Monday, August 25, 2003
The Blackout - a biological analogy
Steven Strogatz, professor of applied mathematics at Cornell and author of Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order writes an interesting op-ed in today's New York Times about the biological comparisons that can be drawn with the great blackout of 2003.
The blackout was not caused by an infectious electrical disease; it was caused by the grid's immune response to the threat of such a disease. In other words, the grid suffered a violent allergic reaction, a sort of anaphylactic shock. Just as the symptoms of a severe allergic reaction are caused not by the offending bee sting itself but by the overzealous response of the body's immune system to it, so the blackout was aggravated by the grid's attempt to defend itself, one power station at a time. Threatened by a torrent of electrical energy gone berserk, or overwhelmed by the sudden loads placed on it, each power plant in turn tripped its circuit breakers, detaching itself from the grid. Though this strategy achieved its desired aim — saving each plant's generator from being damaged — it was too myopic to serve the best interests of the grid as a whole.
I hate to go on and on about a goddamn power failure, but there have been some fascinating issues/stories that have been thrown up by the catastrophic nature of the failure, and its these stories I feel consistently like posting.
The blackout was not caused by an infectious electrical disease; it was caused by the grid's immune response to the threat of such a disease. In other words, the grid suffered a violent allergic reaction, a sort of anaphylactic shock. Just as the symptoms of a severe allergic reaction are caused not by the offending bee sting itself but by the overzealous response of the body's immune system to it, so the blackout was aggravated by the grid's attempt to defend itself, one power station at a time. Threatened by a torrent of electrical energy gone berserk, or overwhelmed by the sudden loads placed on it, each power plant in turn tripped its circuit breakers, detaching itself from the grid. Though this strategy achieved its desired aim — saving each plant's generator from being damaged — it was too myopic to serve the best interests of the grid as a whole.
I hate to go on and on about a goddamn power failure, but there have been some fascinating issues/stories that have been thrown up by the catastrophic nature of the failure, and its these stories I feel consistently like posting.
