[HN Gopher] US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but i...
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US unprepared for an electrical grid collapse, but it costs only
$300M
Author : rictic
Score : 76 points
Date : 2020-05-03 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.themoneyillusion.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.themoneyillusion.com)
| rdxm wrote:
| curious as to how a post like this gets allowed. this is quite
| obviously click-bait, a personal blog post that is pretty
| dramatically un-informed. is HN going the route of
| Fox/CNN/DailyMail???
| smrk007 wrote:
| Is anyone working on solving this problem?
| ars wrote:
| I wonder how many other rare disasters there are that cost only
| 300M to prepare for.
|
| If it's just a couple, then sure, fund this one.
|
| But if there are thousand of possible rare disasters - how can
| you possibly fund them all?
| dmurray wrote:
| Now that we've got "global pandemic" marked off our bingo card,
| I'd put this at the top of the most likely "unforeseen"
| worldwide disasters. Some kind of supervolcano eruption is the
| other candidate.
|
| Of course, not all disasters are global and every country or
| region will have its own rare disasters to prepare for.
| williamdclt wrote:
| If there's 3.3 thousand similar disasters, it would cost ~1
| trillion to prepare.
|
| How much did covid-19 cost?
| btilly wrote:
| How much should we worry about this?
|
| http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk...
| was prepared by Lloyds of London after the 2012 detection of a
| large solar flare by a satellite in interplanetary space. (That
| one missed the Earth.)
|
| Their estimate was $600 billion - $2 trillion dollars of damage
| from an event that happens roughly once ever 150 years on
| average. Therefore the amortized cost of this risk _per year_ is
| $4 - $13 billion.
|
| If a substantial fraction of the risk can be mitigated over the
| next decade for $300 million, it would be cheap at 10x the price.
| In fact Berkshire Hathaway probably has enough exposure to this
| risk that it makes financial sense for them to not debate over
| who pays and to just create the stockpile to reduce potential
| future insurance claims.
| realtalk_sp wrote:
| Sadly it might cost Berkshire even less to just reinsure
| against the risk.
| phonon wrote:
| Berkshire is the 5th largest reinsurer in the world[1], so
| not likely to happen...
|
| [1]https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-
| news/t...
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| I'm suddenly tempted to write a not-quite-serious novel about
| a time period up to and including a post-apocalyptic dystopia
| that occurred simply because almost all emergency measures in
| the world were replaced by insurance policies.
|
| In the end people subsist on irradiated rats and mutant
| vegetables but they're doing great because each of them are
| owed millions of pounds by Lloyd's of London which may or may
| not exist anymore.
| abeppu wrote:
| Maybe someone who knows a bunch about this stuff can enlighten
| me. I was kind of under the impression that a large solar flare
| would damage _all sorts_ of electronic equipment, by inducing
| currents wires all over the place.
|
| - If we had extra transformers on hand, how would you protect
| them from also being damaged?
|
| - If a solar flare is powerful enough to damage these
| transformers, would it also have damaged a large proportion of
| devices that use power? I.e. even if you could get the electric
| grid working, would there be working systems of any complexity to
| use the power?
| petrocrat wrote:
| Transformers are usually housed in metal boxes. Any wires
| inside metal sheeting of whatever geometry would be protected
| because any current induced would be induced in the metal
| container which dissipates the power of the pulse. To learn
| more read about Faraday cages.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I'm also not super knowledgeable in this area but let me have a
| shot:
|
| * The transformers could be stored in a manner designed to keep
| them from being damaged by this event (off? physically
| disconnected? In large pieces?)
|
| * I think things are surge protected at local levels so
| appliances would be fine.
| btilly wrote:
| It is true that the solar flare will induce current in any
| exposed wire. However the following factors increase the
| current. The length of the wire, the thicker the wire, how
| poorly insulated it is, and the stronger the magnetic surges
| caused by the flare.
|
| Long distance transmission lines are very long, fairly thick,
| and very exposed. The result is that the surges that they
| experience are several orders of magnitude stronger than, say,
| inside of your washing machine or a transformer unconnected to
| the wire. That surge doesn't hurt the wire, but it can blow the
| transformer when it hits it.
|
| And hence the problem is mostly in blown transformers. If you
| have other transformers on hand, you swap them in and most of
| the system should be up.
| makomk wrote:
| I can see a couple of rather obvious problem with this. The
| electrical grid is, well, connected - the long, high-voltage
| sections are connected to the lower voltage sections which
| are connected to the even lower voltage sections. Those
| connections are through transformers, but if the surge is big
| enough to destroy even the largest transformers what's to
| stop it from blowing through all of the transformers and
| frying the delicate low-voltage control electronics of every
| grid connected device, including ones critical to operating
| the grid and power plants? Also, smaller devices are
| naturally going to be a lot more sensitive than huge
| transformers, so even if they don't experience the same level
| of voltage and current this could still be enough to destroy
| them.
| asperous wrote:
| Surge protectors
| dvt wrote:
| Being "prepared for black swans" is stupid. Of course, you want
| your system as a whole to be as antifragile as possible, but one
| should never _prepare_ for black swans, but rather buy insurance,
| hedge, and diversify. For example, we can imagine a world where
| some other pandemic is being spread. One that, instead of
| attacking the lungs, attacks the kidneys. All of a sudden we 'd
| need dialysis machines -- not ventilators. See how preparing for
| some _specific_ black swan is misguided (as we can be hit by any
| other, equally unlikely, black swan events)?
|
| > In testimony before a Congressional Committee, it has been
| asserted that a prolonged collapse of this nation's electrical
| grid--through starvation, disease, and societal collapse--could
| result in the death of up to 90% of the American population.
|
| Okay, this sounds like an interesting assertion. Can we back this
| up? Is this just alarmism? Where's the data?
|
| > Yes, $300 million dollars for a stockpile of 30 HV transformers
| is far too expensive to prevent 90% of the public dying and the
| rest reduced to cannibalism.
|
| I see. So now we're assuming some off-the-charts assertion, which
| is dubious at best[1], is absolutely true. The cannibalism is
| thrown in for extra flair. Gotta' get them clicks somehow.
|
| > Update: I forget to mention that I'm far more worried about
| accidental nuclear war, bioterrorism and AI run amok than I am
| about solar flares.
|
| Anyone that's seriously worried about "AI run amok" (whatever
| that means) doesn't understand the first thing about AI.
|
| [1]
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a25883/nor...
| elliekelly wrote:
| Investing a nominal amount in strategic backup equipment that
| you might never need _is_ hedging.
|
| An event that has a low probability of occurring but that (if
| it occurs) will be highly catastrophic is exactly the scenario
| that calls for hedging. Most critical systems have already
| diversified by building in redundancies (generators) and an
| insurance check wouldn't be very useful for keeping the rest of
| us alive.
| PopeDotNinja wrote:
| Solar storm of 1859
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
| csecdaemon wrote:
| While I don't disagree that transformers... let alone key
| transformer.. are critical. By disabling 9 transformers you
| cannot take down "THE GRID". You could certainly cause havoc and
| perhaps take down sections of a grid, perhaps a large one such as
| new york city. But these would be localized. While ensuring that
| critical components are local and available is important much of
| this is being done in the energy sector. It's not to say there
| simply are no replacements. However, the energy sector, including
| transmission, is made up of over 6000 separate organizations.
| Most of which are not federally controlled or controlled by the
| local government. Put simply they are for-profit companies. They
| are critical infrastructure and regulated by the gov, but not a
| part of.
|
| Put short, this is a serious matter, but not in the way it is
| presented here. It would be a herculean effort to take out 1 let
| alone the suggested 9. Especially in a coordinated fashion. EVEN
| IF it was achieved.. This would only cause localized issues. Not
| takedown. "THE GRID"
|
| This is a much larger discussion but a few things to consider:
|
| 1. There is no singular "grid". It just does not work that way.
| There are thousands of generation and transmission companies
| throughout the US. They all maintain there own "grids". There is
| connectivity to provide ways to connect grids to sell/buy/shed
| power. But these connections are controlled and can be simply...
| disconnected. 2. Without going on a major diatribe on the many
| different attack vectors and inherent vulnerabilities in the
| energy sector.... Suffice to say.. The easiest and most sure way
| to take out a transformer is physical. They would need to be
| destroyed or disabled. Digital/remote interference would require
| an immense effort and campaign... we are not talking breaching
| the 9 locations... we're talking hacking millions upon millions
| of connected devices and coordinating load to take out a
| transformer or the grid as whole.... The coordination and effort
| necessary for either are staggering. 3. There are in fact spares
| and inventory... just not in the hands of the feds.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| You seem to be assuming some sort of terrorist event. I would
| have thought the most likely reason for the whole grid to go
| down is another Carrington event.
| csecdaemon wrote:
| I'm not assuming anything/anyone specifically but lean
| towards nation-state, anarchist, terror, etc. A natural
| disaster such as a flare, earthquake, fire, etc. are a
| different story. The radiation and electrical magnetic pulse
| from a solar flare could hamper equipment. However recent
| studies in the last few years by EPRI, INL, and ORNL actually
| show that much equipment would survive and equipment that did
| not would be localized.
| FpUser wrote:
| _There is no singular "grid". It just does not work that way_
|
| This did not prevent "Northeast blackout of 2003" when bunch of
| states in the US and province of Ontario in Canada went without
| power for 3 days. I remember it quite clearly. Was not big fun.
| Luckily my friends and I with families went camping on the lake
| so did not really suffer other than some little disaster in a
| fridge ;)
| xkapastel wrote:
| > In testimony before a Congressional Committee, it has been
| asserted that a prolonged collapse of this nation's electrical
| grid--through starvation, disease, and societal collapse--could
| result in the death of up to 90% of the American population.
|
| This could happen at any time due to a solar flare. The
| coronavirus has made it pretty clear that America is completely
| unprepared for any sort of major deviation from "normal".
| [deleted]
| intopieces wrote:
| > The coronavirus has made it pretty clear that America is
| completely unprepared for any sort of major deviation from
| "normal".
|
| This is the nature of the US system of competitive federalism.
| States only coordinate with the federal government when either
| (a) it's politically expedient, because the ruling party in the
| same for both at that time, or (b) the federal government
| forces this issue, at which time lawsuits ensue.
|
| It's helpful to think of the US as more a series of regions
| that sometimes fall under a shifting umbrella government than
| an actual, single entity.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I don't understand how you have identified this as the
| problem. Sure, states haven't coordinated on lockdowns,
| testing, or mask purchasing. But it's not because they're
| struggling against the federal government, it's because
| there's no official policy to coordinate with.
|
| Seems to me like our main difficulty deviating from normal is
| the fact that a 20% decrease in demand kills off 10% of
| businesses within weeks and causes 20% of people to instantly
| get behind on their rent. There's no slack in the system.
| lisper wrote:
| > it's not because they're struggling against the federal
| government
|
| Actually, it is:
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/495519-maryland-
| gov...
|
| "The National Guard and the State Police are both guarding
| these tests at an undisclosed location [because] the
| federal government seems to be interrupting supplies that
| are being sent elsewhere in the nation, and so I wanted to
| make sure that we received what we ordered," [Illinois Gov.
| J.B.] Pritzker told reporters at an April 15 press
| conference.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| It's pretty interesting that most countries in Europe are
| unitary states while most countries in the Americas are
| federal states. Maybe due to the centuries of warfare in
| Europe the states that survived were unitary states that
| could better handle external threats. Or maybe it's a
| holdover from a tradition of monarchy that the Americas never
| had.
|
| Interestingly, Germany is also a federal state. Yet we never
| seem to hear about federal regions of Germany disagreeing
| with each other and fighting with the Federal government like
| we hear about the US. Any Germans want to spill the tea on
| German inter-regional political drama?
| brundolf wrote:
| That 90% number seems really hard to believe. Additionally,
| from the referenced article:
|
| > There is no published model disclosing how these numbers were
| arrived at, nor are we able to validate a primary source for
| this claim. Testimony given by the Chairman of the
| Congressional EMP Commission, while expressing similar
| concerns, gave no estimate of the deaths that would accrue from
| a prolonged nationwide grid collapse.
|
| I'm highly suspicious that that number is exaggerated in order
| to inspire action on what still seems like a worthwhile issue.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| That quote seems to come from the testimony of R. James
| Woolsley [1], who was referencing this commission report from
| 2008: http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-
| 7MB.p... [pdf]
|
| Unfortunately discussion in this thread will be dead before
| anybody will finish comprehensively reading that report.
|
| With the recent failure of the federal government during what
| should be a significantly easier to manage emergency, I find
| the 90% to be more believable than I would have just a year
| ago.
|
| [1]: https://www.powermag.com/expect-death-if-pulse-event-
| hits-po...
| jerkstate wrote:
| Did this guy even talk to a power grid engineer before posting
| his opinion? Offline spares of long lead time equipment are
| _always_ kept by utilities. The risk to the power grid is
| institutional knowledge, if something happens to the small group
| of greybeards who run each regional utility, they could bring in
| new qualified engineers but it would take time to understand the
| system (which would cause an outage that either wouldn 't happen
| in the first place or would be short to become protracted). The
| other major risk is if they are kept from doing their jobs due to
| budget or political issues (see: PG&E)
| wfbarks wrote:
| I feel like 2008 was an era of irresponsibility. Home buyers took
| out risky loans, banks sold these loans without accepting
| responsibility for how risky they where, investors purchased
| these loans without taking the responsibility to even see what
| kind of Loans where even in these mortgage backed securities.
| Ratings agencies abdicated this responsibility too. Goldman lied
| to AIG, and AIG didn't do the research to understand the credit
| default swaps they where selling. Central banks didn't accept
| responsibility for anything, saying "it was impossible to see the
| crisis coming".
|
| It doesn't appear that we have left this paradigm at all. The
| only group that has improved is the consumers, households have
| significantly cut back leverage since the 2008 crisis. But
| companies have not. Companies don't feel they have any
| responsibilities to prepare for these long tail situations, and
| governments don't seem capable of doing it. leaving it to central
| banks to throw trillions at the problem after the fact.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I feel like most of the economy (through wrong regulation) is
| one of irresponsibility.
|
| In many places there is a high incentive to mess things up, but
| little incentive to fix them.
| PacketPaul wrote:
| The book "One Second After" deals with an EMP attack on the US. I
| don't understand why we are not better prepared.
| barkingcat wrote:
| because it costs money and decreases profits.
| wcoenen wrote:
| > _I'd like to ask you guys whether we are prepared for other
| black swans. Let's start with a collapse of the electrical system
| due to solar flares or electromagnetic pulse attacks._
|
| A Black Swan is a "high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare event
| that is beyond the realm of normal expectations". But we know
| that the Carrington Event happened in 1859, and that it's only a
| matter of time before a big solar flare will affect Earth in the
| same way. So this is not a Black Swan.
|
| But yes, we should prepare for foreseeable rare events.
| beambot wrote:
| Events like the Carrington & Covid seem to fit: high profile,
| hard to predict and rare. IMO, both qualify as Black swan.
|
| At some point, you have to pick a threshold on the
| probabilities involved... These events are likely independent &
| identically distributed (i.e. hard to predict for any year),
| and I'd call sub-1% annual chance pretty rare.
|
| But I'm receptive to a different threshold... But you can't
| just say "Black swan only counts for previously-inconceivable
| events".
|
| Edit: I'm assuming covid-19 is structurally different than
| Sars, mers, Ebola, & H1N1 purely based on the global effect it
| has had to date. If you found those others as pandemics (not
| according to WHO though), then you can remove it as Black swan.
| kiba wrote:
| A Black Swan is probably more about the POV of an actor as
| opposed to somebody who knows this, then it's not a black swan.
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(page generated 2020-05-03 23:00 UTC)