms in its molecular makeup...