Posted on 12/03/2015 5:54:06 AM PST by Steve Schulin
The highway bill that emerged from House-Senate conference committee includes much that doesn't have much to do with surface transportation, including a section which could save millions of lives in the event of an electro-magnetic pulse attack. ...
Here's the section on the Strategic Transformer Reserve:
SEC. 61004. STRATEGIC TRANSFORMER RESERVE.
(a) Finding.--Congress finds that the storage of strategically located spare large power transformers and emergency mobile substations will reduce the vulnerability of the United States to multiple risks facing electric grid reliability, including physical attack, cyber attack, electromagnetic pulse, geomagnetic disturbances, severe weather, and seismic events.
...
(c) Strategic Transformer Reserve Plan.--
(1) Plan.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary [of Energy], acting through the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, shall, in consultation with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Electricity Sub-sector Coordinating Council, the Electric Reliability Organization, and owners and operators of critical electric infrastructure and defense and military installations, prepare and submit to Congress a plan to establish a Strategic Transformer Reserve for the storage, in strategically located facilities, of spare large power transformers and emergency mobile substations in sufficient numbers to temporarily replace critically damaged large power transformers and substations that are critical electric infrastructure or serve defense and military installations...
(Excerpt) Read more at compleatadvocate.com ...
...All, or most, devices being served by the grid are fried too.....
Most likely this will be addressed in the upcoming plan. They can be stored in protected enclosures just for emergency use. The cost to protect these spares, is in reality, pretty cheap considering the consequences.
EMP isn't likely to be the problem. Much more likely is a group of Islamic terrorists coordinating a "transformer sniper attack" and taking down a big chunk of the grid.
In addition to this strategic reserve, substations should be surrounded by concrete walls, and equipped with multiple webcams transmitting by fiber optic (fiber optic already in place and used for other grid monitoring uses).
Another implication of this will be to encourage industry to standardize on a very few different configurations. You cannot have a reserve of spares where every one in the field is different.
You have to remember we are talking about electrical restoration in the order of a few weeks, and that is all the time we would have to get that accomplished, or we will be faced with total social disintegration.
Well that does nothing if North Korea, or some other country launches a warhead or three, and detonates at high altitude, somewhere mid-country.
And I believe North Korea is already seeking that capability.
This is really a big issue. Something like 90% of America’s population could end up starving, if there was ever a critical wipe-out of our entire electrical grid.
This is (I think, anyway) a huge issue.
These Huge Power Transformers are completely necessary to ensure our power stations can supply electricity to the power grid.
These power transformers are often manufactured abroad and it can take years for order fulfillment site delivery.
Yes, it’s possible that many electronic devices could be damaged by an EMP and affect organizations and end users.
But without the ability to distribute power in the first place, we’d be in the stone age.
....This is really a big issue. Something like 90% of America’s population could end up starving....
It would become an unimaginable hell in a very short time, a matter of one to two weeks.
Ha
Would they survive EMP or would they all have to be stored in faraday cages?
I presume all of the spares would be stored in some sort of faraday cage.
For sure.
They couldn’t be hooked up to the grid for sure while in storage, and would need to be built immune to EMP, or else placed in faraday cages until needed.
This is a real (and big, nationally) issue.
Somewhat critical.
Small-scale, tightly targeted terrorism is orders of magnitude more likely.
I don’t know.
I am not an electrician, so maybe I just don’t see it, but to me we need backups for all of our main electronic components.
A large EMP attack is increasing in probability.
It is foolish, not to prepare, to deal with one.
Utterly foolish.
And you know this how?? Based on what?? The deterrent force is still there, and will not be disabled by such a strike, so "massive retaliation" will not be prevented. What nation state is going to commit suicide by launching an EMP strike??
There are countries in this world, who would like to damage America.
I would posit, there will be someone, some day, in some government who will not be deterred by us being able to retaliate. They will attack us, just to inflict damage.
(that is my sincere belief)
Those countries, are becoming more advanced, Some day they will have the capability to attack us. We need to anticipate that day, and plan ahead.
Simply being ready to retaliate will not deter, at some point. We need to be ready to respond to the damage, as well.
America needs to operate, after an attack.
My big concern is we do not seem to think it is possible.
I believe the possibility is increasing, and will continue to grow.
We need to prepare, just in case.
We need to begin to prepare, now.
So long as the spare transformers are not connected to anything, they should be okay. Faraday shielding would not hurt, but probably wouldn’t be necessary.
Sorry, but I can't "buy" that. The ruling caste of ANY nation-state has a vested interest in not committing suicide. I don't believe that even Iran would do so in spite of their rhetoric.
An organization like ISIS or Al-Quida "might" perpetrate such an act, but they don't have the tech.
Should we prepare.....most definitely. There are sufficient "non-EMP" threats to justify the prep.
I don’t know if I completely agree with that.
Apparently we feel differently.
I think we should start to make backup plans, this legislation appears to be a good start.
Just to make things clear, I am not in the government, I am not in defense, I have never worked for the government, or the military, or been involved in any of this question in any capacity.
But I think the world is becoming more dangerous.
We do not appear to be paying enough attention to this subject at the moment.
Just my own opinion.
Being able to respond militarily won’t always be a deterrent, against everyone.
It is crucial for us to make backup plans so we can recoup from any attack quickly, just in case.
Good Grief.
This is not the taxpayes problem, other than the responsibility of the government to protect citizens from foreign attack of which it seems to have largely abdicated.
This is a business continuity problem for the electric companies. If they want their business to continue after these events real or imagined, it should be absorbed by their business model and it’s consumers.
I disagree.
This is a very important, national security issue.
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