
Con Ed can’t explain what caused the Manhattan blackout - neom
https://nypost.com/2019/07/14/con-ed-cant-explain-what-caused-the-manhattan-blackout/
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snowwindwaves
I had to determine why a single hydro electric generator kept on going off-
line last week. Turned out to be a temperature sensor in the generator gone
bad or high resistance connection in that circuit. Due to improper historical
logging of alarms, older protection relays, etc, it took a visit to the power
plant and a few hours of downloading and analyzing event files and correlating
signals with the schematics.

So a massive outage like NYC has just experienced will take weeks to collect
the event files and analyze them. Probably the time was wrong in some places
as well so it will be hard to figure out the exact sequence of events.

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anbop
Sounds like a cool job. What is the job title?

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snowwindwaves
electrical engineer or power station operator

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bgun
First sentence of the article "Con Ed has yet to figure out..." should be the
headline, but I'm sure the more dramatic version got more clicks.

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simtel20
At a prior job we had our data centers in the building in that neighborhood.
Because it had grown up with the computers down the hall and then down the
elevator it was hard to sell upper management on moving to a real data center.

What finally made the case was multiple summer power outages because con ed
couldn't tell us how much power was actually possible to be drawn in the
neighborhood. Between theaters turning up stage lights a couple of times a
day, companies with data centers etc. It turns out that con ed has just run
wires for a long time where requested without an overall tally of what the
peak draw could be. This event was predictable, and if con ed or the city
doesn't actually count the peak possible capacity going to each customer and
make sure it can provide that, power outages in that neighborhood will
continue to happen going forward.

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tyingq
_" the power is lowered to about 13,000 volts before being distributed to
homes and businesses"_

They've left off a bit of detail here :)

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usbseeker
What don't you get? Power goes in one end and out the other, doesn't seem too
complicated, thr problem was somewhere in the middle. Lmao

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Meerax
13000 volts to your home toaster is a bit of a problem don't you think?

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bad-joke
Not if you've installed Linux on it to run Folding@home!

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ozzmotik
hey look it's a case study of nominative determinism in action!

that being said, i approve

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Fjolsvith
Heard a theory that it was part of an attempt to get to Epstein to do him in,
because of all the people he could implicate.

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Fjolsvith
Meh. Its a numbers thing. 42nd Street, 42 years (to the day) since the last
big blackout, 42k people without power.

What else does the number 42 signify?

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alexkavon
How many roads must a man walk down? What is 6 x 7? How many Vogons does it
take to change a lightbulb? What's yellow and dangerous? [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy)

~~~
Fjolsvith
Who's the 42nd President?

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QuickToBan
What did Con Ed have to do to bring the power back? Or did they just "power
cycle" it?

Would Con Ed even be able to determine in case this was a cyber attack?

