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Originally posted by Razmear23
Now the question is what would happen in reality if this was done. Would the cable vaporize due to the extreme voltage or would they succeed in causing a major blackout? If it did succeed about how long would it take to reset the system to restore power? (for example the equivalent of flipping a circuit breaker or would more serious work need to be done once the short to ground was located?)
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Originally posted by waterdoctor
If you did this the protective relays would open and the line would go off line.
The steel cable would vaporize and spray molten steel all over.
I suggest that you research an outage that occurred on the western grid in the late 90's early 2000's. It blacked out most of the western US for a day.
Originally posted by Razmear23
The 550 KV (550,000 volt) lines are all DC current. If they were AC there would be no way to keep the cycles in synch over a distributed network.
Originally posted by peacejet
Originally posted by Razmear23
The 550 KV (550,000 volt) lines are all DC current. If they were AC there would be no way to keep the cycles in synch over a distributed network.
Power grids and distribution lines work on AC, not DC, because DC cannot be stepped up or down, though all the electronic devices work on DC, the conversion is done using the rectifier present in the electronic device itself.