[newsclips]
Keeping Current BY MEGAN MCKOY-NOE, CCC Just as watches sometimes run fast or slow and must be adjusted, older electric clocks use the electrical current’s frequency to stay accurate. To make this work, the electric grid’s frequency must be regularly corrected for “time errors” — in essence, steps taken at power plants help older electric clocks tick properly. However, in mid-July, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the nation’s power grid watchdog, started a yearlong field test to discover if time error corrections or TEC, which have been performed since 1930, actually hurt electric system reliability. “To keep electricity flowing smoothly, we must maintain a stable frequency level,” explains Ken Anderson, executive vice president and general manager of Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which generates electricity for 18 of Colorado’s 22 electric co-ops. The electric grid runs in something called cycles, or hertz — 60 cycles per second. That standard is used to match the 60 seconds per minute that keeps time. Older electric clocks depend on that standard to remain accurate. Newer clocks have chips and other electronics in them that stay accurate independent of the 60-Hz standard. “To adjust for fast time errors, the frequency is lowered
SPOTLIGHT ON LIGHTING Consumers with questions about the new lighting standards for lightbulbs can find answers at www. energysavers.gov/lighting, a new website launched by the Department of Energy. The site provides information about using lumens instead of watts when shopping for incandescent bulbs, compact fluorescent bulbs and light emitting diodes or LED lights. “Lumens let you buy the amount of light you want,” the site says. ColoradoCountryLife.coop 12 October 2011
slightly from 60 Hz to 59.98 Hz,” explains Anderson. “The concern is that during a time adjustment, which can take several hours, the frequency is already below normal. If a problem during that time drives frequency levels even lower, it could trigger emergency load-shedding measures.” The NERC field trial will suspend time corrections in favor of stabilizing the grid’s frequency. As a side effect, older alarm clocks and some appliance clocks may lose track of time a few seconds a day. By July 2012, it’s possible an affected clock could run up to 20 minutes fast in the East unless the owner corrects the time manually. Since the electric grid operates in three sections, other areas of the country may see a different impact. Clocks in the west may only run up to eight minutes fast, while clocks in Texas won’t run more than two minutes over. Members can check the official time at www.time.gov. Since most newer appliances and clocks no longer rely on electric current to keep time, it’s unclear how or if the experiment will impact members. NERC has a plan in place to resume TEC if a reliability issue develops. Colorado’s electric co-ops will continue to monitor the trial closely.
READERS’ RESPONSE TO QUESTION ON NUCLEAR POWER’S FUTURE LAST MONTH COLORADO COUNTRY LIFE ASKED readers: Do you approve of using nuclear energy to generate electricity? A total of 61 percent of those who responded said yes; 39 percent said no. Many of those who answered felt strongly about nuclear power. Here are a couple examples. I do not approve of using nuclear energy to generate electricity. There is no such thing as the safe use of nuclear energy as witnessed by Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the disaster that occurred after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The recent earthquake in Virginia exceeded the plant’s design by 14 percent. Fortunately no significant damage occurred, but we were lucky this time. Next time we may not be as lucky. In addition, there is the difficulty of safely storing spent fuel for an extremely long time. Other alternative sources need to be developed as quickly as possible. — Pat Carey, Bellvue
We need to build a couple of these (nuclear plants) in Colorado, preferably newer Generation IV designs with improved safety and higher fuel utilization so they generate less spent nuclear fuel. We know how to store the spent fuel safely, but the real solution is to reuse it; it still has 95 percent of the potential of brand-new fuel. There are new methods of reprocessing it safely. Or you can reuse it with trivial mechanical processing in a Canadian-style heavy water reactor via the DUPIC process or develop liquid fluoride thorium reactors that run on abundant thorium and can burn all of our “nuclear waste.” I am not a NIMBY; I would be happy to have a nuclear plant, reprocessing plant and spent fuel storage literally in my back yard. — Brian Hall, former U.S. Navy reactor operator, Peyton