Electrical grid terror

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Sorry, but I couldn't get it to link. Maybe some one else cab.


Screenshot_20190113-164734.jpg
 
Great find! Lots of information. There is a lot of information about how the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand will be doing when it comes to restoring power.

It says hospitals will be considered a priority, but the water systems they rely on may not be considered a priority.

Just started reading and it’s 2 a.m. (I have to get up to get ready for work at 4)

I like how they point out that only a few states tell residents to have 14 days supply of food and water on hand instead of 3 days. They want to encourage preparedness for everyone at a minimum of 14 ( more is required but it is a start)
 
Brent S said:
What get me is the govt has known for decades how vulnerable and important the grid is. Why hasn’t more been done to make it more secure?
Click to expand...

Brent, could you not ask the same question of why New Orleans didn't strengthen their flood control 20 years ago, even after they were given the money to do it?

Simple answer: "It'll never happen to me" syndrome.
 
Brent S said:
What get me is the govt has known for decades how vulnerable and important the grid is. Why hasn’t more been done to make it more secure?
Click to expand...

Government doesn’t own much of the power grid, private and public power companies have stated the consumer wouldn’t tolerate the raise in the electric bill to cover the cost in upgrading the system. All the electrical companies would have to harden the grid, it wouldn’t do much good if only a quarter were able to harden the electrical system.
 
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TexasFreedom said:
Brent, could you not ask the same question of why New Orleans didn't strengthen their flood control 20 years ago, even after they were given the money to do it?

Simple answer: "It'll never happen to me" syndrome.
Click to expand...

Corruption is the name in New Orleans, I wouldn’t say corruption was the problem with why the grid hasn’t been hardened yet. But you are right, most people have the attitude “it won’t happen to me”
 
Maverick said:
Government doesn’t own much of the power grid, private and public power companies have stated the consumer wouldn’t tolerate the raise in the electric bill to cover the cost in upgrading the system. All the electrical companies would have to harden the grid, it wouldn’t do much good if only a quarter were able to harden the electrical system.
Click to expand...
I wonder how much of a hike it would be in our electric bill to do it? I know they are updating our water infrastructure here (it went private about 5 years ago) our bill has almost tripled. It would be hard if the electric bill did the same.

Regarding the "it won't happen to me" attitude, I was watching a documentary on the Bosnia war. All the people said the same thing, "We didn't think it could happen here."
 
I also read in this report where the government sees the value of offering tax incentives, grants, etc to help companies get to where they need to be, but do they actually offer those? Or is this just some ideas that will never be put into motion?
 
Brent S said:
What get me is the govt has known for decades how vulnerable and important the grid is. Why hasn’t more been done to make it more secure?
Click to expand...

Simple, the grid does not vote and if the whole grid goes down, the politicians will have a lot more to worry about, like how are they gong to eat? Better to spend more on buying the voters.
 
DrPrepper said:
I wonder how much of a hike it would be in our electric bill to do it? I know they are updating our water infrastructure here (it went private about 5 years ago) our bill has almost tripled. It would be hard if the electric bill did the same.

Regarding the "it won't happen to me" attitude, I was watching a documentary on the Bosnia war. All the people said the same thing, "We didn't think it could happen here."
Click to expand...

The electrical bill would probably triple same as your water
 
Just heard today that PG&E was filing bankruptcy due to liability for the California wildfires. PG&E share price dropped more than 50% on this news. The power companies can't afford to change out their wires to prevent fires, so there's no way that they can afford to "harden" the grid. As Mav said above the grid isn't "owned" by the government (which is why it works) but by independent private or semi private (PUD) companies. These companies answer to share holders and rate payers. If the government ever mandated that these companies had to harden their portion of the grid the rates would skyrocket out of reach to most customers. I'm sure that eventually the tax payer will end up footing the bill though. We always do.
Since I'm not on the grid I'm not too concerned about it.
 
If electric fees tripled, then Solar would become cost effective. Maybe this is the governments back door method to go green. Can't talk people into it, then force them to literally buy into it. Less wire and connections to harden.
 
Urbanprep said:
If electric fees tripled, then Solar would become cost effective. Maybe this is the governments back door method to go green. Can't talk people into it, then force them to literally buy into it. Less wire and connections to harden.
Click to expand...

I was reading yesterday about how much more solar and wind turbines cost than good old fossil fuels.

The average Joe just can't afford the switch
 
Urbanprep said:
If electric fees tripled, then Solar would become cost effective. Maybe this is the governments back door method to go green. Can't talk people into it, then force them to literally buy into it. Less wire and connections to harden.
Click to expand...
Remember who said "Electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket" ?
 
Don't worry too much. Our grid is so outdated, and such a hodpodge of networks and independent systems, that it actually works AGAINST terrorism, in that it's difficult to knock out a significant portion with a single attack, or even a small number of coordinated ones.

Not to downplay the threat....but don't make it more than it is either. ;)
 
Do what, exactly?

Cause a localized outage of a few blocks or so (until another station rerouted power)? Yes.
 
Our biggest threats are:

1) A massive hacking of modern stations coupled with actual ground actions at key points.

2) A massive EMP attack using specialized weapons to affect a large area.

Either of these could result in massive blackouts that could last months, or even over a year, due to the difficulties in getting certain parts, not to mention the manpower needed to do restoration (and of course, that cost then being passed on to the consumer). And that's IF society doesn't go down the crapper after a couple weeks of no power and no real end in sight (which it would).
 
Several years ago tornados hit North Alabama and shut power down for weeks in some cases . The same storms shut Our power down in Southern Middle Tennessee for a couple days . Our local power station switched back to a small hydroelectric dam here that Was Our primary source of electricity until the late 80's when We started pulling from the big plants in East Tennessee and Georgia . The small local plant now mostly services a Military base . We actually went back to occasional brown outs We had when I was growing up . Once the lines were back up this area went back on line with the big plants .
One point of the story is the Folks in Alabama improvised, adapted, over come being without electricity for quit a while .
 
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