EDITORIAL
Here’ s a wonderful story:
“ Tradition is what you resort to when you don’ t have the time or money to do it right.”
Kurt Herbert Alder
A girl watches her mother preparing a turkey dinner and is surprised to see that before placing it inside the pan for cooking, the mother cuts off a section at the end and throws it out. Curious, she asks why and her mother replies,‘ because that’ s how my mother always cooked a turkey’.
Well, the next time she meets her grandmother, the young girl asks‘ grandma, why did you always cut off the end of the turkey before cooking it?’ To which the grandmother answers:‘ because that’ s what I saw my mother do just before cooking it’.
Don’ t Be Restricted by Tradition
Now, it just so happens that the girl’ s great grandmother is still alive. So she approaches the old woman and asks why she regularly cut off the end of the turkey before cooking it. The great grandmother makes a determined effort to concentrate before finally replying,‘ Oh yes! I remember. The tiny pan I had back then was never big enough to hold the darned bird.”
Tradition can be wonderful. From the human perspective, perhaps we should always keep traditions alive since they embody our culture and define us … where we come from.
But does tradition really deserve to play a role in the world of power engineering?
One would think not. Tradition here can be, as English author Somerset Maugham once penned,‘ a jailer rather than a guide’. Yet the fact is that whenever a new line or substation project is being planned, tradition is often a major if not the dominant consideration.( INMR reported on one interesting exception in our last issue. Another exception would be UHV, where there’ s still no tradition yet to fall back on. Indeed, perhaps that’ s why one finds such novel designs being proposed at these elevated voltages, as seen for example in this issue’ s article about the 1200 kV Bina test station).
In this our centenary issue, Columnist Jon Woodworth decides to take on one of the power delivery industry’ s traditional‘ sacred cows’ – the ubiquitous ground wire found on overhead transmission lines. Indeed, he feels that, given their drawbacks, engineers should now start looking seriously at what he proposes as superior alternatives.
Now, it’ s always said that the power engineering field is a conservative one and indeed must always be so. One cannot experiment with something so vital to our security and well being as electrical power.
But being cautious must not keep engineers from constantly advancing their field. Must not make them afraid to innovate. Must not keep them from leaping over past traditions by applying proven new technologies.
Otherwise, we’ ll be forever cutting off the ends of turkeys.
Marvin L. Zimmerman mzimmerman @ inmr. com
6 20
YEARS
Q2 2013