Along with the fragility of power delivery grids nationwide, some junctions are critical to keeping it all tied together. Collapse one of those junctions from natural or manmade events and you can lose delivery in many, many places. Few understand just how vulnerable our system is, though weather events the last couple years have exposed…
Along with the fragility of power delivery grids nationwide, some junctions are critical to keeping it all tied together. Collapse one of those junctions from natural or manmade events and you can lose delivery in many, many places. Few understand just how vulnerable our system is, though weather events the last couple years have exposed weaknesses in the system, it's all but ignored once the lights come back on.
The so called infrastructure bill could have addressed a lot of these vulnerabilities and even hardened and updated transmission capabilities, but instead we're sold solar and wind farms that come nowhere near meeting demand. Everything in modern civilization requires electricity. Refrigeration, heating, hospitals, food manufacture and distribution, water delivery and waste filtration, hospitals, schools, gas stations, refineries, grocery stores, businesses of all types, all depend on reliable, uninterrupted, power delivery. Go thirty days without power for whatever reason and and civilization goes out the door.
I usually advise people take a look at hospitals and industrial facilities with backup power systems. They are backed with diesel or nat gas generators because they need reliable, available power for their critical systems. No hospital is erecting a wind farm or solar farm for their critical power needs.
I was involved in the first five buildings of the Target Corporation complex north of the Twin Cities. The 3rd building, the Target Tech Center was the most complicated, redundant , building I've ever been involved with and it was the crown jewel of what ultimately became 11 buildings. The TTC was basically a 2 story concrete computer. The exterior was built to withstand a direct hit from an F4 tornado. It drew power from two separate grids in case one was interrupted. If they lost both, almost a third of the first floor is battery banks. Room upon room full of large, deep cycle batteries that can keep all the servers and CPU's on the 2nd floor powered for 48 hours. Those batteries are backed up by seven diesel generators, three the size of bobtail delivery trucks and four the size of VW bugs. I'm legally obligated not to name the manufacture, but they make a lot of these type of systems. They have their own diesel storage. There's a chiller system that draws water from two different mains. The chilled water cools all the computers on the 2nd floor, in summer, some of that chilled water is used in a manifold system to cool the entire building. In winter, before the now hot water returns to the chiller system, it's diverted to the same manifold system to heat the building.
This is all so they can retain billing information. The hack that Target suffered a few years back was against this installation.
The 4th building, nicknamed "The Bunker" is mini version of the TTC. It draws it's water and power from a third source, not connected to the TTC at all. It has one of the large generators and two off the smaller ones.
Some of the methods used in hardening this system from EMP could easily be used to shield most of our existing power generation and transmission systems. To my knowledge, none of these types of measures have been used in public utilities, but a similar complex built by the government in Utah has the same if not better capabilities.
The technology is tested and proven, yet our government only uses it to protect its interests and not those of whom they supposedly serve.
The electrical engineer in me smiles at the levels of redundancy here, lol. But it again proves that companies will put investment in proven technology that works. I completely agree.
There is a weak point to all of that, which I suppose is the perfect illustration of what we've been discussing here. There are a half dozen substations within ten miles of this building, that if two or three were rendered inoperable for whatever reason, these buildings would only be viable as long as the diesel held out.
Being outside the Twin Cities 694/494 loop makes that eventuality a little less likely, but if it were targeted by people that can read schematics in public records, all sorts of havoc could be created specifically for this complex.
Now put that same scenario inside that loop and the Twin Cities and inner ring suburbs would be medieval in a month. Couple no electrical service with no deliveries of goods and that month turns into three days. You thought folks got loopy over TP? Imagine the bloodshed over the last bag of Doritos and box of Corn Flakes.
Purely as a thought exercise, a couple guys I know and myself figured five or six dedicated individuals could turn any major metropolitan area into Mogadishu in a couple weeks and never engage the public directly.
Tunnels bridges, railways, power substations and water mains are what you'd call, "soft targets" Maximum mayhem with minimal effort. They literally be eating each other within weeks.
A little more organized and directed activity and escaping those large population centers would be next to impossible. There are a finite number of cities with populations over 100,000. Many of those cities are fairly close to one another, especially along the coasts. Turning the LA basin into a warzone really wouldn't be that hard, so much of everything is dependent on uninterrupted power supply. relief on a scale not seen since the Berlin Airlift would be the only way to mitigate that. Natural disasters like hurricanes have shown the governments ability, not the desire, but the ability, to address such devastation is sorely lacking.
Now imagine a modern day Carrington Event. All of what was suggested above and more would be an immediate and insurmountable problem. There would be no FEMA, National Guard, or military response. It would take months just to gather enough resources to respond to just one area, never mind 60 - 75 large population centers. Nothing would work. Not planes, trains, or automobiles. No one is coming to help. NOTHING works.
But it doesn't have to be that way. We have the means and the money, Instead it goes to Ukraine and other places that really aren't any of our business in the name of foreign aid. What we spend annually on foreign aid could secure our situation in less than a decade. If the government were actually doing the job of public service, I wouldn't keep myself up at night fretting over things I have zero control over.
I did a short piece on that yesterday on my Sub stack, Observations Of A Reformed Rebel. Be Prepared. The Boy scouts were right.
A Carrington-level, extreme geomagnetic storm is almost inevitable in the future. While the probability of an extreme storm occurring is relatively low at any given time, it is almost inevitable that one will occur eventually.
Historical auroral records suggest a return period of 50 years for Quebec-level storms and 150 years for very extreme storms, such as the Carrington Event that occurred 154 years ago.
The risk of intense geomagnetic storms is elevated as we approach the peak of the current solar cycle. Solar activity follows an 11-year cycle, with the most intense events occurring near the cycle peak. For the current Cycle 24, the geomagnetic storm risk is projected to peak in early 2015.
As the North American electric infrastructure ages and we become more and more dependent on electricity, the risk of a catastrophic outage increases with each peak of the solar cycle. Our society is becoming increasingly dependent on electricity. Because of the potential for long-term, widespread power outage, the hazard posed by geomagnetic storms is one of the most significant.
Weighted by population, the highest risk of storm-induced power outages in the US is along the Atlantic corridor between Washington D.C. and New York City. This takes into account risk factors such as magnetic latitude, distance to the coast, ground conductivity and transmission grid properties. Other high-risk regions are the Midwest states, such as Michigan and Wisconsin, and regions along the Gulf Coast.
The total U.S. population at risk of extended power outage from a Carrington-level storm is between 20-40 million, with durations of 16 days to 1-2 years. The duration of outages will depend largely on the availability of spare replacement transformers. If new transformers need to be ordered, the lead-time is likely to be a minimum of five months. The total economic cost for such a scenario is estimated at $0.6-2.6 trillion USD (see Appendix).
Storms weaker than Carrington-level could result in a small number of damaged transformers (around 10-20), but the potential damage to densely populated regions along the Atlantic coast is significant. The total number of damaged transformers is less relevant for prolonged power outage than their concentration. The failure of a small number of transformers serving a highly populated area is enough to create a situation of prolonged outage....
AER Research authorship. Many geomagnetism resources at the AER Research website.
Along with the fragility of power delivery grids nationwide, some junctions are critical to keeping it all tied together. Collapse one of those junctions from natural or manmade events and you can lose delivery in many, many places. Few understand just how vulnerable our system is, though weather events the last couple years have exposed weaknesses in the system, it's all but ignored once the lights come back on.
The so called infrastructure bill could have addressed a lot of these vulnerabilities and even hardened and updated transmission capabilities, but instead we're sold solar and wind farms that come nowhere near meeting demand. Everything in modern civilization requires electricity. Refrigeration, heating, hospitals, food manufacture and distribution, water delivery and waste filtration, hospitals, schools, gas stations, refineries, grocery stores, businesses of all types, all depend on reliable, uninterrupted, power delivery. Go thirty days without power for whatever reason and and civilization goes out the door.
The resulting chaos would be biblical.
I usually advise people take a look at hospitals and industrial facilities with backup power systems. They are backed with diesel or nat gas generators because they need reliable, available power for their critical systems. No hospital is erecting a wind farm or solar farm for their critical power needs.
I was involved in the first five buildings of the Target Corporation complex north of the Twin Cities. The 3rd building, the Target Tech Center was the most complicated, redundant , building I've ever been involved with and it was the crown jewel of what ultimately became 11 buildings. The TTC was basically a 2 story concrete computer. The exterior was built to withstand a direct hit from an F4 tornado. It drew power from two separate grids in case one was interrupted. If they lost both, almost a third of the first floor is battery banks. Room upon room full of large, deep cycle batteries that can keep all the servers and CPU's on the 2nd floor powered for 48 hours. Those batteries are backed up by seven diesel generators, three the size of bobtail delivery trucks and four the size of VW bugs. I'm legally obligated not to name the manufacture, but they make a lot of these type of systems. They have their own diesel storage. There's a chiller system that draws water from two different mains. The chilled water cools all the computers on the 2nd floor, in summer, some of that chilled water is used in a manifold system to cool the entire building. In winter, before the now hot water returns to the chiller system, it's diverted to the same manifold system to heat the building.
This is all so they can retain billing information. The hack that Target suffered a few years back was against this installation.
The 4th building, nicknamed "The Bunker" is mini version of the TTC. It draws it's water and power from a third source, not connected to the TTC at all. It has one of the large generators and two off the smaller ones.
Some of the methods used in hardening this system from EMP could easily be used to shield most of our existing power generation and transmission systems. To my knowledge, none of these types of measures have been used in public utilities, but a similar complex built by the government in Utah has the same if not better capabilities.
The technology is tested and proven, yet our government only uses it to protect its interests and not those of whom they supposedly serve.
The electrical engineer in me smiles at the levels of redundancy here, lol. But it again proves that companies will put investment in proven technology that works. I completely agree.
Thanks for the insight! This is very interesting.
There is a weak point to all of that, which I suppose is the perfect illustration of what we've been discussing here. There are a half dozen substations within ten miles of this building, that if two or three were rendered inoperable for whatever reason, these buildings would only be viable as long as the diesel held out.
Being outside the Twin Cities 694/494 loop makes that eventuality a little less likely, but if it were targeted by people that can read schematics in public records, all sorts of havoc could be created specifically for this complex.
Now put that same scenario inside that loop and the Twin Cities and inner ring suburbs would be medieval in a month. Couple no electrical service with no deliveries of goods and that month turns into three days. You thought folks got loopy over TP? Imagine the bloodshed over the last bag of Doritos and box of Corn Flakes.
Purely as a thought exercise, a couple guys I know and myself figured five or six dedicated individuals could turn any major metropolitan area into Mogadishu in a couple weeks and never engage the public directly.
Tunnels bridges, railways, power substations and water mains are what you'd call, "soft targets" Maximum mayhem with minimal effort. They literally be eating each other within weeks.
A little more organized and directed activity and escaping those large population centers would be next to impossible. There are a finite number of cities with populations over 100,000. Many of those cities are fairly close to one another, especially along the coasts. Turning the LA basin into a warzone really wouldn't be that hard, so much of everything is dependent on uninterrupted power supply. relief on a scale not seen since the Berlin Airlift would be the only way to mitigate that. Natural disasters like hurricanes have shown the governments ability, not the desire, but the ability, to address such devastation is sorely lacking.
Now imagine a modern day Carrington Event. All of what was suggested above and more would be an immediate and insurmountable problem. There would be no FEMA, National Guard, or military response. It would take months just to gather enough resources to respond to just one area, never mind 60 - 75 large population centers. Nothing would work. Not planes, trains, or automobiles. No one is coming to help. NOTHING works.
But it doesn't have to be that way. We have the means and the money, Instead it goes to Ukraine and other places that really aren't any of our business in the name of foreign aid. What we spend annually on foreign aid could secure our situation in less than a decade. If the government were actually doing the job of public service, I wouldn't keep myself up at night fretting over things I have zero control over.
I did a short piece on that yesterday on my Sub stack, Observations Of A Reformed Rebel. Be Prepared. The Boy scouts were right.
For perspective, see "Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid" - Lloyd's of London 2013
https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-the-north-american-electric-grid/1/pdf-Solar-Storm-Risk-to-the-North-American-Electric-Grid.pdf
Executive Summary
A Carrington-level, extreme geomagnetic storm is almost inevitable in the future. While the probability of an extreme storm occurring is relatively low at any given time, it is almost inevitable that one will occur eventually.
Historical auroral records suggest a return period of 50 years for Quebec-level storms and 150 years for very extreme storms, such as the Carrington Event that occurred 154 years ago.
The risk of intense geomagnetic storms is elevated as we approach the peak of the current solar cycle. Solar activity follows an 11-year cycle, with the most intense events occurring near the cycle peak. For the current Cycle 24, the geomagnetic storm risk is projected to peak in early 2015.
As the North American electric infrastructure ages and we become more and more dependent on electricity, the risk of a catastrophic outage increases with each peak of the solar cycle. Our society is becoming increasingly dependent on electricity. Because of the potential for long-term, widespread power outage, the hazard posed by geomagnetic storms is one of the most significant.
Weighted by population, the highest risk of storm-induced power outages in the US is along the Atlantic corridor between Washington D.C. and New York City. This takes into account risk factors such as magnetic latitude, distance to the coast, ground conductivity and transmission grid properties. Other high-risk regions are the Midwest states, such as Michigan and Wisconsin, and regions along the Gulf Coast.
The total U.S. population at risk of extended power outage from a Carrington-level storm is between 20-40 million, with durations of 16 days to 1-2 years. The duration of outages will depend largely on the availability of spare replacement transformers. If new transformers need to be ordered, the lead-time is likely to be a minimum of five months. The total economic cost for such a scenario is estimated at $0.6-2.6 trillion USD (see Appendix).
Storms weaker than Carrington-level could result in a small number of damaged transformers (around 10-20), but the potential damage to densely populated regions along the Atlantic coast is significant. The total number of damaged transformers is less relevant for prolonged power outage than their concentration. The failure of a small number of transformers serving a highly populated area is enough to create a situation of prolonged outage....
AER Research authorship. Many geomagnetism resources at the AER Research website.
Good points. National defense is also dependent on electric power. Military bases store a limited amount of petroleum distillates on premises.