[LINK] 1800s Legacy in Tokyo's Electricity Grid

Kim Holburn kim at holburn.net
Wed Mar 23 09:22:29 AEDT 2011


How a Legacy From the 1800s Is Making Tokyo Dark Today

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/tech-legacy-tokyo/

> A strange legacy of the Japanese power system’s infancy in the late 1800s is complicating efforts to keep Tokyo supplied with electricity.
> 
> The problem, as explained by IDG News Service’s Martyn Williams, is that half of the country uses power whose current alternates at 60 Hz, while the other half gets its power at 50 Hz.
> 
> The discrepancy has to do with the founding of electric power in the country. Tokyo Electric Light Co. used German generators, which operated at 50 Hz, while in the west part of Japan, Osaka Electric Lamp Co. used generators from General Electric, an American company, operating at the same 60 Hz standard that is used in the United States to this day.
> 
> Unlike the U.S. grid, the Japanese power grid was never unified on a single standard. While it’s possible to connect the two grids, the frequency-changing stations required can only handle up to 1 gigawatt.


Diagrams of Fukushima Nuclear power station cooling system:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/03/japan-reactor-diagram



-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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