Oglethorpe IEEE-PES/AEI Course


Plain Talk about the Electric Power System for the Non-Power Engineering Professional

23 - 25 January 2007
Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Tucker, GA

Sponsored by the IEEE Power Engineering Society and the American Education Institute (link to course home page)

To see how much electricity Californians are using right now, click here
Now have a look at Stanford's Jasper Ridge Sun Field Station
For the rest of the country, go to Current Energy


Advanced Transmission Technologies (pdf, ppt)
Paul M. Grant
W2AGZ Technologies
(Introduction by T. R. Schneider)
(pdf, ppt)

Links to Local Bookmarks on This Page
Course Background Material
Recent PMG Stuff (including SuperGrid SciAm article)
Listen to some SuperTunes!


Background Material

  History of Electricity in the United States

"Bottled Lightening," Phil Schewe's Forthcoming Book [Published in 2007 as "The Grid," by Joseph Henry Press, ISBN-13:978-0-309-10260-5]

"Plugged Into the Grid," Nature 447, 145 (2007) [Paul Grant's review of Phil Schewe's "The Grid," published in Nature, May 2007]

"Most Electrified City," Phil Schewe's Chapter on Samuel Insull and ComEd

Commonwealth Edison's Page on Samuel Insull, the Inventor of the Electric Utility

Transmission Policy (FERC, DOE and PEST)

Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group [The infamous "semi-secret" Cheney report.]

National Transmission Grid Study [Commissioned by Jimmy Glotfelty when he was policy advisor to SecEn Abraham and led to the formation of the Office of Electricity, etc.]

National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETC) [Sanctioned by the Energy Act of 2005.  Here is an article in Platts T&D by Steve Conant discussing its implications.]

National Electric Transmission Congestion Study (2006) [First study conducted on congested transmission corridors prior to their possible designation as NIETCs by the Secretary of Energy and subsequent acquisition by eminent domain under FERC's interstate commerce authority.]

Power Engineers Supporting Truth  [An independent group of power system engineers dedicated to providing "expert and unbiased" appraisals of FERC and DOE policy studies and actions.]


"EE 101"

What is Reactive Power? (Sauer)

ac Voltage Collapse (Sauer - Animation)

dc Voltage Collapse (Sauer - Animation)

Superconductivity 101 - Lecture Given 1999 to IEEE-ICC Charlotte   [This is an elementary lecture historically based, to an IEEE-ICC meeting, slightly before the SuperGrid Vision put forward by Chauncey Starr and myself.]

IEEE Superconductivity Introductory Lecture, 1998  [Superconductivity for Beginners.]

EPRI Electricity Technology Roadmap


Power Electronics, FACTS & New Materials

"Advancing the Application of Power Electronics to the Electric Power Infrastructure," Stig Nilsson [Tribute to Nari Hingorani, Franklin Institute, 27 April 2006]

"High Power Electronics," Hingorani & Stahlkopf, SciAm November 1993

EPRI UPS Substation Concept

TRS "Brilliant Grid" Presentation

TRS WPU 2005 Presentation on Policy and the Laws of Physics

Sagometer [A clever laser-based method to measure droop of an overhead transmission line arising from overheating and thermal expansion...a EPRI achievement.]
Aluminum Matrix Composite Conductor Technology  [A 3M reinforced overhead line conductor that can be tensioned between towers to such an extent that three times the amount of power (current) can be carried before reaching the thermal sag limit.]

American Superconductor "Semiconductor" D-Var for Wind Farms and Solar

 Hydrogen

"Hydrogen Takes Off...with a Heavy Load," P. M. Grant, Nature, July 2003  [An estimate of the prodigious amount of electrical energy it would take to put Americans on "water wheels.]

"20 Hydrogen Myths," Amory Lovins (an iconoclastic essay on hydrogen-phobias)

"Hydrogen Gas Stations," Jane Ogden, DOE Report, April 2003

EPRI: The Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle (2005)

CalCars PHEV Web Site

EDrive - Making the Prius into a PHEV

The Need for Nuclear Power
[Published in 2000 in the prestigious policy journal, Foreign Affairs, Richard Rhodes (author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun) and Denis Beller, a nuclear engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory0, The Need for Nuclear Power is a thoughtful argument that nuclear power must be a major component of world electricity supply in the 21st century.]

Megawatts and Megatons
[A Nature book review of Richard Garwin's and Georges Charpak's treatise on the trade-offs between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.  Garwin is one of the original designers of the hydrogen bomb and Charpak, a Nobel Laureate, is a strong advocate for nuclear power and a vigorous opponent of weapons development.]

An Ancient Nuclear Reactor
[Two billion years ago, in the region of West Africa today known as Oklo in Gabon, water seeped into an uranium ore deposit unusually in the radioactive isotope U-235 and slowed its naturally fast neutron decay sufficiently to produce a fission reaction and thus "nuclear power" and plutonium!  So plutonium is, after all, a "natural" element.]

David Bodansky's Talk at APS at APS #100
[Talk at the 100th Anniversary Meeting of the American Physical Society in 1999 by the author of the most widely used textbook on nuclear power engineering.  Good source on numbers in the nuclear power industry and issues with recycling and disposal.]

David Bodansky's Paper from APS #100
[Very thoughtful and based on the above talk. Although Bodansky is a prominent advocate of nuclear power and its almost limitless resources, he speculates whether "really cheap energy" would spark an even larger exponential growth in population.]

PMG's Backdoor Page for the 2006 Applied Superconductivity Conference  [This web page contains an exhaustive bibliography and anthology on superconductivity history and physics and power applications]
DOE Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability - Superconductivity Program [Home page of the DOE program in power applications of superconductivity.  In need of updating.]
Superconductivity Technology Center at LANL [Home page at Los Alamos, with detail on their coated conducting program and links to other sites.]
American Superconductor Home Page  [Largest US manufacturer of HTSC wire and custom power devices]
Superpower Home Page  [Primary product, Gen 2 HTSC wire and power cables]
Superconductivity for Electric Systems 2006 Annual Peer Review  [Link to the latest DOE Office of Electricity superconductivity program content, containing downloadable pdfs of several talks.  This is the most comprehensive and up to date source on all US power applications of superconductivity.]
Basic Research Needs for Superconductivity  [Report of the May, 2005 DOE-BES workshop to outline a possible new program in basic superconductivity.  This report is excellently written and could serve as an introduction to superconductivity for electrical engineers.]
Navigant Report: High Temperature Superconductivity Market Readiness Review  [DOE commissioned report on current state of HTSC technology and when market penetration is likely to occur and where.]
SuperGrid White Paper [A slick brochure handout describing the project]
SuperGrid Functional Characteristics [Describes the overall technical specifications for two embodiments, 1) SuperSuburb, loosely based on the electricity and transportation requirements of a Silicon Valley community such as San Jose, and 2) SuperTie, a 10 GW bi-directions cross-continental SuperCable to effect diurnal trading between California and an Atlantic Seaboard "California Equivalent."]
SuperGrid Executive Presentation [A massive PowerPoint file (11 MB) for use by EPRI executives and members.  It contains material from just about every SuperGrid talk I've given over the past 5 years]
EPRI Program 122: Power Delivery Applications for Superconductivity  [Web site for the non-SuperGrid EPRI superconductivity program involving SMES, FCL and system impact projects.]

Recent PMG Stuff

PMG Recent Technical Papers - Peer Reviewed

"The SuperCable: Dual Delivery of Hydrogen and Electric Power," Paul M. Grant, Power Systems Conference and Exposition,2004,IEEE PES,PSCE04 Panel Session on Future Power Delivery Options for Long-Term Energy Sustainability, 10-13 October 2004, New York, Pages 1745 - 1749, Vol. 3, Digital Object Identifier 10.1099/PSCE.2004.1397675 (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org).  [Original SuperCable paper concentrating on physical dimensions and losses.]

"The SuperCable: Dual Delivery of Chemical and Electrical Power," Paul M. Grant, IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. 15, 1810 (2005).  [The general design of a dual-purpose cable to deliver electricity via superconductivity and chemical potential power via cryogenic hydrogen or natural gas is presented.  A universal dimensionless scaling parameter for sizing each type of power is defined.]
"Cryo-Delivery Systems for the Co-Transmission of Chemical and Electrical Power," Paul M. Grant, Adv. Cryo. Eng.  (appearing).  [Emphasis on the delivery of cryofuel in the form of liquid hydrogen or supercritical hydrogen gas at 77 K or as LNG along with wellhead generated electricity.]
"Superconductivity and Electric Power:  Promises, Promises...Past, Present and Future," P. M. Grant, IEEE Trans. Appl. Super. 7, 112 (1997).  [Although not "recent," many of the observations and conclusions are still valid. Based on a Plenary Lecture at the 1996 Applied Superconductivity Conference held in Pittsburg. An in your face review of where power applications have been, were at in 1997, and where they might be going.  Contains a description of the "electricity pipe" concept of Grant, Schoenung and Hassenzahl]

 

PMG Recent Popular Articles

"Nuclear Energy's Contribution to the City of the Future," P. M. Grant, Nuclear Future, Vol. 1, No. 1, p.17 (2005).  [Lead-off article in the inaugural issue of the trade journal of the British Nuclear Industry, just before the second article by El-Baradei!]
"A Power Grid for the Hydrogen Economy," P. M. Grant, C. Starr and T. J. Overbye, Scientific American, July 2006, p.76.  [Explores the vision of cryogenic, superconducting conduits connected into a SuperGrid that would simultaneously deliver electrical power and hydrogen fuel.]

 

PMG Recent Popular Talks

"SuperCities and SuperGrids: Teratechnologies for an Exajoule World," P. M. Grant, Ohlone Community College Brown Bag Science Seminar, 7 April 2006 (Invited).  [A popular talk on the nuclear, hydrogen and superconductivity vision, the basis for an article in the July, 2006 issue of Scientific American.  This page contains links to a wide variety of energy-related publications and web sites for students majoring in energy and environmental sciences.]

"View from Electric Power Industry as a Whole," P. M. Grant,AFOSR-MURI Coated Conductor Workshop, Harpers Ferry, WV, 30 July 2004 (Invited).  [The situation in the aftermath of the August 2003 east coast blackout.  Concludes that strong Federal action is needed to subsidize and prod the transmission RTOs into adapting already mature and reliable technologies.]

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SuperTunes

"High Voltage," M & A Young, (AC/DC: High Voltage). [The Power Engineer's anthem]
"It's a Long Way to the Top...," M & A Young, (AC/DC: High Voltage). [On trying to win the Nobel Prize.]
"You Can't Always Get What You Want...," M. Jagger and K. Richards, (Let It Bleed, ca. 1969). [Both Bill Little and I want this played at our respective funerals. The legend is that Mick wanted to get a "cherry coke" at a London "chemist's" who were out of cherries and cherry syrup.  He was thus told, "You can't always get what you want."  This typifies the long search for room temperature superconductivity.  Enjoy.}
"Tomorrow," R. Seger, (ca. 1970s). [A parable on the difficulties of predicting the future...like applications of superconductivity!]
"Roddy McCorley," Ethna Carberry, (A Ballad of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, lyrics ca. 1890).  [Nothing to do with superconductivity, although the underlying ideas that eventually explained it were developed by the Irish physicists Michael Faraday and William Thomsen.  If you ever wonder why immigrants come to America, here's one...at home you got hung if you spoke out.]
"The Skye Boat Song," Harold Boulton, (ca. 1930s, lyrics based on a 18th Century Scottish aire).  [Relates the escape of Charles Stuart to the Isle of Skye after his disastrous defeat at the hands of the English at Culludon.  Maybe he had some members of Clan Grant on board as well. Fortunately, many Scots remained to later create rise to James Clerk Maxwell, James Dewar and Peter Higgs.]
"Ringsend Rose," Brendan Grace. [Perhaps the most beautiful of Irish love ballads.]

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PMG Resume
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