Posted on 10/27/2013 4:56:01 AM PDT by Libloather
A catastrophic, prolonged failure of the electrical grid—the sort of event whose effects are depicted in National Geographic Channel’s upcoming American Blackout, which premieres Sunday—may seem like just apocalyptic science fiction to some viewers. Unfortunately, though, the possibility of such a breakdown is all too real. (See related interactive: “Survive the Blackout.”)
Government and utility industry officials are so concerned, in fact, that in November, they will stage a massive emergency drill, called GridEx II, that will involve thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, FBI antiterrorism experts and government officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. They’ll practice responding to a simulated failure of large parts of the electrical system across North America. (See related quiz: “What You Don’t Know About Electricity.”)
(Excerpt) Read more at energyblog.nationalgeographic.com ...
Yep, my #36.
One “solution” being floated is to reduce our dependence on long-haul transmission lines, by building small plants closer to the consumers. By distributing power generation, failures would be more localized, and the overall effect of a CME would be reduced. (Another benefit: terrorists would have to hit more targets to have the same effect.) Also by distributing more, smaller, generators, a failure in one place won’t translate to failures over very, very large areas. The faults would be contained.
Makes sense, which means the chances of us doing something like that are nil.
I don’t know why the utilities in your area decided to do that. I can tell you that of the hundreds of substations my company is in charge of, I know of none that have a brick fence surrounding it. I do know that some places put up walls and such around substations because people don’t like looking at them, but that is about cosmetics, not security.
I think what many of the ‘It can’t possible happen’ naysayers are really saying is if this was to happen I am ‘screwed’! Because they know they have no plans and made to preparations to handle such an emergency.
What people should be doing is taking a look at themselves and asking do I have what I heed for me and mine to make it through such a 10 to 14 day period? The second question is: Do my neighbors have the means to make it through and if not do they know that I do?
Nobody around here can be bothered much by cosmetics as we’re in the country. A solid wall is an eyesore not to mention extremely stupid post 9/11. Hop over the backside and do anything you want without being seen.
You are probably right. The only problem with this is that the docu drama on Natgeo is making people think this blackout stuff is only for a couple of weeks when in reality it could be months or even a couple of years depending on what happens.
Two weeks worth of food while better than nothing is not really going to save anybody.
* I'm really not. I've been preparing my inventory and now I moving on to skill-sets.
I got three man-months right now. Working to double that soon.
The radio show I was listening to the other night had folks calling in saying they will be turning power off on the grid although the article doesn’t specifically say this. A lot of the very large transformers, from what was said on the show, are old and only a few exist in a form that can be used .... if they have major transformer issues, new ones would have to be built. I have no idea how much of this is accurate, but it seems warm weather would be a better time to do a test if there is a chance folks will be without power for more than a few hours. After going through some long outages in the past due to ice storms, if we get a major grid failure for any length of time, most folks will not fare very well. Electricity is pretty much taken for granted these days ... folks are amazed when the gas pumps don’t work and neither does the ATM!
Yes six to twelve months is certainly a lot better. We have found that if you just buy a little extra every week you soon have quite a bit.
I remember the 1965 failure. Ever since then we have been told just how vulnerable we are, and in all that time nothing has been done about it. And we won’t try to do anything until it’s too late. Too many people with the attitude that we are invulnerable.
What about an EMP attack? Are we ready for that?
That’s the problem. Many utility companies don’t have two, much less a few dozen transformers sitting in storage. Anyone scheduling this sort of drill for wintertime is nuts.
Yup!! LOL! He blew it at the wire!! But it was a good post!
In fact, yes we are. You'll have to live with that a bit longer.
Regards,
GtG
Baby steps Georgia...Baby steps Georgia... You got a bunch of FReepers that believe that something like this can’t happen for 10 days, let’s get them past taht first!
If they all take heed, and prepare for at least 2 weeks, that’ll be 2 weeks they wouldn’t have had, and that will give them time to come up with a game plan for survival. Plus with the long term aftermath of Sandy and Katrina, some may just decide to plan a little beyond the 2 weeks.
We are all getting as prepared as we can, but if circumstances turn unfortunate for us, and all we have are our wits and skills, we will still be ahead of lots of people, because of our knowledge and skills.
Unless we choose to punch our own card, which I won’t do, none of us know our time is up until it is up. So you may have to live with it longer than I. There, take that! :)
nothing has been done about it
I disagree with you that nothing has been done about it. The measures that could be done quickly, such as better and more foolproof monitoring, have been implemented. Also, the human process problems have been upgraded, to reduce the chance for uncontrolled cascade failures. The changes to the physical plant have been going on at a steady pace. Some of the changes that need to be made can't be done until the researchers figure out how to do it.
Remember, though, the goal of the safety systems is to preserve the equipment, and the people operating that equipment. It's not to "keep the lights on at all costs."
I will agree with you that there are too many people who treat the matter as an SEP -- Someone Else's Problem. For my part, I'm working to reduce my demand for energy. Not because I'm a pinko eco-nut (I'm not), but because I know that the cutbacks I make will reduce demand, and thus reduce stress on the system. (I rent an apartment, so I don't have the option that homeowners do to take on some of their own power generation.)
And save me a little money. That helps, too.
I won't repost that long article of facts, but I can sum it up like this:
POWER IS GOING OUT ONE DAY AFFECTING ALL THE COUNTRY OR REGIONS OF THE COUNTRY DUE TO CYBER ATTACK, SUN EJECTION, OR NUCLEAR BLAST AND WHICH DAY THAT WILL HAPPEN, I DON'T KNOW.
I am ready if it happens today, therefore my country, of which I am President For Life (my house and back garden), is safe from whatever evil forces use to take out power. Join me by getting in place a way to have power, light, water, food, security, cooling, heat, more than one way to cook, medicine, and .....entertainment. Hmm, that reminds me I have no alcoholic drink in this house. If power stays on tomorrow, I'll have drinking alcohol by the end of the day. I'd like to have some to at least have something the first several days as my muscles would probably need deadening by then after setting up the various systems.
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