Our Fragile Grid: The Hazards of Electric Outage

There is a great deal of discussion about whether or not man-made global warming poses a significant threat. However, with the attendant push toward renewable energy and the merits of electric vehicles, there still exists an imminent danger to American society which is being largely ignored.  It  makes us vulnerable, not just to a large extra-national enemy, but to anyone with the means and will  to effect a wholesale destruction of the power grid across the United States.

Right now, our electric grid is highly vulnerable. An electromagnetic pulse, caused by an acute flare from the sun, an explosion of a nuclear device in the atmosphere, or a systematic hacking of the computers which service the grid, could result in a loss of electric power across the contiguous United States for decades.

The machinery which would need to be built to reconstitute the grid could not be manufactured without the very electricity it services. Currently, there is about a three day supply of food on the shelves of most stores. Most of the country does not manufacture its own food. Without electricity to power gas pumps and oil refineries, trucks would no longer roll. Cities would be particularly hard-hit. Hospitals would soon cease to function as their back-up generators  would begin to decline due to lack of oil or gas to power them. Water would soon cease to flow from the electric pumps that supply it.

Transportation – both public and private – would cease to move, as all forms of power would quickly dry up. The Internet, telephones and other means of communication would immediately go down. Perhaps worst of all, the nuclear reactors across the nation, whose fuel rods are cooled by electrical pumps, would quickly melt, causing multiple catastrophes far worse than Chernobyl or Fukushima.

Society would swiftly descend into chaos, as marauding bands of people, frantic to find food, would take the law into their own hands. People, even those with well-armed arsenals, would be hard-pressed to defend themselves. Those with little cash will find themselves in possession of credit cards that will not function. ATM machines at banks will no longer work. It has been estimated that about 93% of the country’s population would die within nine months to a year.

A huge solar flare that occurred in 1859, known as the Carrington event, knocked out telegraph wires nationwide at that time. This was viewed as a great inconvenience, but it did not cripple the nation. Most of the country’s population at that time lived on farms and was not dependent upon electricity as it is today. The telephone and radio had not yet been invented. But today, aside from a few communities like the Amish, most everyone would be seriously affected.

So why aren’t people in positions of power talking about it? There are solutions to be found, but it would take a concerted bi-partisan effort on the part of our nation’s leaders. In the 1950’s President Eisenhower put his full support behind the development of the nation’s Interstate Highway System. That national network of roads, far from supplanting the existing roadways, supplemented them and allowed faster travel between distant points.

We use surge protectors that break circuits to prevent destruction of valuable equipment during a power surge caused by lightning. Similarly, during a blackout, the nation’s grid (actually a series of interconnected grids) could be similarly insulated. Using nationwide back-up systems of alternating solar and wind power, strains against the system could be mitigated and waterpower could be brought to and from areas of flood and drought via conduits installed over (or under) the existing Interstate system. Such projects would serve not only to alleviate pollution, but would also boost our economy by providing WPA-style jobs that would carry themselves in perpetuity. It would be a win-win solution.

As it exists currently, the national electrical grid system would  be unduly strained if thousands of electric vehicles were to be introduced willy-nilly into the system. We would soon experience rolling blackouts such as those that exist in third-world countries.

Sooner or later, this problem – the most pressing and imminent threat our nation faces – will have to be dealt with. Why not do it sooner rather than later? It would be much easier to deal with it now than it would later, with conditions of the late nineteenth century.

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