As a result of the electrical power outage in the North east, the news reports that 9 Atomic power plants had to also shut down because "they had no place to send their electricity."

I had thought that power plants such as the atomic ones were self sustaining and provided power for a specific area. It sound like they are in series with the electrical power and not in parallel..

What good is atomic power if this is indeed the situation?? Why can't it work without the other.

Thanks in advance..

marc

PS Our prayers go to all those affected by this disastrous incident.

The plants are fine, it's the grid that crashed. With no grid, they have no place to send their power, so they too shut down. Just goes to show how fragile the system really is.

I used to think the same thing.
Back when the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant in New Jersey was in operation we found the all local power was purchased. Not one watt of our electrity came from that plant. Jersey Central Power and Light sold all that power to other cities and states.
But every time it went out of service our price of electicity went up to cover the cost of maintaining it.
Go figure.

marc, all power plants are tied to the Grid. Nuke plants are base load plants operating at 100% load. When the Grid crashes or a major load like a chemical plant trips there is no where for the power to go.
The Nuke plants turbine controls will try to "run-back" (basically reduce turbine load to match the grid) if this is successful the plant will not shutdown, if not successful the turbine will trip offline (disconnect from the grid). In our case at my plant if we have a turbine trip above 50% Reactor power the reactor will shutdown. As fast as the grid went down in the northeast I am sure they did not successfully run-back, resulting in a Reactor trip.

Iggy, I am sure it depends on where you live, all of our power from the plant I work at is used in South Carolina. We do sell excess power on the open market.

Jan

First of all, the nation's electricity grid wasn't designed for how it's presently being operated. Today, transmission lines are regularly exposed to excessive loading conditions, and system operators struggle with curtailing load flows during emergency conditions. This stems from the fact that electric utilities have suspended new line construction projects, cut back on maintenance budgets, and reduced workforce levels in response to utility deregulation. In fact, capacity margins on the system are at an all-time low. If things don't change, we could easily see more frequent blackouts.

Well Put.


Jan

Yes, well put by someone else - the editor in chief of Electrical Construction & Maintenance.
See link -
http://www.ecmweb.com/ar/electric_plunged_darkness/