nanog mailing list archives

Re: East Coast outage?


From: Chris Adams <cmadams () hiwaay net>
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 00:17:24 -0500


Once upon a time, Chris Lewis <clewis () nortelnetworks com> said:
Chris Adams wrote:
Basic physics.  To run DC at the power levels required, the "wire" would
have to be over 100 feet in diameter IIRC.  Look up the Edison vs. Tesla
power arguments for all kinds of information on AC vs. DC.

This was under the assumption that the transmission line was at the same 
voltage as the end-user, because there were no good DC-DC voltage 
converters in that day.  And a few bazillion amps at 120V needs a really 
fat wire.

To the many that (properly) corrected me: yes, this is what I was
thinking about (well, that and the server I was restoring at the time).
I wasn't aware that there are high voltage DC long-haul lines that then
are converted to AC for local distribution.

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams () hiwaay net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.


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