Sri Lanka goes bananas after monkey unplugs nation Sri Lanka's electricity grid was brought down nationwide on Sunday after monkey business struck a power station south of the capital of Colombo. "A monkey came into contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the power system," energy minister Kumara Jayakody told media. The simian saboteur left the population …
Skipper: Rico, Kowalski, at exactly 10:45, toss that goat carcass across the power lines. Make sure there are plenty of bananas around to make it look like some monkeys were fighting. Naruto, give the money you got from the organ grinder's monkey to the guard and make sure he knows what to say, then meet us at the zoo where we'll begin to... Naturo! What are you doing?
Naruto: Taking a selfie, I want to remember this moment.
Skipper: And leave bread crumbs for the authorities? [smashes the phone]. Dont be such a baboon!
Yep. That's what happens when umpty-ump thousand volts at umpty-ump amps short out. Time for a new busbar, and probably for major repairs for at least one transformer. If not for a new transformer. Lead times for replacement transformers of this type are measured in months or years. Typical voltages in a main transmission substation start at 69 kV and head upwards to 750 kV and more. Typical currents start at 100 amps and head upwards to 500 amps and more. You really don't want to bridge the spark gap on a 250 kV busbar...
Worked in IT for a local power utility, there was a video circulated among staff taken by some golfers of a squirrel which had shorted out a transformer. So much current was going through the transformer that the cooling oil boiled and then caught fire in quite the cinematic explosion. The Boeing 747 factory nearby had to shut down until it could be repaired.
Should have paid more attention to the public information films
In 2000, a stork got itself electrocuted and managed to make half of Portugal, including the whole Lisbon area, go dark for a couple of hours (sorry, only in Portuguese), because of cascading failures on the power network (allegedly due to a lack in infrastructure and security investment)
Log 1: Degrassi Re: Animal Rights?
Ever since we reached Tau Ceti, the lab monkeys have been acting strangely. Nurse Loesser picked one out of a cage to be brought in for vivisection and the rest of them, I mean the entire group, stood up on their legs and howled. This wasn't just a random display, it was a protest.
Log 2: Dr. Watts Re: Nonsense
Angela, while it may appear that the lab monkeys are communicating with each other, I assure you it's quite impossible. You claim that one monkey signed the passcode for a supply closet to another and the latter proceeded to open it. As I'm sure you know, there have literally been tens of thousands of studies of primate intelligence and there is no evidence of behavior even remotely that sophisticated. So either you've single handedly trumped the entire field of animal behaviorists or you're badly in need of a vacation.
Many years ago there was a Plan for a major upgrade in Jamaica's electrical infrastructure. The Plan was comprehensive, and involved two main transmission loops, one 138 kV, one 69 kV which were to be cross-linked redundantly and had coverage for major outages. However... this was expensive. The Plan was not approved. Instead, a much simpler Plan was set up, with the main 69kV loop connecting to the main 138kV loop at a single substation. The phrase 'single point of failure' was uttered. And ignored. And lo! the cheapest land for the single substation was right next to the main dump for the Corporate Area of Kingston & St. Andrew, the largest population centre on the island, accounting for one third to one half of the total population. This was, perhaps, less than ideal. For, verily, where there are garbage dumps in the tropics, there will be scavengers, especially including vultures. In Jamaica the main vultures are a legally protected species of turkey vulture, locally called a John Crow.
So it came to pass that there were a lot of John Crows around the dump. And John Crows, like turkey vultures everywhere, are soaring birds and like to stretch their wings out in the morning. And the busbars and transformers and other physical structures in the substation are nice places upon which to perch. And Lo! it came to pass that the lots of John Crows left a _lot_ of birdshit all over the substation, and couldn't be chased away because they were legally protected. And one fine morning allegedly one John Crow stretched its wings just a little too close to the 138kV busbar, and 138 thousand volts at 200 amps flashed through it. At least, this was the theory, all that was found was some scorched black feathers, and the only bird big enough to bridge the spark gap and which had black feathers was a John Crow. There was a Very Loud Bang, a Very Bright Flash, and a total system separation and the part of the island outside the Corporate Area lost power as the main power station failed on underload, there being vastly too much generation, while the part of the island inside the Corporate Area failed on overload, as only one generator was running in the main power station inside the Area, so there was an all-island blackout. There was much screaming for several hours until multiple generators inside the Corporate Area were spun up and power restored inside the Area, and one generator outside the Area was spun up and power restored outside, and then much more screaming and shouting until emergency repairs got the single point of failure substation partially operational again. A new 69kV transmission line was run from the main power station in the Corporate Area to the main power station outside (which was part of the original Plan and which should have been established in the 1950s, or while Missus Queen was still paying for that kind of thing; the guys who had vetoed the original Plan were in London, not in Jamaica, Jamaica was due for independence in a few years and someone didn't see why Britain was going to pay for electrical infrastructure) and a new power station was built. By sheerest co-incidence the new power station, and new transmission substation, were in the Prime Minister's constituency; the old main power station in the Corporate Area was in the Leader of the Opposition's constituency. Funny how that works. (The main power station inside the Corporate Area had one new steam generator, built in the 1970s, and five old steam units, built in the 1950s, and a dozen or so gas turbines from the 1970s; the main power station outside the Area had four new steam units, built in the 1970s, and there were a few other steam units, hydro units, and gas turbines from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in various other power stations. The new power station in the PM's constituency had two brand new marine diesels, and was run by the Army, as the Army can't go on strike while the power station personnel at the power company were represented by the notoriously Bolshy Trevor Munroe's union, and would, essential services or not, what are you going to do, fire them? If you do, who's gonna keep the lights on? Besides, the Army knew how to run diesels.
And permission was granted to the power company to Do Something about the John Crows. There hasn't been a system separation since then.
"The simian saboteur left the population of 22,000,000 sweltering in temperatures above 30°C (86°F)"
The good people of Sri Lanka do not consider 30°C to be at all "sweltering": the hottest month in Colombo is about 32°C and the coldest is actually 30°C, so "temperatures above 30°C" are entirely average.
On the other hand, I remember my mother sending me a front page from the Colombo Times with headlines "Cold snap grips Colombo, temperature plunges to 72°" (F, 22°C). She said all the old ladies had broken out their fur coats to cope with such a temperature extreme.
It's all a question of what you're used to
Back in the 80s when I lived in East Lansing, something similar used to happen at Michigan State University. MSU had its own power grid and generating stations, and about every two or three years a good chunk of the campus would go dark for a few hours. Next day the papers would print a report about Rocky Raccoon (yes, they used that name) finding his way into a substation and trying to chew on some tasty insulation.
Icon for what the moment of contact must have looked like, up close.
> a good chunk of the campus would go dark for a few hours. Next day the papers would print a report about Rocky Raccoon
Monkey, raccoon, possum..... they are all of a size. My school had one building lose power. (They tole me the PCs were out; they didn't mention the lights were out too...) And it stank! Cooked corpse. Some odd legacy had left a pad-mount transformer behind the parking lot where the possums play. Probably 7KV. More a roast than an explosion.
One of our offices is in a warehouse that previously housed a large photo lab, some 40,000 square feet of equipment.
Due to power requirements, the building has 3-phase input.
The main pole to the building was very near a tall tree, beloved by squirrels, which one summer took a liking to skittering up it, attempting to "eat" one of the phases.
We'd know they'd been at it again, because suddenly half the building's lights and computers worked, while the other half just flickered in a sickeningly fashion.
After the third time this occurred, the local power company finally put up a big "squirrel-be-gone" device way up on the pole to discourage future rodent visits.
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