[Windcatcher]

Here's what I don't get.

In 1977, the blackout covered the entire east coast--except Philly. In Philly we have a pair of jet engines directly connected to power turbines, FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF PROVIDING SEED POWER TO START OTHER SUBSTATIONS. They're reporting tonight that NYC has a lot of power generating capacity in Queens, but they can't use it until Queens itself has power.

HELLO?????

Is there a reason why ConEd hasn't clued in on PECO's solution in the last 26 years? Cut the breakers, fire up the jets, and get the other substations running again. It's gotten us immediately going again after an outage many times since 1977...

[BureaucratusMaximus]

In Philly we have a pair of jet engines directly connected to power turbines, FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF PROVIDING SEED POWER TO START OTHER SUBSTATIONS.

Very interesting! How many watts (or power for X number of homes) does this produce?

[meyer]

In 1977, the blackout covered the entire east coast--except Philly. In Philly we have a pair of jet engines directly connected to power turbines, FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF PROVIDING SEED POWER TO START OTHER SUBSTATIONS. They're reporting tonight that NYC has a lot of power generating capacity in Queens, but they can't use it until Queens itself has power.

They're called "black-start" generators and Cleveland had a couple of them as well. Its hard to say if they are still operational, since the parent company of the now defunct Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company sold both plants during the rush to deregulation. I wonder how many others are in this predicament.