The plan discusses not only EMP potential strikes but a number of other ways in which the electrical grid could be taken down or severely degraded regionally or nationally.
Not sure why they think this is a threat.
But the lights flickering tonight a lot. In fact right at the moment, the power here seems
We had the local substation go out for a week.
Now I’m prepared to handle a week [or more] of local power outage.
Nationwide? We’re screwed.
We already have issues with grid instability due to alternative energy sources. Pipelines have gone to electrically driven pumps instead of the natural gas fired engines of the past. If the power goes out t,he power stations with combustion turbines may stop without pipeline pressure. I don’t think we can avoid a large number of casualties.
Darks and I were assured years ago that the power supply was “impossible to hack” after the 2003 northeast blackout.
Both of us have been laughing at that since.
This is one option the DS is considering to take out DT.
Where we live the power goes out so frequently during the winter that everyone in the neighborhood has a generator. We run ours mostly on Natural Gas because it costs about a third of running it on propane or gasoline. When the power goes out it takes about 5 minutes to switch over to the generator. I check the oil before I start it and once a day while it is running.
We typically use about 24 kwh in a day, which translates theoretically into about a thousand watts continuous over 24 hours. But we use a 5000 watt generator to handle the starting loads of the furnace blower, refrigerators and freezers, and also high wattage items like the washer and motor on the natural gas dryer, microwaves, hair dryers, etc. The generator uses about eight therms of natural gas a day which costs us about $8 a day which is several times the approximately $2.50 a day electricity normally costs us.
If we switched to a slightly smaller generator it would save us some fuel expense. A generator performs far more efficiently when it is outputting close to its rated full load. But with the 5kw generator, despite using more fuel we basically do not have to do anything different to normal. The only thing we do not use is the electric oven.
If we lost natural gas and electricity, then we would have to rely on our fireplace and wood stoves to keep the house warm. For real SHTF scenarios I have propane and gasoline in reserve, but I also have a generator that is hooked to a stationary bicycle than can charge 12 volt batteries which can supply an inverter or USB adapters for phones, radios, computers, and other electronics. We also have a small 1000 watt generator that is far more fuel efficient for this purpose.
I had to look it up but does anybody here remember the Ice storm from 1998 that hit Quebec and surrounding area.
According to Wikipedia “Millions were left in the dark for periods varying from days to several weeks, and in some instances, months. It led to 35 fatalities...”
It also caused somewhere between 5 and 7 billion dollars of economic loss.
What I remember hearing was the fact that many of the emergency generation facilities installed in such critical infrastructure as hospitals, civil defense operation centers and public survival shelters started suffering mechanical breakdowns after three or four weeks of continuous operation. Something else to take into consideration.
I also find it quite amazing that in the middle of a Canadian winter the death toll was only 35 people. Obviously, the living conditions would have been less than optimal but it allowed just about everybody affected to survive.
Might be a dumb thought but would it be possible to build super large surge protectors for the power grid? I once heard someone saying it was possible.
Take the $7500 tax credit for every electric car sold and put it towards the national power grid.