Government Agency: If 9 Substations Are Destroyed, The Power Grid Could Be Down For 18 Months

The Economic Collapse blog ^ | March 18, 2014 | Michael Snyder

[JPX2011]

Sounds like a job for the ELF.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Asef Mohammad broke into the plant that treats and pumps water for the township. He then somehow climbed into a 24 inch pipe and became stuck in the pipe.

[ansel12]

I think a lot of people think that 18 months means that the crops would be harvested and trucked to the supermarkets, refineries running, the auto repair shops supplied and open again, etc, immediately after the 18 months, but I don’t think it works that way.

I wonder how long it would be before we could get food and medicine and gasoline, and jobs, and money, again?

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Bookmark

[Vermont Lt]

My guess is there wouldn’t be a need for AS MUCH food after 18 months.

[anoldafvet]

Did they print maps for the terrorists to use or do they have to find them on their own?

[LibsRJerks]

Prepare accordingly, my friends.

We’re about to sell our home. If we really want a contract, we’re likely going to take a $20 K loss, which, I don’t like but can actually survive. I know I need to do it, because we need to begin to find a place that is more remote with a generator and a wood stove, and we need the extra money to start stockpiling.

I really feel the time is getting nearer. We live in a place that functions well with power, but would become a zombie nightmare if the grid went down. I want out.

[spokeshave]

our power grid is in desperate need of updating,

But...but...Obama old us about all those "infrastructure" and "shovel ready" jobs he had $Billions for.....

[Paul R.]

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.

It's not too hard to see why NASA's capability is where it's at these days...

[harpu]

Duhhhhh...and this is made public knowledge, because?!?

[Whenifhow]

ping

[ballplayer]

Please send instructions and directrons to all the stations and time of operations please,thank you

[abclily]

A generator? What is going to power your generator?

[Former Proud Canadian]

"I wonder how long it would be before we could get food and medicine and gasoline, and jobs, and money, again?"

Good question. The answer would depend on how long the grid was out and when the outage occurred.

A three month outage over a winter in the north or a summer outage anywhere would be a disaster. No heat in the winter because forced air furnaces do not work without electricity running the fan. Fuel oil will not get delivered. So, expect a lot of deaths from freezing or heat.

A far greater threat would come from a lack of food. Urban groceries have a three day supply of food and even Walmart's logistics would not allow them to supply all their stores in a total power outage. Water and sewer plants would also have a tough time without electricity.

So, a general, widespread, extended power outage would result in millions of deaths in urban areas. I haven't given that ultimate number a lot of thought but a 50-95% death rate doesn't seem unreasonable.

If you can survive the first three months, you might be okay. As the systems came back on line there would be far fewer mouths to feed, especially in the urban areas.

[meatloaf]

This is amazing. All you have to do is read how the Northeast grid was brought up after the blackout to understand that this is malarkey.

We’d be better served to understand what would happen after another Carrington level event. BTW, there are more than one manufacturer of transformers in this country. What confused the writer is that, AFAIK, there may be only one manufacturer in North America of the really large transformers used to connect generators at power plants to the switch yards which in turn connect to the grid.

That’s why a Carrington level event would be catastrophic. In that case 18 months might be highly optimistic for many people.

[Cboldt]

The interconnecting substations are HUGE. Not to say thy can't be harmed, but it would be damn tough to take out 100% of their interconnecting function.

And even if the interconnecting function is removed, the separate grids will be able to take and distribute power, again, within capacity constraints.

[Covenantor]

A far greater threat would come from a lack of food. Urban groceries have a three day supply of food....

I've seen this three day supply of food mentioned in several articles and have wondered about the source.

Anyone who has paid attention to to the news in times of natural disasters and/or civil unrest has watched video footage and has seen mobs strip these stores clean in a matter of an hour or two, leaving empty shells of buildings with broken glass and broken doors. A full out power outage and these stores are out for the duration. Doubtful that they would ever be restored even after a power recovery as the demographics of the areas served would have been drastically altered.

Having lived in Manhattan for several decades I can attest to the general paucity of suburban type supermarkets. Small mom and pop grocery stores are the rule. But the real weak point is that most urbanites rely on local restaurants and take out places for most of their meals. With non-functioning cold boxes they're out of action in 24 hours.