A WIRED WORLD North America is crisscrossed by thousands of power-transmission lines linking generators and cities in a complex web designed to send power where it is needed
THE LAKE ERIE LOOP Investigators now think the crisis started with the failure of several transmission lines near Lake Erie. The clockwise flow of power around the lake was very suddenly sucked backward, destabilizing the flow of electricity
How Electricity Is Supposed to Flow ...
1 --Power plant --Generator
Electricity starts at the power plant, produced by a spinning generator driven by various means: a hydroelectric dam, a large diesel engine, a gas turbine or a steam turbine. The steam is created by burning coal, oil or natural gas or by a nuclear reactor
2 --Transmission substation
At a transmission substation, large transformers increase the voltage from thousands to hundreds of thousands of volts so the power can be shipped long distances
3 --Power substation
The electricity travels along high-voltage lines to a power substation. There, the power can be redirected to other high-power lines or stepped down to a lower voltage that is sent to neighborhood power lines
... AND HOW ONE FAILURE CAN SPREAD 4 --High-voltage transmission lines
Power grids are a delicate balance between supply and demand in which sudden fluctuations can cause portions to fail. If, for example, a transmission line breaks, the system is designed to isolate the problem and disconnect it from the grid
5 --Transmission substation
In last week's case, control mechanisms computers, circuit breakers and switches failed to contain the problem quickly, causing rapid fluctuations at substations elsewhere in the grid, tripping more shutdown mechanisms
6 --Generator --Power plant
The problem spread fast back to generating plants that then were producing too much or too little electricity, causing more shutdowns. Eventually, the problem was contained, preventing a blackout that could have spread as widely as the entire eastern half of the U.S.
POWERFUL NUMBERS The biggest blackout in North American history set all sorts of records
50 million people in the U.S. and Canada affected
8 states and 2 Canadian provinces experienced power failures
3 deaths attributed to the blackout
22 U.S. and Canadian nuclear plants shut down
10 major airports shut down
700 flights canceled nationwide
850 arrests on the night of the blackout in New York City compared with 950 on a typical night)
23 cases of looting reported in Ottawa
7,600 gal. (29,000 liters) of drinking water distributed by the National Guard in Cleveland after the city's four main pumping stations failed
350,000 people on the New York City subway when the power went out. Nineteen trains were in underwater tunnels
Sources: North American Electric Reliability Council; Department of Energy; ESRI; AP; Philadelphia Inquirer; New York Times; How Stuff Works