What’s all this talk about the vulnerability of “The Grid?” Is it really so serious?
We, in Topanga, are not usually fazed when the electricity goes out, usually due to rain, wind or fallen poles hit by cars. We wait it out, confident the hard-working technicians of SoCal Edison will have us back up and running as fast as possible.
But now hear this: the U.S.-Canadian power grid is actually composed of only three separate grids: the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and the Texas Interconnection (Yes, Texas has its own grid.)
Within each of these three grids, hundreds of power plants produce electricity to keep up with the constantly shifting power demands of our nation. Those power plants are driven by all kinds of energies: coal, oil, water, solar, wind, nuclear. Electricity is driven to homes and businesses from these power plants through 450,000 miles of high-voltage power lines and 160,000 miles of overhead transmission lines in the United States.
Is the Grid outdated? Yes, the Grid is truly vulnerable. If she ever goes out for more than a few days, we are talking big time trouble, “people will die” kind of trouble. Imagine. No electricity.
Micro view your house: your lights, computer, internet, phone, TV, stove, fridge, heat, air conditioning, medical devices and more.
Go up a notch to your neighborhood: no lights, no traffic signals, no school, no water, no working pumps at the gas station, no registers working in stores, no refrigeration, no ATM or banking available, no credit card activity—you wouldn’t have access to your own money! Then there are the hospitals, medical labs and doctors’offices. Jeez!
Macro view? Planes grounded, trains stopped, harbors closed, factories closed, news outlets silenced, no water treatment, dams shut down, farms shut down, factories shut down, communications shut down, the whole supply chain of food halted. No power, no food.
There are four ways the Grid can fail: Solar storms, EMP (electromagnetic pulse) and acts of nature or terrorism. According to a USA Today analysis of federal energy records, about once every four days, part of the nation’s power grid is struck by a cyber or physical attack.
The Los Angeles Times reported, “A 2013 attack on an electric substation near San Jose that nearly knocked out Silicon Valley’s power supply was initially downplayed by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the facility’s owner, as vandalism. Gunfire from semi-automatic weapons did extensive damage to 17 transformers that sent grid operators scrambling to avoid a blackout. If circumstances had been just a little different, it could have been disastrous.”
There is a lot the Grid has to stand up to.
As a person in love with “local,” there is something on the horizon I really like. It’s called Distributed Power Systems. Topanga could set up a solar array for just this community. A large “future technology” battery bank would store and distribute energy. My son, Ben, just helped electrify a faraway island in Panama and that is just how they did it. A remote community got solar panels that fed a battery bank, which sends out wires to individual huts for light with no generator noise!
Collecting energy has never been the problem; it’s the storage and transfer of electricity that makes the Grid so vulnerable. Battery research is yielding some amazing solutions. Tesla is developing the Powerwall System, a wall-mounted rechargeable lithium battery that stores solar-generated power for use when the sun is not out, for days at a time. What I can’t wait for is the AA battery that will power my car for a week.
Because of the ageing Grid infrastructure, for now, it’s a good idea to have a home generator, some gas stored in proper cans, cash, food and lots of water for extended outages. It was great last summer, when SoCal Edison was constantly shutting off power to do maintenance work.
Meanwhile, contact our political representatives. Tell them to stop screwing around and get our infrastructure updated and protected…PRONTO!
Vamos a ver!
