Pretty much. Except the law of large numbers breaks down in correlated events.
Like a black out.
What really hurts is are all the rotating machines, especially the one-phase ones (fridge, AC, blower). Those have transients that last several cycles and are electrical shorts until the back emf is setup.
Utilities will try to roll the power back on in sections to avoid instability, starting with hospitals and those near hydro plants.
But you can help put by turning off your stuff during the blackout and when the light come back on walking around the house to turn them back on.
The loads are slowing down the generators that are burning a well metered amount of fuel to stay at 60Hz. This is a delicate balance since the phase angle must also be spot on.
If a generator and the local line disagree on f, phase or V, you have a short circuit.
If you lose a large amount of load, your generator will spin up with the excess fuel until the control system re-establishes the right amount of fuel.
But now your generators are out of sync! No worry, for small disturbances the dissipative losses sync everything up like syncros on a manual transmission.
But the disturance cant be too big!
Rotating machines are big and heavy, so the first line of defense is their inertia. But this is a finite (and precious) resource.
Contrary to belief, renewables, or generally speaking DC, makes things this stability problem worse. They generate large amounts of power while providing no inertia.
You'd think it isn't a big deal since the DC-AC converter can just synthesize whatever is needed. Heck just keep it rigid at 60 Hz with no phase change.
Well the later doesn't work - the rest of the grid is no longer at that phase and frequency so you got yourself a short.
Furthermore, the DC-AC converter, despite their manufacturers' promise, has no good way to establish what f and phase it should be at during a disturbance (and these magic codes are closed source, believe it or not)
Anywho, a large enough loss of load causes the grid to enters into unstable oscillations, causing protective relays to trip causing a zipper effect where the grid goes down.
Now restart will take a few days depending on the energy mix (fastest for hydro heavy)
Long story short - this is not a trivial problem, and the data-centers can't be allowed to just dump load willy nilly.
EDIT: made it clear that the grid killing disturbance is not caused by renewables; not exclusively anyway. Everyone has to play nice or the grid goes down.
If you're large enough your connection to the grid is a negotiation with an engineering team.
The utility will force you to put equipment to correct for power factor (massive capacitor bank), resistive load, etc.
The utility also charges commercial users for apparent power (includes reactive power, or that sloshes around setting up a steady state), as opposed to just real power charged to residential users.
EDIT: in case your wondering, yes resistor loads is just glorified bunch of short circuits and a fan.
You spewed BS about the Soyuz, which isn't part of the ISS.
Well if minor Soyuz problems are in play, I raise you two Shuttle disintegrations and a Boeing craft since the last fatal Soyuz accident in 1971.
You know instead of throwing "Russian troll darts" try practicing "strategic empathy", instead of letting your emotions blind you about engineering principles. Sone pointers:
- Space is hard.
- The Russians are good at it.
- So are we.
- The Russians are better at keeping people alive in space.
- We're better at sensors and materials.
- Historically Russian launches are cheaper (thats changed)
- Historically we've had money to launch more (that's changed)
Kindest Regards,
American materials engineer (guess who I work for)
Other than your sanctimonious tone, did you have a point?
And your sanctimonious attitude is wrong. This isn't about morality. It's literally about economic devastation being caused by VC's using the violence of the state to eminent domain houses to make right away for power lines, inctease power prices, etc.
Of course, you don't believe corporate socialism is wrong, you just call it free market capitalism. Well go read Rothbard.
Well, let's use discernment. Let's also add NH3 plants since those are also electricity hogs.
1. There's no VC distorted market building hundreds of them. At most two Al or NH3 will ever be built again in this country.
2. We need Al and NH3 in a way that we dont need data centers. Most of the protein in your body comes from synthetic NH3. Al has slashed CO2 emissions in industry.
There's a Middle Eastern fertilizer and Al crisis that's going to devastate our economies. Al and NH3 should have been on-shored 20 years ago.
3. Its already impossible to build NH3 or Al plants in NY due to other regulatory laws that target Al and NH3.
So, NY state in its (/s) infinite wisdom (/s) has realized that New Yorkers need to eat more than it needs to feed a surveillance state.
My dad's first job as an ECE was getting power for an Al smelter. Im quite aware of Al smelters.
I chose it as an example because they're crazy power hungry. The other classical examples of high electrical use are NH3 fertilizer plants.
But! We're not building hundreds of Al smelters all across the country. Nor are we building hundreds of NH3 plants.
We should be, seeing how a significant amount of our Al and NH3 is locked in the ME, but alas; we've decided to keep a structural, supply-side inflation that will devastate any family making less than $400k rather than divert capital from the surveillance state and chat bots.
At most, there's a market for two Al and NH3 plants in the country potentially employing thousands of lower middle class folks.