[time-nuts] Time security musing - attacking the clock itself

[Bill Hawkins]

Sorry about this, Tom, but there's some misinformation here.
I wasn't reading this until I saw your posting.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lux
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 7:58 AM

On 12/3/12 9:59 PM, gary wrote:
> I was meditating a bit on the power grid synchronization. If all the
> sites but one are in sync, then the generator whose sync is being hacked
> will have a hard time trying to feed the grid while being out of phase.
> This should be detectable electronically in the generator interface. If
> the timing is moved slowly, the the "conflict" would build slowly as well.

The problem is that how would you distinguish this from normal load 
dispatch for the generator.  That's how you set the power flow: you 
adjust the phase of your generator to slightly leading the grid, and 
power flows from generator to grid.

----- End Original Message

A. You cannot have one generator feeding the grid while being out of phase.
See any text on coupled (bussed) rotating synchronous machines.

B. There is no phase adjustment for the generator. Phase angle with respect
to the grid is determined by whether you are giving or taking power with
respect to the grid. To increase your phase lead on the grid, you apply more
steam to the turbine.

Time has nothing to do with it, except at the central dispatching office
for a generating region. If time on the grid, measured in generated cycles,
lags the number of 60 (or 50) Hz cycles since midnight (or some reference)
then the dispatcher calls for or remotely commands more power to be
generated at some stations until the lost cycles are made up. The entire
distribution network stays in synch, as it must.

Hope that clears things up.

Now, if you are talking about the huge power inverter at the junction of
a DC transmission tie line and an AC network, then yes, you can adjust the
phase angle to control power flow - but this is not controlled by a clock.

Bill Hawkins