This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Government Agency Warns If 9 Substations Are Destroyed, The Power Grid Could Be Down For 18 Months
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
What would you do if the Internet or the power grid went down for over a year? Our key infrastructure, including the Internet and the power grid, is far more vulnerable than most people would dare to imagine. These days, most people simply take for granted that the lights will always be on and that the Internet will always function properly. But what if all that changed someday in the blink of an eye? According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's latest report, all it would take to plunge the entire nation into darkness for more than a year would be to knock out a transformer manufacturer and just 9 of our 55,000 electrical substations on a really hot summer day. The reality of the matter is that our power grid is in desperate need of updating, and there is very little or no physical security at most of these substations.
If terrorists, or saboteurs, or special operations forces wanted to take down our power grid, it would not be very difficult. And as you will read about later in this article, the Internet is extremely vulnerable as well.
When I read the following statement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's latest report, I was absolutely floored...
"Destroy nine interconnection substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer."
Wow.
What would you do without power for 18 months?
FERC studied what it would take to collapse the entire electrical grid from coast to coast. What they found was quite unsettling...
In its modeling, FERC studied what would happen if various combinations of substations were crippled in the three electrical systems that serve the contiguous U.S. The agency concluded the systems could go dark if as few as nine locations were knocked out: four in the East, three in the West and two in Texas, people with knowledge of the analysis said.
The actual number of locations that would have to be knocked out to spawn a massive blackout would vary depending on available generation resources, energy demand, which is highest on hot days, and other factors, experts said. Because it is difficult to build new transmission routes, existing big substations are becoming more crucial to handling electricity.
So what would life look like without any power for a long period of time? The following list comes from one of my previous articles...
-There would be no heat for your home.
-Water would no longer be pumped into most homes.
-Your computer would not work.
-There would be no Internet.
-Your phones would not work.
-There would be no television.
-There would be no radio.
-ATM machines would be shut down.
-There would be no banking.
-Your debit cards and credit cards would not work.
-Without electricity, gas stations would not be functioning.
-Most people would be unable to do their jobs without electricity and employment would collapse.
-Commerce would be brought to a standstill.
-Hospitals would not be able to function.
-You would quickly start running out of medicine.
-All refrigeration would shut down and frozen foods in our homes and supermarkets would start to go bad.
If you want to get an idea of how quickly society would descend into chaos, just watch the documentary "American Blackout" some time. It will chill you to your bones.
The truth is that we live in an unprecedented time. We have become extremely dependent on technology, and that technology could be stripped away from us in an instant.
Right now, our power grid is exceedingly vulnerable, and all the experts know this, but very little is being done to actually protect it...
"The power grid, built over many decades in a benign environment, now faces a range of threats it was never designed to survive," said Paul Stockton, a former assistant secretary of defense and president of risk-assessment firm Cloud Peak Analytics. "That's got to be the focus going forward."
If a group of agents working for a foreign government or a terrorist organization wanted to bring us to our knees, they could do it.
In fact, there have actually been recent attacks on some of our power stations. Here is just one example…
The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Smith reports that a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is acknowledging for the first time that a group of snipers shot up a Silicon Valley substation for 19 minutes last year, knocking out 17 transformers before slipping away into the night.
The attack was “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the U.S., Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, told Smith.
Have you heard about that attack before now?
Most Americans have not.
But it should have been big news.
At the scene, authorities found "more than 100 fingerprint-free shell casings", and little piles of rocks "that appeared to have been left by an advance scout to tell the attackers where to get the best shots."
So what happens someday when the bad guys decide to conduct a coordinated attack against our power grid with heavy weapons?
It could happen.
In addition, as I mentioned at the top of this article, the Internet is extremely vulnerable as well.
For example, did you know that authorities are so freaked out about the security of the Internet that they have given "the keys to the Internet" to a very small group of individuals that meet four times per year?
It's true. The following is from a recent story posted by the Guardian...
The keyholders have been meeting four times a year, twice on the east coast of the US and twice here on the west, since 2010. Gaining access to their inner sanctum isn't easy, but last month I was invited along to watch the ceremony and meet some of the keyholders – a select group of security experts from around the world. All have long backgrounds in internet security and work for various international institutions. They were chosen for their geographical spread as well as their experience – no one country is allowed to have too many keyholders. They travel to the ceremony at their own, or their employer's, expense.
What these men and women control is the system at the heart of the web: the domain name system, or DNS. This is the internet's version of a telephone directory – a series of registers linking web addresses to a series of numbers, called IP addresses. Without these addresses, you would need to know a long sequence of numbers for every site you wanted to visit. To get to the Guardian, for instance, you'd have to enter "77.91.251.10" instead of theguardian.com.
If the system that controls those IP addresses gets hijacked or damaged, we would definitely need someone to press the "reset button" on the Internet.
Sadly, the hackers always seem to be several steps ahead of the authorities. In fact, according to one recent report, breaches of U.S. government computer networks go undetected 40 percent of the time…
A new report by Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) details widespread cybersecurity breaches in the federal government, despite billions in spending to secure the nation’s most sensitive information.
The report, released on Tuesday, found that approximately 40 percent of breaches go undetected, and highlighted “serious vulnerabilities in the government’s efforts to protect its own civilian computers and networks.”
“In the past few years, we have seen significant breaches in cybersecurity which could affect critical U.S. infrastructure,” the report said. “Data on the nation’s weakest dams, including those which could kill Americans if they failed, were stolen by a malicious intruder. Nuclear plants’ confidential cybersecurity plans have been left unprotected. Blueprints for the technology undergirding the New York Stock Exchange were exposed to hackers.”
Yikes.
And things are not much better when it comes to cybersecurity in the private sector either. According to Symantec, there was a 42 percent increase in cyberattacks against businesses in the United States last year. And according to a recent report in the Telegraph, our major banks are being hit with cyberattacks "every minute of every day"...
Every minute, of every hour, of every day, a major financial institution is under attack.
Threats range from teenagers in their bedrooms engaging in adolescent “hacktivism”, to sophisticated criminal gangs and state-sponsored terrorists attempting everything from extortion to industrial espionage. Though the details of these crimes remain scant, cyber security experts are clear that behind-the-scenes online attacks have already had far reaching consequences for banks and the financial markets.
For much more on all of this, please see my previous article entitled "Big Banks Are Being Hit With Cyberattacks 'Every Minute Of Every Day'".
Up until now, attacks on our infrastructure have not caused any significant interruptions in our lifestyles.
But at some point that will change.
Are you prepared for that to happen?
We live at a time when our world is becoming increasingly unstable. In the years ahead it is quite likely that we will see massive economic problems, major natural disasters, serious terror attacks and war. Any one of those could cause substantial disruptions in the way that we live.
At this point, even NASA is warning that "civilization could collapse"...
A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse - often lasting centuries - have been quite common."
So let us hope for the best.
But let us also prepare for the worst.
»
- 53250 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
I think it's an open book test at this point.
Posted this a little up in the trail just to ask a question. Would any of those nat gas generators help in such a situation? Figuring many people here know way more than i do about how they might (or might not) be of use. Would love some input. Thanks.
Generators are great for short term (hurricane Sandy) 1-3 week, but in an event like this, or a more likely to happen 20-30 solar X-flare I wouldn't risk the noise or the inviting lit sign over your house that reads "We have shit to take"
And one could deduce that unless we wrestle our CHOICES away from this system and it's enablers...
It will be these 9, that can be destroyed in this way, using these tactics, typically by these people...
And if we don't bite...
They can make it happen, should a scapegoat be needed to distract from complete policy failure.
Hell NBC has been numbing the public to this very thing each Wednesday night during prime time 'fiction' hour.
It's a zh wet dream, really. But it doesn't have to be this way.
@ BandGap,
I really hate to source the onion boi Glen beck, but sometimes one must use any information available to test a hypothesis.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/28/was-mysterious-attack-on-cali...
Same comment, but from the Communist Party USA (NPR):
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/06/272499102/sniper-attack-o...
SAME COMMENT, but from the commiesymp news rag in the UK (Daily Mail):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2530879/FBI-investigates-militar...
SAME THING, but from the star of leveraged aquisitions and all things fascist (Rupert Murdoch's 'FAUX NEWS'):
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/09/house-democrat-schiff-says-sn...
They actually refer to this as a 'BETA TEST', where the POSSIBILITIES and THEORETICAL PRACTICE RUNS in their SCENARIOS metastisize in to what's called a 'LIVE-FIRE DRILL', in preparation for 'GOING LIVE', or also 'GOING HOT', AKA 'DEFCON ONE' (an antiquated term coined by the MIC back when computers used punch-tapes, and televisions used vacuum tubes, and they taught children about the wisdom of 'Yertle The Turtle' [a little too 'Yiddish' of a name for me, personally speaking]).
An 'open-book test' refers to a method in which the children are still in the early phase of their indoctrinations (oops, 'edumacations'), and the teavchers are still working on getting them to be able to find the info within the propaganda-tomes they call 'books'. THIS would also be referred to as an 'Alpha-test' (the teachers 'guide' the 'students' to find WHAT they should think, by asking propagandized questions, and allowing them to find the 'correct responses' supposedly 'by themselves', thus re-enforcing Pavlov's method of a reward for solving so-called 'problems'. With practice, the 'students' become immune to the ramifications, and cease to think about the consequenses of the planning/programming, as they are rewarded with 'atta-bois' and 'high marks' for 'learning' to repeat a task in 'real-time'. THIS method is used world-wide, and is often-times the method for 'culling' the 'effective actors' in order to move on to THE NEXT PHASE: ACTIVE DRILLS.
LIKE the drill in California, which took place (apparently) in the last part of 2013, the so-called 'news' spreads (sometimes slowly, as they like to manipulate both sides of the false dichotomy), and, consequently, some 'lawmaker' will finally cite the 'danger'; and in a 'knee-jerk response', propose 'legislation' regarding a 'threat' (which was CREATED, and should NOT EXIST in a 'real-world' scenario,; thusly achieving another goal (in THIS case, the militarization of utility companies). IF this is objected to, the BETA TEST will continue, and 'more acts of terrorism' will happen. causing another issue that will assure 'swift action' by 'lawmakers' to 're-enforce our infrastructure'.
The HEGELIAN DIALECTIC is the popular term for THIS 'secondary' method of command-and-control of the general populace...
SET a 'GOAL'.
CREATE a 'PROBLEM'.
WAIT for a 'REACTION'.
PROPOSE a 'SOLUTION' (which also achieves or advances the original GOAL).
WATCH this 'SOLUTION' in leisure, and set ANOTHER 'GOAL'...
ONE EMP weapon, deployed at the correct altitude, and with enough power, would effectively cause the same issue, but it would be an irreparable one. FOUR, of course, would be more 'cost-effective'.
CUT TO COMMERCIAL BROADCAST
...'Meanwhile, a shady group of evil people named "TALI-AL-SPECTRE" is sitting in their lair/compound, somewhere in Ohfuckistania. The evil leader, "El-rag-del-Amari-Hussein-Al-Queda" (his last name like a popular cheese) is making final preparations for "Operation American-dog Power-station". As he eats another Quesadilla, this fat' yet thin, ugly' yet handsome anti-hero is congratulating the ones who have worked on this project (while dropping the traitorous, yet beautiful and nubile 18-year-old American spy in to a pool of sharks with lazers on their heads). Meanwhile, back in Washington (DickCunt), the brave, determined, and patriotic lawmaker is trying to warn the people about the threat of "TALI-AL-SPECTRE" attacks on the critical, in-replaceable, and totally FRAGILE "power-grids"; and at the same time extolling the "virtues and nutritional values of the Big Mac" to the fat, wheelchair-bound patrons of Wal-Mart. '
Head north. My family has a 50 acre farm that is rather distant from major population centers. Utilize my gold-silver-lead to barter for gas along my journey.
How will the gas stations get their gasoline out of their underground tanks?
Hand pumps. Its the suction that counts, not electricity to run the pumps.
And I'm pretty sure they won't take credit cards at that point either ;-)
Don't forget to bring your West Virginia credit card (5-gallon can and a siphon hose).
UMM...
Youse guys are talking about 'what if da' grid goez down', like as if 'everyone's grid goes down'.
Just 'cause YOU don't have any power, that don't mean that those invading enemy guyz don't.
The USA (inc.) has taught the REST OF THE WORLD how to use the high-tech weaponry in 'regional conflicts' and the TRUE MEANING of 'Shock And Awe' (back in the 1940's they named it 'Lightning War', or more well known, 'BLITZKREIG').
Yeah, the thermal vision and night-scopes will pick a guy off sucking a gas tank as easily as it would drop a 'smart-bomb' on a 50-acre spread. Do you need to see the Youtube postings of the 'War in Iraq', to realize the fact that you are looking at this in the WRONG WAY?
WV credit cards only work in more CIVIL times than the prospects being discussed, and '50-acre farms' are wonderful, when the chemtrails aren't dropping crap on the land, and the invading army isn't playing the 'scorched-earth' scenario.
Sorry. I HATE being a 'realist'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPD0ZBiMs0
Generals GATHER in their MASSES, just like WITCHES in BLACK MASSES...
You would think they would at least tell us the best way to destroy them !
excuse me but how the fuck would Manitoba, with it's massive hydroelectric installations, be affected by something happening to Nebraska?
Hydroelectric generation facilities are capable of 'islanding'. Live on that island, I do.
There would be mass suicides amongst those nascissists who "facebook" and "twitter."
Which is a good thing.
So in some respects the problem would be self correcting.
this is great! let's go bomb some more people...who needs infrastructure!
Exactly. Why don't they publish the coordinates to all the stations too?
No joke. They better start beefing them up.
EDIT:
Wm Forstchen wrote a great book on an EMP taking out the nation`s grid: One Second After, published about 2012. Very scary. Huge die-offs. Gates and co. would get their dreamy wish...
If this story does not get read at least 10,000 times, with 200 + comments, our nation is VERY ASLEEP...
I think we need fonestars opinion on it ;-)
Shhhh don't wake him, his mom made meatloaf for dinner and he is happily dreaming of his bits & bytes - LOL
We should be kind to fonestar. He gets his 2 cents per comment from the Gates/Buffet endowment for the terminally useless,...and it's the most money he will ever see in one place.
Ok, I apologize, here he comes...lol.
(fonestar)
Reggie, on the other hand, should know better.
Gonna be fun ribbing his ass. Maybe he will stick with boat pics for a while;)
Agreed. This is one serious topic. If you take the grid down for long enough death and mayhem will follow. I don't think people realize how much they depend on juice to get through the day let alone a week or a month...or more.
I was going to mention One Second After. That book scared the crap out of me.
Like I said, 'The Road'.
Cannibalism within a few weeks.
Revelation of the method...
I didn't read "The Road." I understand the plot, but I thought it was probably too gruesome for me. "One Second After" at least had more of a premise about how to establish law and order, distribute supplies, bury the dead, etc. But in the end almost everyone was dead. There were survivors, however, and that was somewhat hopeful. That book dealt with an EMP, in case anyone is wondering. "The Road" seemed downright apocolyptic.....I don't think anyone knows what scenario the author was writing about.
In any case, I think it would take longer than a few weeks to get to cannibalism. History shows that most people will just starve. I'm sure cannibalism would exist on some level, but I just don't think most people would resort to it. I could be wrong, of course. Cannibalism also causes neurological problems, doesn't it? Maybe Miffed or someone in the medical field can speak to that. My point is that I'm not sure it would be a long-term solution. Scary thoughts.
There was cannibalism in Russia in the twenties, and in America's colonial days, when they practiced socialism.
McCarthy had a vision of a scorched earth (I think after visiting New York). It is more of a parable, a retelling of the Bible within an apocalyptic event. His main interest is that of the love of the father for the son told through religious guidance. From a collapse perspective you might say they are relearning Christian morality where it is impossible - that is the important lesson.
Like I said, I didn't read the book, but I saw McCarthy in an interview about the book and he wouldn't say what the apocalypic event was. I got the feeling that the entire real premise of the book was about the father and son. The father was trying to teach the son morals in an era where survival was paramount and morals were gone.
Well, that's basically what you said. :) Thank you for your comment.
Their dream is to have a lot of slaves. That wouldn't work out.
If only we had been warned about it 20 years ago... oh wait.
Just think, if we had taken just one years with of the budget for the Iraq occupation, and put it towards beefing up the US transmission system, how much better it would be...
Bullish pornomags and flashlights.
I like the way you think.
It should be a part of every prepper's bugout bag. Toss in a couple vintage Penthouse mags....and you got the ammo to fire off some knuckle rockets until the grid comes back.
...and don't forget a few bottle's of wine, Cheers!
No G00glez? OMG! How would we ever find any answers to anything?
7 Signs that this acticle is FEAR Porn...
1. It was written by Michael Snyder
2. It was written by Michael Snyder
3. It was written by Michael Snyder
4. It was written by Michael Snyder
5. It was written by Michael Snyder
6. It was written by Michael Snyder
7. It was written by Michael Snyder
Might have been, but it's true.
It's not like they would do anything sensible like guard those facilities, right?
Blackwater at every substation? Keep in mind, if it is sniper attacks you are worried about, normal security guards are probably not up to snuff.
You do realize "normal security guards" are (for the most part) inept or overweight or old or flunked the psych-test for being a common traffic cop right?
In essence, cannon fodder, a delaying action, until real help arrives.
I've got a brother-in-law thats one, he is all I described cept one, he's not old ;-)
How do you know Blackwater (now named Academi which makes them sooo much friendlier) wasn't the one who provided the snipers who took out the substation in April? I laughed at the time when the authorities said they were pretty sure it was probably some drunk teenagers. I'm sure Putin doesn't hire drunk teenagers so we'll be fine.
And the merc wannabes with the extra-large backpacks that would fit a large pressure cooker at the Boston Marathon?
It's more complicated than just snipers... For several years here I have pointed out all that is needed is a few dozen coordinated rednecks with bolt cutters and 10ft lengths of copper pipe (available from any Home Despot). This is nothing new except another official .gov report that reiterates what was already well known in certain circles, and which conveniently disproves that the EMP fear mongers (like Frank Gaffney) are actually peddling any sort of protection on a societal level.
TPTB want to protect their takings, but whether by an act act of God, war, or a few intelligent and motivated nobodies, it can all be taken away (from everyone).
Anyone else find it ironic that the plane that disappeared is a "777." Big win at the casino, and interesting that the power grid is such a big topic these days.
How long before spent fuel pools started lighting up. Extinction event.
Who wants to live forever?
Raises hand.
Well, there can only be one so I guess you're it kid.
Well I want to live forever...just not on Earth. And I already know that I will as clearly as I know that Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
They'd run generators to keep them powered up, and the local generation would still be operating, even with the grid down. It's not like there would be NO power, just not the reliable integrated system we're used to (some, maybe many people would probably have NO power). I agree that losing electricity would be a disaster, but this seems unrealistically alarmist.
" but this seems unrealistically alarmist."
Think about who you are talking about here.
He should change his blog to the "Unrealistically Alarmist blog"
I didn't want to say anything but...
Nineteen reasons why the world ends tomorrow and you may die!
Let's make a list...!
There's something for everybody!
Armageddon
Global nuclear war
Limited nuclear war / attack
Chemical / Biological war / attack
Weather Modification attack
Major conventional war
New colonial activity (Fr., Sp., Port., It., Germ., Japan,
China, Russia, UK, Brazil, Ven.)
A new Persian Empire
Invasion of the US
Regional climate change
Global warming
Global cooling / Ice Age
Celestial object impact / near miss
Nemesis-induced Oort Cloud meteorite rain
Black hole appearance
Dark matter / anti-matter incident
UN / One World Government
NWO (New World Order)
U.S. Coup
U.S. revolution
Rogue military activity
Government Tyranny
Anarchy
CME (Coronal Mass Ejection)
Ozone layer depletion
Solar radiation increase/decrease
Gamma ray burst from neutron star collision
Earth orbit shift
Magnetic pole shift
Rotational pole shift
Earth Core Cooling
Massive tectonic activity
Grand Alignment induced tectonic activity
EMP attack (Electro Magnetic Pulse)
Major nuclear power plant incident
Utilities failures
Terrorism in about a thousand different forms
Martial Law
Travel restrictions
Communication restrictions
Weapons restrictions
New, more restrictive assault weapons ban
Total gun ban
Local / regional gun grab
Gold / PM restrictions
Gold / PM recall
Rampant inflation / stagflation
Major economic depression
Nationwide / global economic breakdown
Personal financial breakdown
Loss of job
Personal / family catastrophic illness
Bank closure / failure / mandated bank holiday
Strikes / boycotts / embargoes / price controls
Food shortages / price increases
Drought
Crop failures
Water shortages
Shortages of goods and services for a variety of reasons
Peak oil
Fuel shortages / price increases
Methane Hydrate release
Environmental disaster
Gulf Stream shutdown
Overpopulation
Rapid Population Decline
Social breakdown
Widespread civil unrest / riots
Aztlan / Reconquista Uprising
Civil war
Ethnic war
Racial war
Religious war
Resource war
Refugees
Becoming a refugee
Landslide / mudslide
Brownout
Blackout
Avalanche
Hurricane
Hypercane
Tornado
Earthquake
Flood
Sea level rise
Sea level drop
Tsunami
Mega Tsunami (La Palma, West Antarctic Ice Sheet)
Volcano
Mega Volcano (Yellowstone Caldera)
Lahar
Pyroclastic flow
Blizzard
Hail
Severe lightning
Heat wave
Antibiotic resistant bacteria
Epidemic
Pandemic
Pestilence
Rainforest deforestation
Forest fire / wild fire
Fire storm
Sand / dust storms
House/apartment/building fire
Hazmat incident
Medical emergency
Local major accident (aircraft / auto / rail / building)
Airplane crash
Automotive accident
Vehicle breakdown / stranded
Shipwrecked / marooned
Becoming lost in the wilderness
Becoming lost in the megalopolis
Crime wave
Local major crime
Wild animal rampage
Released / escaped dangerous zoo animals
Addictive Entertainment
Eco-system collapse
Out-of-control biogenetics / biotechnology / Nano-technology / robotics
Sub-atomic particle research accident
Advanced technology disaster
Extraterrestrial biological contamination
Evidence of extraterrestrials
Hostile extraterrestrials
Peaceful extraterrestrials
Biblical flood
Biblical plagues
Second Coming
A New Messiah
The Anti-Christ
Zombies / vampires / werewolves / other supernatural dangers (just kidding!)
h/t to Jerry D. Young at www.JerryDYoung.com
Hmm, you could probably make a song out of that. ;)
In place of driving a one hour commute to work 5 days a week, you could probably power your house 24/7 with the same amount of gasoline. Long telecommuting and generators.
I think this was all in the WSJ a few days ago. It ain't him.
Haha I knew you'd have a comment about ole Michael Snyder in here somewhere. But you are right, you can tell they are his posts just by the title, even the ones that don't start with "37 reasons why blah blah " you don't disappoint, fonz
Gensets require maintenance, spares and oil.
How would you keep gensets running 24/7 for years with the grid down?
How will they maintain diesel delivery when half the truckers are dead or starving and they have to drive through Armageddon to get there?
That what military air lifts are for...
Within a few days. Same as Fukushima. The water will boil off, and the fires start, while the explosive gasses build up inside the reactors.
Didn't they get really worried about a nuke power plant in NE NJ right by Manhattan during Sandy?
I work at an industrial power plant and if our feed from the grid goes down even for a fraction of a second, it trips out our turbine and fuel. And we can't start up until the grid comes back.
.
So, you're saying if a substation blows, the powerplant will keep pushing juice into the lines that people are trying to repair? Somehow, that doesn't sound right ...
Read what he wrote. He wrote that they cannot come back online...until the Grid is up.
Maybe you are unaware how indentation works. I was replying to Leto II, who edited his comment and deleted everything he wrote while I was writing my reply.
Coal/NG plants run totally different from nukes.
case of 'improvements' and forgetting the old ways...back in the day...(i saw it once) with a small electric generator the guys would put a little diesel feed in the boiler and draft it naturally. when it started making steam, they would fire off a steam feedwater pump and bring it to pressure and then startup a small steam electric turbine to supply elec to bring up the fans and electric pumps.....then bring it all up, fire up the turbine and tie it to the line (if you have never synchonized a turbine to the tie line it is real fun)...
The author forgot one important detail. Nuclear power plants. There are over 100 in the US. Most only have enough fuel to run for about 30 days on backup power. If you can't pump & deliver more fuel to them, let the meltdowns begin. Then all those other things, like no internet, become pretty trivial.
if a nucler power plant does not have a loop o feed it's self....well it would seem something is a'miss....
Last I looked into this there were still around 23 of them, mostly in the east, that were due for upgrading. These will melt down with no feed from the grid and no generators.
What I always wondered is if we are using electricity to run the pumps to cool the rods, why aren't they using that waste heat to generate some electricity locally to run the damn pumps? They went through all this trouble to desing nuclear power plants and missed that? hmmmm
The danger isn't in the generation of energy. It is in the distribution. The scenario is fully fueled power plants isolated by the damage of some nine nodes in the grid that if they go missing will overload and burn out other nodes, etc, until the grid's distribution system is incapacitated and unable to deliver eletricity from fully functioning power plants.
They don't. Some dumbass made them dependent on the grid. If they have to shut down they can't restart without the grid. At that point because of the need for active cooling it will be a miracle if they can keep the diesel generators running long enough to get back online.
But BitCoin would SURVIVE!!! </sarc>
Silver & Gold Bitchez
lol
What's gonna happen to bitcoin? They will still be on my hard drive. Right? :D
Don't throw away that old bicycle & little generator hookup just yet. You may have to actually prove to someone with food its still there on your hard drive.
BikesForBites or sumpin ;-)
The bigger problem would be, if the network was heavily segmented, the blockchain would be forked many times.
In other words, everyone would have a different copy of what is supposed to be a unified public ledger.
It was a joke bro. hence the :D
I mean, if the power is out for 18 months, most (all?) bitcoin users will be finding food? Probably getting what they have taken from them. Just sayin... There is no more bitcoin in that scenario. Not in any reality I can think of.
You might be surprised to find that North America is actually only about 2% of the planet.
There are 325 Million Americans. There are 118 Million Mexicans. There are over 35 Million Canadians.
Adding those three countries up there are 470 Million North Americans.
World Population is 7.15 Billion. Hmmm...
Doing the Arithmetic the population of North America is 6.57% of the World's
So yes I am surprised that you underestimated it by 70%
Did I say population? No. North America is about 2% of the surface and 5% of the land surface of the planet.
If there was a prolonged power / internet outage in North America, Bitcoin would still work fine everywhere else.
Quick! Build more windmills!
Ah yes. Another government agency prophesying impending doom if we don't give them a few more billions...asap
no shit. 1st world problems, and all that. /s
Think of being a man in the middle ages and reading about the splendor of Rome and Athens. How fucking depressing!
Think of back then, you were a man @ 13 or 14. Now arrested development has men being 27 if your lucky. Besides they are probably living in their parents basement reading this comment.
You also had a fair chance of dying before 40 back then, so there was an incentive to grow up sooner.
If you made it that far you could expect- hope- to live to 45.
Roman life expectancy at birth was 25. So yeah, you'd be dead before you had an inkling of what the heck was going on
around you.
But togas are nice.
While lifespans were shorter back in the old days, they weren't tremendously shorter. Traumatic injuries, infection, and disease were certainly more of a concern than they are now but, aside from that, it wasn't uncommon to live to be sixty.
The thing which has always had the greatest impact on skewing life expectancy lower is infant mortality rates. If most adults lived to be seventy years old, but half of all infants didn't live to see their second birthday, the life expectancy would be around 35 years.
Sure it takes infant mortality into account. Romans exposed children they didn't want- leaving them to die on the doorstep.
They were great times indeed.
Sounds like China, today.
Sounds like Detroit today.
Et tu, Duggan?
However the life expectancy of the roman aristocracy was much better. Caesar Augustus died at age 75 and his wife Livia died at 86. Not bad when you consider that lack of modern healthcare. Can you imagine if they would have had Obamacare, big Pharma and Monsanto? Hell, they'd still be alive today.
Miffed;-)
And don't forget that while today people live on average to 72 or so they also on average live in a near vegetative state. I'd take living to 50 and actually experiencing life to being a zombie 'til I'm 80.
I remember the splendor of growing up lower-middle class in the US in the 60s and 70s. We had it made.
>> growing up lower-middle class in the US in the 60s and 70s.
I grew up at the same time. I, for the most part, was an abandoned child of two alcoholic parents. I've heard how horrible my childhood was from so many people I don't tell anyone about it anymore. I had a ball and wouldn't change a damned thing about it. Same circumstances in todays world? I think the kid would be fucked.
It was easier to walk away from one's past..and move on...back in the day. Today, the alcoholic parents probably have a Facebook page.
Kudos to you, Greatbeard. Thanks for sharing the story.
Me too.
Throw money @ it, if that fails burn the money to stay warm.
Solar panels, wind turbines, water wheels, wave motion, kinetic generators, TEC's, smoking dope having sex, rioting in the streets to replace the oligarchs, free to do the experiments I've wanted to do but too busy with work. Make stuff and maybe write a book. Learn from people, teach people, build some nice communities, solve the worlds ideological problems.
Lots actually.
That sounds like it would suck balls!
Hmmmm interesting, says Volodimir Impala and picked up the phone....
Yeah, Angry Birds and chatting with the NSA is the true dream!
a diabolical plan, everyone claims terrorist plans, who does the NSA then watch, a game of numbers as some long ago her on ZH have stated, give them millions and millions of post to list as a threat.
"Yeah, Angry Birds and chatting with the NSA is the true dream!"
Whatever.
Everyone seems to have forgotten this already......
Not me. I think about it at least a couple times of week. Thankfully I was home that afternoon and not in Manhattan like I might have been. It frustrates me how much sheeple take electricity for granted. Especially the fatter cats I am acquainted with. But everything in their lives is electronic, so it is too unsettling to look at the can sitting there and thinking about if you have to pick it up instead of kick some more.
or in this case, decide which can is better for carrying any clean water you find, and which other can you're going to be forced to poop into because there's no running water, no toilet and it's too cold to just sit out there and do it in the winter right into a shovel-dug hole.
I have not forgot. Lived it. My parents survived 7 days this year with ice storm ( Toronto). They had to abandon their house after 4 days. Live with me and my wood stove. Learned allot. Preparing as we speak. It's coming again.
I have a well and a wood burning stove. The well has a manual pump backup. Nothing beats good old human horsepower. All this other crap I can do without.
Got one too (hand pump) can't believe people just chunked them.
(hand pumps)are good for wells 120ft.deep,at best..You'll need to retro-fit it to the existing well-head (outside),and hope it will render some drinking water...how does that fill your water heater,and flush your toilets?..Better off digging an outhouse,and constructing(an easily solar heated)rainwater collection system.
How do you plan on using the hot water tank? nat gas or propane?
To flush the toilet, simply take a bucket, and add the water into the holding tank, then flush. Pretty simply, really.
Do it all the time during hurricane season when ones coming, fill up the bathtubs BEFORE the power goes out, keep a bucket handy.
Yes, but only if the sewage plant still works. Or if your septic tank still gets pumped out. In a real no-electricity situation, neither of these things would occur.
You can get a solar shower in the camping section for about ten dollars. It only holds 5 gallons, but it works.
Crazy idea: composting toilet.
there is a thing called a well bucket, basically a pvc pipe with a check valve/flap on the end and a a long rope
Well, I live in Fla in a pretty water rich area (inland, good ground water) BOTH of my wells are around 90ft and cisterns (rain) weren't unheard of out on the coast where its some pretty nasty (sulphur) stuff back in the day.
I've got a nice pitched roof (east-west oriented, there is a reason people build aligning to what is) and plenty of pipe and a few valves for warm/hot water and as long as my water tower is above 40ft I got it made.
Its only gravity, maybe two cisterns and a windmill to keep the high one full ;-)
Lucky bastard! Ours is at 400 feet and that is considered not very deep now. Then some rich asshole will move close to you, drop a 1200 foot well and suck you dry. Happens a lot here. When we moved to our house 13 years ago they required us to have a 10k cistern. We thought that was overkill but felt a bit reassured. Then a massive wildfire hit and my neighbor came home to find his cistern empty and no electricity to pump water. Yup, it turns out that really isn't your water. The fire dept went around filling their trucks with it. This is why we stay home with our shotguns during fires from now on.
Miffed;-)
There's all sorts of rigs for having solar-electric assist for a hand-pump so with power it will operate easily but without power you can easily just do it yourself. http://www.youtube.com/engineer775 : trust me this guy is pro. Half his videos are him installing (for money) the multi-pump rigs on other people's land and the other half is all the tinkering he's done for his own land.
its a good thing we spent so many trillions on wars and bailing out corrupt bankers... they really know what the nations' priorities are
Their priorities aren't the nation's priorities. This is what stumps people.
Hmmm....what freedoms are up to curtailing now?
This one,
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging thefreedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.
This one is basically toast. But, I thought I would take a crack at the answer.
I don't know the answer, but 1st amendment is as likely as any. I just wonder where all the stimulus money from Obama's first term went, how we've waged several wars since Gdub went in to Iraq, half our population is on foodstamps, we bailed out the fucking banksters, yet couldn't spare some pocket change to improve and protect our power grid?
Smells fishy to me - almost like either they are inviting this scenario as a pretense for ????????? or want to use it to curtail ???????? freedoms.
They couldn't really just be that stupid.
I design control systems for high voltage substations and can say that security, both cyber and physical has been beefed up significantly over the past few years but there are still no security guards at these facilities as far as I know although many are now being monitored with cameras. Also if the nationwide grid goes down that isn't necessarily the end for years. Most areas can be run islanded. Texas for instance could easily stand alone islanded because the interties are mostly used for bulk power sales either way depending on the many factors affecting production cost and are not critical for keeping Texas actually working as an islanded system. The Feds have basically regulated this industry in a big way and it is required that Utilities run multiple outage scenarios to meet different emergency conditions given plant, substation and line outages.
But hey, go ahead and make a big deal out of vulnerability. It keeps me employed and will generate even more work for me.
funny when i was in nyc during the major blackout of 2003, i wasnt hearing about the solution being "islanded" the solution was to find the fallen domino in the whole centralized system that shut down much of the northeast.
btw, your scenario goes to shit if we are hit with an EMP...just sayin...
Once the NE went down how do you think it all got up and running again? All at once? No. It was brought up separately in differnet areas (islanded) and then those areas were synched together (joined). You're right about the EMP problem though and that's because an EMP will fry high voltage transformers because they do not have a simple preventive protection device called a "ground impedance". Once these transformers are fried the lead time to replace them is from 1 to 5 years or even more depending on the voltage level. The extremely high voltage transformers take a really long time to replace.
Well get busy and get some fucking ground impedance in will ya? I got kids that need devices.
It makes no difference, because in the event of an EMP- both you and your kids will be in the dark (for a very long time/until death do you part), regardless of TPTB's ability to distribute electricity to THEIR critical CONTROL infrastructure.
fiji, you seem to know your shit, so I'm asking (as an EE, but one who works in software, not power, so I know enough about power to be dangerous but not useful!):
Aren't transformers basically giant coils of wire around a core? IIRC, they don't have moving parts internally. So, in the normal scheme of things, they last a very long time, don't they? Hence the long lead times to manufacturer and replace, because new ones are not needed on a daily/weekly basis. I'm sure in an emergency situation, they could be replaced in a matter of weeks if the will (and the money, of course) were there.
And after the last Carrington episode, again IIRC, didn't Hydro Quebec go out and put in ground impedance connectors (GIC) on their transmission lines? To non-techy folks, the very long straight lines of cable carrying power from Northern Quebec thousands of miles to the US's Northeast can be considered long 'inductors', and when a high voltage pulse is applied to them, they create 'induced' currents that can be very high and carry tons of power - more than the transformers are rated for. JIn 1992, a huge solar flare created a large pulse over northern Canada, and the then-unprotected Hydro Quebec system overloaded downstream systems in Canada and the US, creating a huge blackout.
Unless transformers are protected by surge devices, they burn out ('fry'), but even if protected, the transformers get isolated from the grid (which means no power gets supplied downstream from the transformer). I thought that as part of the US's defense against EMP attack, major transformers were being retrofitted with GIC's.
None of that would protect them from a few well-placed bombs, though, which could be delivered by drone (paging Jeff Bezos), panel van, or even catapult.
NYC. LOL! Where you will usually find Con Ed employees asleep in their trucks have a nap all afternoon.
I remember when that happened. Here in New England someone was actually alert at the switch and got us off before it dominoed our way. So we were spared. So there is some validity to the islanding although I don't know if it would work in this scenario and definitely not in an EMP.
Thanks for the perspective. I agree, might be 18 months to be back to normal, but local islands would come back on line a lot quicker.
Sure the interties are a little less critical than that, but even neighborhood stations serving 10,000 homes are protected by nothing more than chain-link fences or a few cinder-blocks.
What I've read about are the solar EMP scenarios that burn out 10,000 or more large transformers, for which there just are no backups, right now each is custom-built and a delay of a year or more, with a very limited production rate. For a couple of billion bucks standbys could be produced in advance and kept protected, for a few billions more station design could be revised to protect against solar EMP and improve against snipers and RPGs as well, and for a few billion MORE you could be employed to produce parallel circuits to all these interties and maybe a few critical circuits in major regions. It's not shovel-ready as pretty much everyone involved is high-skilled, but it would be a relatively small and very wise investment in infrastructure. Could protect the whole nation for about what it costs to build a useless HOV-interchange between two freeways in Los Angeles.
Yeah considering what the FED used to bail out the big banks we probably could have duplicated the entire US grid 1000 x.
God Bless Texas and I'm glad I am here!
Well said fiji, I can only speak for Missouri, but our plants as well are pretty much stand alone. To over simplify, the only inputs are coal and water (with electricity obviously being generated onsite).
Nothing is standalone, there are probably six transformers (and sundry additional electronics) between that generator and your refrigerator, and they could all be blasted by a solar EMP.
Overload & outage aren't the same thing. Ontario & Quebec lost power with New York because of the grid tie for selling power. One fool system overloaded the next and far as I remember Quebec was the first to come back online because they had the extra level of paranoia built in.