[pttttt]

It's really hard to find any jargon-free and easy-to-understand explanation of how blackouts work - not talking about hacking, but how they work electrically and mechanically. This doesn't completely do it either, but maybe it's a start. While I don't know that Russia's power supply is as reliable as he says (after all, these are the folks who introduced the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to the world and to Ukraine), he does talk to some of the main points. The magazine also looks pretty good.

Here's one oversimplified non-expert scenario and analogy, the way I think I understand it, and I urge those who actually know what they're talking about to chime in: Turbine-driven generators (I could be wrong, but I think most utility electricity is generated by steam or hydro turbines turning generators) have to be matched to load. If you cut the load off from the generator, and thus the turbine, the turbine will want to spin faster, possibly destroying itself with mechanical stress. So you have to protect the turbine/generator from this by "tripping" it (cutting it off from the steam source and the load and braking it to a stop). And then you have to do something with all that steam or hydro head (maybe vent it, shut down the boiler, run the dam water through a bypass). Imagine a situation where you had a locomotive pulling a heavy train at some speed and then you suddenly decoupled the train cars from the engine - the engine would want to run away.

Load also varies all the time in the course of normal operations (also, since you want 60 Hz AC, I would think you wouldn't want the generator to turn at any speed different from 2*pi*60 radians/sec). That has to be managed without tripping the turbines. This is helped by having lots of power plants and transmission lines and good remote monitoring and control for mutual awareness so power plants can be brought on or off-line as needed. So this has to be networked to work the way we've come to expect in the industrialized world.

Have I got it so far?

Here are some other interesting websites:

http://www.nationalgridinfo.co.uk

http://eetd.lbl.gov

[camle]

who sez Russia has a reliable power grid????

I seem to recall not that far back when we almost had a missile exchange because the power went off in a russian missile silo and they thought it had been taken out.

not to mention that their demand is ten times less than ours...

[joesnuffy]

Many houses in America have 4 TVs on all the time...a couple of computers..a couple of sterors..big screen TVs..home theaters......a freezer...a refrigerator or two.....a microwave...air conditioners...electric stoves...etc etc...

[Voltage]

I see the trial lawyers are lining up to extract more money from the power suppliers. That should help!

Actually it will help them get the necessary cash to send to the Dems'.

[BradyLS]

We need Montgomery Scott in charge! 8-0 ;-) :-D

[_Jim]

How blackouts work?

How about an article describing how the infamous 1965 NorthEast Blackout came about - from the IEEE Spectrum circa 1965:

1965 IEEE Spectrum (.pdf, 0.4MB)