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Page added on August 15, 2016
What Will You Do When The Lights Go Out? The Inevitable Failure Of The US Grid
Delta Airlines recently experienced what it called a power outage in its home base of Atlanta, Georgia, causing all the company’s computers to go offline—all of them. This seemingly minor hiccup managed to singlehandedly ground all Delta planes for six hours, stranding passengers for even longer, as Delta scrambled to reshuffle passengers after the Monday debacle.
Where Delta blamed its catastrophic systems-wide computer failure vaguely on a loss of power, Georgia Power, their power provider, placed the ball squarely in Delta’s court, saying that “other Georgia Power customers were not affected”, and that they had staff on site to assist Delta.
Whether it was a true power outage, or an outage unique to Delta is fairly insignificant. The incident was a single company without power for six measly hours, yet it wreaked much havoc. Which brings to mind (or at least it should) what happens when the lights really go out—everywhere? And just how dependent is the U.S. on single-source power?
When you hear about the possible insufficiency, unreliability, or lack of resiliency of the U.S. power grid, your mind might naturally move toward the extreme, perhaps National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers. Talks about what a U.S. power grid failure could really mean are also often likened to survivalist blogs that speak of building faraday cages and hoarding food, or possibly some riveting blockbuster movie about a well-intentioned government-sponsored genetically altered mosquito that leads to some zombie apocalypse.
But in the event of a power grid failure—and we have more than our fair share here in the U.S.—your survivalist savvy may be all for naught.
This horror story doesn’t need zombies or genetically altered mosquitos in order to be scary. Using data from the United States Department of Energy, the International Business Times reported in 2014 that the United States suffers more blackouts than any other developed country in the world.
Unfortunately, not much has been done since then to alleviate the system’s critical vulnerabilities.
In theory, we all understand the wisdom about not putting all our eggs in one basket, as the old-adage goes. Yet the U.S. has done just that with our U.S. power grid. Sadly, this infrastructure is failing, and compared to many other countries, the U.S. is sauntering slowly behind many other more conscientious countries, seemingly unconcerned with its poor showing.
The Grid, by Geography and Geopolitics
According to the United States Department of Energy, the American power grid is made up of three smaller grids, known as interconnections, which transport energy all over the country. The Eastern Interconnection provides electricity to states to the east of the Rocky Mountains, while the Western interconnection serves the Rocky Mountain states and those that border the Pacific Ocean.
The Texas Interconnected System is the smallest grid in the nation, and serves most of Texas, although small portions of the Lone Star state benefit from the other two grids.
And if you’re wondering why Texas gets a grid of its own, according to the Texas Tribune they have their own grid “to avoid dealing with the feds.” Now that’s true survivalist savvy—in theory.
When you look at the layout of the grid above, it’s easy to see that a single grid going offline would disrupt a huge segment of North America.
Wait—make that all of North America.
To give it to you straight, our national electrical grid works as an interdependent network. This means that the failure of any one part would trigger the borrowing of energy from other areas. Whichever grid attempts to carry the extra load would likely be overtaxed, as the grid is already taxed to near max levels during peak hot or cold seasons.
The aftermath of a single grid going down could leave millions of residents without power for days, weeks or longer depending on the scope of the failure.
So although on the surface it looks like the U.S. has wisely put its eggs into three separate baskets for safer keeping, the U.S. has in essence, lined up our baskets so that if one were to drop, or if the bottom were to fall out, the eggs from basket #1 would fall into basket #2. Which would break from the load, falling into basket #3—eventually scrambling all the eggs. Sorry, Texas.
When multiple parts of the grid fail at the same time, it’s not necessarily more catastrophic—the catastrophe just happens more quickly.
According to Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in an interview with USA Today, “You have a very vulnerable system that will continue to be vulnerable until we figure out a way to break it out into more distributed systems.”
The Grid, by the Numbers
Let’s look at the math behind the power grid, and what the U.S. is doing to improve it.
1. Through the Recovery Act, the DOE invested about $4.5 billion in the power grid since 2010 to modernize it and “increase its reliability”. $4.5 billion seems like a fairly large number, unless you’re talking about a single machine that serves as the lifeblood to nearly every human in North America—a machine that was conceived in 1882 by Thomas Edison—with little changed since then, conceptually speaking. For people who reside in weather-challenged areas, such as my home state of Michigan, a home generator is almost as necessary of an appliance as a microwave, and people are scrambling to go “off-grid” with alternative energy solutions—an act that will not provide them immunity should the lights go out everywhere else. And for what it’s worth, for those of you sporting solar and wind energy, you’re further taxing the grid—the grid just wasn’t designed to accommodate the surges and lulls of such systems, however green you find them.
2. Power outages—just the ones due to severe weather—cost the U.S. economy between $18 and $33 billion annually in spoiled inventory, delayed production, grid damage, lost wages and output. Despite a few billion dollars being thrown at the grid to improve its resiliency or reliability, the number of outages due to weather is expected to increase, assuming that climate change will indeed intensify extreme weather, as some predict.
3. The total annual cost from power outages, per federal data published in The Smart Grid: An Introduction, is a whopping $150 billion.
4. As of 2014, the DOE had generously spent $100 million (million, not billion) into modernizing the grid for the specific purposes of surviving a cyber incident by maintaining critical functions. This would be measures separate from making the grid more reliable.
5. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the electrical grid a grade of D+ in early 2014 after evaluating the grid for security and other vulnerabilities.
6. The average age of large power transformers (LPTs) in the US is 40 years, with 70 percent of all large power transformers being 25 years or older. According to the DOE, “aging power transformers are subject to increased risk of failure.”
7. LPTs cannot be easily replaced. They are custom built, have long lead times (even 20 months, in some cases), cost millions of dollars, are usually purchased from foreign entities due to limited U.S. capacity, and weigh up to 400 tons. All this means that patching and fixing is likely to be favored over replacement, despite their age and associated risk.
Working with those figures, most of which are provided by federal sources, this means the U.S. invested, from 2010 to 2014, $4.5 billion to modernize the grid, along with an additional $100 million to stave off cyber threats. That’s $4.6 billion over four years, or $1.15 billion per year in upgrades. Next to the $150 billion lost each year due to outages, it looks like someone has done some subpar calculating.
The security of the power grid, which is a separate issue from the reliability of the power grid, is a whole other issue that concerns itself with hypothetical one-off scenarios—albeit terrible one-off scenarios. But at least there’s a chance that those one-off scenarios, such as a cyber-attack on the grid or some terrorist activity, would not come to fruition. A chance, at least.
What we are certain of, is that severe weather will continue to stress and threaten our power grid. And unless something changes, ultimately, it will fail. So when we talk about reliability, we’re talking about “when” and “for how long” scenarios, not “what if”.
The how-long factor plays a huge role into how bad is “bad”; not because of the events that one knows will follow, which includes mass food spoilage, deaths due to overheating in the hot summer months, deaths due to freezing in the cold regions, and the halting of everything we take for granted these days—airlines, internet and most other forms of communication.
All that sounds pretty bleak, but when you throw into the mix the mania and hysteria that would ensue shortly after such catastrophic events, it will be so much worse. Best-selling author Charles Mackay, in his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, does a pretty good job describing, through example, how crowd decisions and reactions are significantly less sensible than individual decisions—sometimes downright nutty, as evidenced by Tulip Mania, where supply and demand—or in this case scarcity and demand, drove up the prices of tulip bulbs to ridiculous levels.
In the context of blackouts, we saw this in 1977, when a lightning strike in New York on a Hudson River substation tripped two circuit breakers, causing power to be diverted in order to protect the circuit. The chain of events that followed ended in an entire blackout for the area, which led to mass rioting, over 1000 deliberately set fires, the looting of 1600 stores, and the eventual arrest of 4,500 perpetrators and the injury of 550 officers, according to some estimates. The power was only out for 25 hours, and in one area.
In all likelihood, the haves (those who have removed themselves from the grid and prepared accordingly) will soon be overrun by the have-nots in the event of any extended blackout, with heavily populated areas taking the brunt of the chaos—and your solar roof panels or generator will not suffice as your savior.
The U.S. would be wise to follow the lead of some other countries, such as Denmark, which has decentralized its grid, but we doubt the cash exists to fund such an ambitious overhaul of an archaic system that has been left essentially unattended for decades upon decades.
Julieanna Geiger via OilPrice.com
41 Comments on "What Will You Do When The Lights Go Out? The Inevitable Failure Of The US Grid"
eugene on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 6:50 pm
The list of collapsing infrastructure is very long. But we have one helluva military. Course it’s useless without electrical power to manage it. Oops! Hadn’t thought of that.
Cloggie on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 7:02 pm
https://youtu.be/I80MhaI4IPI
The Tramps
Apneaman on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 7:26 pm
Sounds familiar.
sparky on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 8:04 pm
.
The Grid is the very backbone of a modern society , without it we are literally in a pre World War 2 environment .
as an aside, Delta are morons , they should have Uninterrupted power supply systems to bridge the ten minutes gap until the diesel backup come on line , if they didn’t they only display their crassness .
ghung on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 8:17 pm
“In all likelihood, the haves (those who have removed themselves from the grid and prepared accordingly) will soon be overrun by the have-nots in the event of any extended blackout, with heavily populated areas taking the brunt of the chaos—and your solar roof panels or generator will not suffice as your savior.”
A bit hyperbolic, IMO. First of all, most folks wouldn’t have a clue how to use solar panels or off-grid systems.
Secondly, despite their vulnerabilities, segments of our power grids are pretty good at protecting themselves, and segments will be restored fairly quickly, barring some major EMP event or somesuch. I suspect that’s where desperate gridweenies will flock to.
Thirdly, hard core off-gridders are generally prepared in other ways; basically high-risk targets. In our case, if a protracted, wide-spread event occurred, most of our immediate family would make their way here, and all are proficient with firearms. Also, our area is fairly rural and folks/families/churches are used to taking care of their own and cooperating with other neighbors. Most have religious and cultural biases against turning on their like-minded hard-working neighbors (they’ve been helping each other for generations); those who don’t will find themselves weeded out pretty quickly.
High tolerance for adversity; low tolerance for evil doers, here in Appalachia. It’s about decades of social capital; a powerful thing.
makati1 on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 8:39 pm
sparky, actually we would be in a pre World War 1 environment. Much of the US was already electrified by WW2.
“Although nearly 90 percent of urban dwellers had electricity by the 1930s, only ten percent of rural dwellers did.”
http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm
Urban population in 1940 was already approaching 60%. So, most of America was already electrified by WW2.
http://www.icip.iastate.edu/tables/population/urban-pct-states
Not to mention that all banking (your money) is now digitized in those little chips and not going to be accessible when the electric grid goes down. Pre WW2 never had that problem. They had a paper pass book with their deposits recorded where you can read them without electric or an I-gadget. The Philippines still uses paper pass books. Who will suffer the most? lol
makati1 on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 8:45 pm
ghung, I doubt that those little bits of the grid are going to last long. The things that you need, like access to your bank, will be dead. The likely cause of the grid failure will be an EMP, either man made or natural. There goes your bank account. Your job. Your income from any source that pays in money. Your meds. Social connections. Etc. Thinking you are immune is a fools errand.
makati1 on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 8:52 pm
BTW: Anyone who keeps any amount6 of money in a bank, other than to keep an account open so you can operate in the current financial system, is not thinking straight. It is not yours as long as the banksters have it. It is only an IOU that they may never repay. Think about that. The FDIC is bullshit.
I have 2 accounts in each of 2 US banks, for redundancy since I live outside the US, but the total balance for all 4 is less than $100 and only exceeds that when my SS is deposited. That is withdrawn within 24 hours of it’s deposit and turned int Pesos in my hand. Banks only hold what I can afford to lose.
ghung on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 9:01 pm
Mak said: “Thinking you are immune is a fools errand.
Where did I say I was “immune”, Mak? You’re almost as bad as Cloggie at attributing things to others that they didn’t say.
It’s a case of “You don’t have to be faster than the bear; just faster than the other folks running from the bear.” Anyway, you’re sitting in one of the biggest, most stressed urban areas on the planet with no preps what-so-ever, and I’m in rural Appalachia, fairly well settled and prepared, with good neighbors who I know. Next you’ll want to tell me I’m more fucked? When things fall apart, it’ll largely come down to population density and local resources per capita. You’ll be screwed.
Davy on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 9:03 pm
Same here in the Ozarks of Missouri, Ghung.
ghung on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 9:08 pm
Yeah, Davy, city folks just don’t get it (or something like that).
makati1 on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 9:39 pm
Ghung, you allude to being somewhat immune in your comment. Reread it.
As for where I live at the moment. I agree, but I have a place out of the city to go to that is very self sufficient. I do not need electric, or the internet to live a comfortable life. Many families in our farm neighborhood have neither electric or internet or even a cell phone and do just fine. So will I.
MikeX11.2 on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 10:16 pm
You buy a Tesla Model 3, a Solar roof and Battery Backup. In 3 years there will be no problem.
Or you could get the solar roof now.
MikeX11.2 on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 10:18 pm
makati1, so what do you do for heat?
Do you use oil or natural gas? Those will be out too.
You need a ZERO Energy Home, that would can heat with one small wood burning stove, that doesn’t use a lot of wood.
I laugh at people who build a cabin in the woods, then cut down all the wood to heat the cabin in Winter. They kill their property value, and a reason to even have a cabin in that location.
ghung on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 10:20 pm
Jeez, Mak, “immune” is a rather absolute term, and one thing I’m not is an absolutist. I’ve spent my life dealing with variables. Anyway, I’m canning pickles again, and wouldn’t mind if you were here to help; maybe sipping a good Kentucky Bourbon and talking doom. That’s the kind of folks we are, and would do our best to see that you enjoyed your visit.
Too easy to get confrontational online, or in the real world, but WTSHTF, better to make friends, eh?
ghung on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 10:21 pm
Oh,, and must love dogs (sweet bitches in our case) 😉
MikeX11.2 on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 10:22 pm
“Thirdly, hard core off-gridders are generally prepared in other ways; basically high-risk targets. In our case, if a protracted, wide-spread event occurred, most of our immediate family would make their way here, and all are proficient with firearms.”
When the “rule of law” returns, you’ll all be in Jail.
What you’d call self defense will look like murder, especially if you kill more than one person.
Just an FYI.
ghung on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 10:46 pm
“When the “rule of law” returns, you’ll all be in Jail.
What you’d call self defense will look like murder, especially if you kill more than one person.”
Not in our County. Indeed, the Sheriff’s Dept gives monthly firearms and home defence training; encourages firearm safety, education, and licensed carry. We even have a “posse” as backup for law enforcement, mounted search and rescue (all usually armed), and a volunteer auxiliary.They know who the good guys are.
Most visitors and interlopers wouldn’t notice those things. Talk softly, treat people with respect, and carry a big ‘stick’.
Where the fuck do you live anyway, Mike? Some place where they prosecute people for defending themselves, their families and their property?
ghung on Mon, 15th Aug 2016 11:02 pm
Mike asks; “makati1, so what do you do for heat?”
Mak lives in the Philippines. Heat?
“I laugh at people who build a cabin in the woods, then cut down all the wood to heat the cabin in Winter. They kill their property value, and a reason to even have a cabin in that location.”
Mike thinks we’re all idiots, it seems. Anyway, it’s clear his his idea of self-reliance is a 401k and three bank accounts; maybe a lake house with a generator. Needs to know some of us laugh at people who have no Plan B beyond BAU.
GregT on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 12:16 am
“I laugh at people who build a cabin in the woods, then cut down all the wood to heat the cabin in Winter. They kill their property value, and a reason to even have a cabin in that location.”
One of the dumbest comments I’ve read here yet. Completely clueless.
makati1 on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 1:32 am
ghung, when it is the military, not the police patrolling your county and they are not even Americans but UN troops. what then? Your local cops are going to be home protecting their families, not you. And that is what is coming in Police State America. Or a world war at your doorstep. Security is a word in the dictionary, not reality. You will be about as secure as a settler in Indian country in the 1700s. Me, I accept this. ‘Zombies’ or cobras at the door. No difference.
makati1 on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 1:38 am
Mike:
1. As ghung pointed out, I live in the tropical Philippines. Here you can build a shelter with bamboo and palm leaves that will keep you safe and dry. Temperatures range between 70F and 90F all year with a few hotter and cooler days. Never even near freezing. Maybe 60s at lowest.
2. If there is a major breakdown, there will be no rule of law return ever. The law of the jungle will rule. Perhaps you have not thought out the possibility of what is happening and what it will lead to? A close analogy may be the Dark Ages and you will be a serf, at best.
Davy on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 3:00 am
Ghung, you can’t fix dumbass. No matter what we do Makati is going to tell us he does it better. He is going to tell us we are screwed and he has the refuge. You can’t even ask the guy to be friends without getting spit on. I have yet to hear dumbass from you and you and a few others are why I am back daily.
Cloggie on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 4:29 am
Makati is ignoring two important factors in his survival strategy:
1. his own ethnicity. Makati is probably king due to his pension dollars and America’s status as protector/overlord of the Philipines. But what if the global banking system melts (which according to makati himself is a real possibility). How much of a king will you be without dollars if the ATM will display the text “game over”. You will be an isolated old “whitey” in an overpopulated Asian country. Who would care about you?
2. South China Sea standoff. In 1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese kicked the Americans off the islands. There is a real possibility that in a not too distant future China will flex its muscle and tell the Americans to take its navy away from its doorstep in the SCS and retreat to Hawaii. Suppose Washington will pick up the gauntlett and defy and the Chinese cross the Rubicon and sink a smaller US navy vessel with one of their supersonic missiles. And then what? Escalate? The US has several large military bases in the Philipines. In case of escalation the Chinese could very well invade the Philipines, like the Japanese did in 1942, when the Americans had an economy 6 times that of Japan. Now in 2016 China is a much more formidable adversary than 1942-Japan. And what would happen to you makati? You could of course point to all these pro-Chinese posts on this forum to the new Chinese overlords, but I have a suspicion that the invaders couldn’t care less and you could end up in the Chinese equivalent of what the Dutch in their 1942-Indonesia called a “Jappenkamp”.
Now I like makati, so I hope he survives. I admire the courage of his convictions and the bold move he made at an advanced age, but I still think he would be best advised by looking for a small house with a veranda and a rocking chair in places like Hermann-Missouri, with a little piece of soil for the veggies and an iPad Pro on his lap so he can continue to fulminate against technology and broadcast that message globally. I would miss his posts.
Cloggie on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 4:37 am
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jappenkampen_in_Nederlands-Indië
Scroll half way the article to see a not too glamorous picture of Americans in a “Jappenkamp” in the Philipines during WW2.
That could be you.
Davy on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 4:53 am
“The problem is one of duration”. Read this and get a feel for our status quo global world. Pensions mirror our global civilization. Extend and pretend have consequences because of duration. Repression of normal fundamentals like interest rates and accounting practices have consequences longer term. Disregard for the rule of law and corruption likewise represent long term decay and decline. Risk has consequences and cannot be eliminated. Investments bring adequate returns or they don’t. Duration creates judgment. Judgment is definitive. Our day of reckoning is approaching.
“Pension Duration Dilemma – Why Pension Funds Are Driving The Biggest Bond Bubble In History”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-14/pension-duration
“Public and private pension funds around the globe are massively underfunded yet they continue to pay out current claims in full despite insufficient funding to cover future liabilities…also referred to as a ponzi scheme.”
“the impact of declining interest rates on the asset side of a pension’s net funded status is dwarfed by the much more devastating impact of declining discount rates used to value future benefit obligations. The problem is one of duration. By definition, pension liabilities represent the present value of future benefit payments owed to retirees which is a virtually perpetual cash flow stream. Obviously, the longer the duration of a cash flow stream the larger the impact of interest rate swings on the present value of that stream.”
“So what do you do when perpetually declining interest rates continue to drive your funded status lower and lower despite your return profile? Well you move further and further out the yield curve, of course, in an attempt to match your asset duration with that of your liabilities.”
“BIS economists argued that a large chunk of the fall in long-term yields since mid-2014—in the part of the yield called “term premium”—was due to insurance firms and pension funds trying to fix these problems. “If a sufficiently large segment of the market is engaged in such portfolio rebalancing, the market mechanism itself may generate a feedback loop whereby prices of longer-dated bonds are driven higher, serving to further lower long-term interest rates and eliciting yet additional purchases,” they said.”
“The problem of course is that pensions will never be able to match the duration of a perpetual obligation stream. And even if they could, the best case scenario is that they would be able to lock in their existing underfunded status while doing absolutely nothing to close the gap.”
makati1 on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 6:20 am
Clogie, perhaps you just do not understand the actual condition in the Ps? I have my future secure here and, if the ATMs go down tomorrow, I will be just fine thank you. I “ignore” nothing in my preps. I have lived here 8+ years and, if you think I have not secured my stay, you are mistaken. You only know what I post here, and I would be a fool to tell the world everything, wouldn’t I? Especially the Empire.
What kind of “security” would I have in Police State American when the SHTF? I can tell you it would be much less than I will have here. My “ethnicity” gets me a bit more politeness, but that is all. My age gets me a lot more. Filipinos still respect age. They have many programs for old people that the US has not even thought of. Free passes at the movie theaters, grocery discounts, taxi discounts, a form of SS, free basic medical, (THAT one is better than “Obamacare” or Medicare), first priority at the banks, and probably more bennies that I do not know about.
2. The SCS situation is not quite like you hear in the US MSM. China is protecting it’s shipping channels from the Empire’s ability to close it. I doubt that it will ever come to blows. If it does, the war will come to America this time, in the form of missiles.
I think China will take down the US from within using its two trillion plus bullets. (USDs) Or cyber warfare. Or an EMP blast over Kansas. I am not worried about China “occupying” the PS. They already own most of the major industry, real estate and banks here. No need to take over what you already own.
Two points:
1. The new Prez here seems to be moving away from the US and toward China. He is NOT an Imperial Lackey like the last two. I think he sees how the US is setting the Ps up to be another Irag/Libys/Syria.
2. “The US has several large military bases in the Philippines.” NO they do not. Not since the last century. They have a few troops here and maybe some supplies stashed, but no actual base. I doubt they ever will again for the same reason as #1.
Now why the fuck would I want to live in a hillbilly backwoods location like Missouri? Rednecks are just as likely to kill you for your “stuff” as anyone else. There is not going to be ANY safe place in Police State America. Not even close. I think you will begin to understand that statement soon.
I prefer a veranda in the mountains of the Philippines where neighbors help each other and the government stays out of their business. And why do you think I need any I-junk? I have a nice library of books that require no internet or electric to read. I have fresh air and clean water and a fantastic view that you pay big money for in America. Soil that grows crops year round. And friends that don’t care how much you are worth or your education and lineage. My cell phone is turned off 99% of the time as I rarely use it. I have planned as well as anyone can and look forward to the adventure.
But, thanks for caring. ^_^
sparky on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 6:44 am
.
Irony as an argument
the marvelous George Carlin
“when the electric grid goes down ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVNL8bBjrZ4
Cloggie on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 7:16 am
Makati,
Yes, the Ps closed down US military bases in 1991, but meanwhile five new US bases are planned:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/03/21/these-are-the-new-u-s-military-bases-near-the-south-china-sea-china-isnt-impressed/
The Ps apparently have noticed that 1991-China is not 2016-China and are still gambling on an American, not a Chinese future. Not sure if that is a wise move.
In a military conflict China could very well be tempted to invade the Ps to take out these bases that can be used to rapidly fly in war material from the US.
I am not buying the idea of nuclear escalation, even if China would take out a carrier. If the US would take out Beijing, China would return the favor and take out NYC and Washington. Both countries would be leaderless and likely fall apart. Both governments know that and hence will NOT nuke each other cities. Stalin already knew that nukes are worthless, because you can’t use them against an adversary that also has them.
Your reaction concerning Missouri and iPad was provoked and anticipated.lol
makati1 on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 7:38 am
Cloggie, “planned” during the last administration, not this one. As for flying in what war material? You need someone to use that material and the US has maybe 600 troops in Mindanao, max.
If hostilities break out between the US and China,(which I doubt) the US will be kept East of Guam, which is 1400 miles East of the Ps, or at least 2,000 miles from China. Even the US Navy knows that they put their carriers in jeopardy if they come within 1,000 miles of China.
You are correct, 2016 China is NOT 1991 China. The new China can kick the US’ butt in the Western Pacific and the US knows it.
But, if a war breaks put, the nukes WILL eventually fly. Of that I am certain. No country is going to back down when they have nukes.
When you poke the bear, you get the expected reaction. I just tell it as I see it. Feel free to disagree. lol
Cloud9 on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 8:14 am
I am restoring a 74 Pinzgauer as my post EMP vehicle. We pick up the people and head to the scrub to ride out the collapse. In 90 days many of the problems will have sorted themselves out.
george on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 9:31 am
It was a fire
Baptised on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 2:17 pm
I am not disagreeing with any opiouns. Just saying the USA apalahacians are very populated. It is bumper to bumper traffic from Atlanta to Murphy to Franklin to Highlands to Brevard to Ashville to Washington DC by halfbirds on the eastern side. Knoxville to Chattanooga to Atlanta is pure suburbs on the western side. Then you get into Hazard to Pikeville to Roanoke to Front royal going North and every valley has a McDonalds,Hardees & Dollar Store that most, not all, get there food from. Talking to apalahacian trail hiking friends, they say the same is happening alway to Maine. Just 20 years ago it wasn’t like this. So before an apocalypse I foresee more people. A mountain makes one seem isolated.
Cloud9 on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 4:39 pm
This is preaching to the choir, but NASA Scientist give us a one chance in 8 that a Carrington level event will hit in the next decade. Lloyds says such an event is inevitable. Then you have the Congressional study that says we will lose 90% of our population within the first year of grid collapse. Not to consider this eventuality is foolish.
rockman on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 9:25 pm
“And if you’re wondering why Texas gets a grid of its own, according to the Texas Tribune they have their own grid “to avoid dealing with the feds.” Now that’s true survivalist savvy—in theory.”
What f*cking theory? LOL. It has nothing to do with “survivalist savvy”. It is solid state government planning with the cooperation of business and environmental interests and overwhelming voter support. Texas, with its own separate power grid, is by far the largest electricity consuming state: 75% more then #2 Florida. Today Texas electricity capacity from wind power is almost equal to our coal supplied power…for which we have a 100+ year supply. Wind power capacity that wouldn’t exist had not the citizens supported spending $7 BILLION of their taxes to expand our grid system. And from another thread a portion of the expansion required the use of eminent domain laws that allowed the PRIVATE ENTERPRISES that built the wind farms to generate profits for themselves.
And how well has our “survival savvy” paid off: last week thanks to the heat wave and resultant air conditioner load Texas recorded the highest electricity consumption in the state’s history. And not a single brown out let alone a black out. And helping in the winter time also: a couple of years ago an Arctic blast shutdown a number of NG powered generators and wind power supplied almost half the total state demand for the period. But would not have been able to do so without the $7 BILLION tax payer funded grid upgrade.
And the future of Texas coal supplying our electricity demand? Texas consumes twice as much coal as #2 Illinois. And has no plans to decrease the volume. Aiding that plan: we have the largest CO2 sequestration project ever built on THE ENTIRE PLANET under construction. That power plant is the second largest single generator of GHG in the country.
The huge growth in the PRIVATE ENTERPRISE investment in wind lower and the TAX PAYER INVESTMENT of the grid expansion was not done to reduce coal fueled electricity generation but to supplement it. And will continue to do so as Texas electricity is projected to grow significantly in coming decades as more citizens and companies continue their relocation to the state.
It seems like some “survival savvy” might be recognizing the benefit of moving to the Lone Star state. LOL.
Apneaman on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 10:47 pm
rockman, burn that coal now because there will be no Texas in 100 years – probably not even in 50. That load for all the A/C – you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just a matter of time before it can’t handle the heat that’s coming. In the meantime, everyone in Houston and near the coast check that your flotation devices are working. That new and improved hydrologic cycle will be coming back for plenty more visits like a couple of months ago. Thats your new, Lone Star state, abnormal. I bet those ten dead Texas soldiers families are not lol-ing too much over the AGW jacked deluges eh? Another 9 or 11 people in your country just died in the last couple of day from yet another AGW jacked deluge/rain bombardment and here you are laughing in the face of global warming and bragging about your coal and wind.
Boat on Tue, 16th Aug 2016 11:56 pm
Burning coal to make electricity continues to plummet in Texas. A decade ago, coal was the fuel source for 50 percent of the power generation in the state. It’s now fallen to around 20 percent. Two decades from now, it’s projected coal will generate maybe six percent of the state’s power.
“Renewables, especially wind and solar, will constitute as much as 90 percent of what we’re adding to the grid. And the remainder of course is natural gas,” Recent studies that predict that in just the next five years, more than half of the 18 coal-burning power plants in Texas will have shut down.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2016/06/20/157335/coal-burning-out-as-way-to-make-electricity-in-texas/
rockman on Wed, 17th Aug 2016 8:31 am
“…and bragging about your coal and wind.” As we say in Texas: it ain’t bragging if it’s true. LOL. And as far as AGW the vast majority of GHG is still generated by you and all the other ff consumers. So I can easily understand the sense of guilt that drives your frustration. LOL.
As far as coal goes in our future in Texas: nice try Boat but playing the % source game doesn’t change the fact that the amount of coal burned in the state had steadily increased for many years. Until,of course, historic low NG prices cut unto that market. Of course now that plays like the Marcellus Shale are starting to tapper ouf prices will increase…and those lignite reserves will still be there. The Texas Bureau of Economic Geology is projecting the same amount of electricity generation from coal in 2035 as was generated in 2010.
Which is why in recent years the coal industry has invested more than $16 billion in Texas coal plants…half of the total invested by the entire country. Which is why Texas has the youngest fleet of coal plants in the nation. When people hear about coal-fired power, they’re thinking about plants built back in the 1930s and 1940s. And in the Midwest, that may be true. But all our plants are post-1970. And in terms of nitrous oxide emissions, for instance, we have the second-cleanest fleet in the nation. And that does’t include the future removal of the second largest single source of GHG in the country thanks to the largest CO2 sequestration project ever built in the entire world.
Coal has a long and solid future as a significant energy source in the state…much to the frustration of many non-Texans. LOL.We’ve invested more than $16 billion in Texas coal plants to be sure that we’re as clean as can be,” says Powers. “And Texas has the youngest fleet of coal plants in the nation. I think a lot of the time, when people hear about coal-fired power, they’re thinking about plants built back in the 1930s and 1940s. And in the Midwest, that may be true. But all our plants are post-1970. And in terms of nitrous oxide emissions, for instance, we have the second-cleanest fleet in the nation.”
Apneaman on Wed, 17th Aug 2016 12:04 pm
rockman, no guilt here, I’m not the one with kids and/or a wife. Nor am I frustrated – what would I be frustrated about? Have you not been reading what I have been preaching about the humans not being in control and only following their biological growth imperative? Fuck sakes how many time do I need to say it? Hell, even all that fine Texas wind generation is about growth. I guess in a way I’m still amazed at the sheer stupidity of humans. Like you for example, supposedly educated and talking about the next 100 years. Talking like there is a future or maybe the lying is a part of you from being in that corrupted business so long. If anyone has been paying attention I don’t make specific peak oil predictions – just that it’s coming, but I make many doomy environmental ones and they have all come true. “faster than previously expected” the scientists have been saying. Right on schedule with what I’ve been saying, because I have no institutional restraints on me. Coming up on the 3 year mark for me on this site and I have been telling y’all the things that will be getting worse and they have played out – like the floods in Houston. Warned about that a couple of years ago. I think all this science is a big waste of money since it only is good for quenching curiosity – the humans don’t act on it if it will interrupt growth. The other complete waste of money is the multi billion dollar denier industry and it’s army of free true believers – there was never any threat to fossil fuels and especially not oil. Coal had been on the wane for years and all the electricity on the planet is only around 20% of total world energy demand. I think it’s just that big money either attracts or creates pathological liars. What about you rockman, were you always corrupt or did you have to be around that scum for awhile before you became like them? Ever payoff and gag order any locals on your jobs?
Oh well, here is the latest end times American cancer consequence.
Zero Percent Contained — Blue Cut Fire Explodes to 30,000 Acres, Forces 82,000 People to Flee
Rising temperatures. Deepening drought. Worsening wildfires. Such are sadly the new climate realities for the State of California in a record hot world.
“By early afternoon, emergency officials were scrambling to get ahead of the fire. More than 750 firefighters were mobilized as neighborhood after neighborhood emptied before the gigantic walls of smoke and flame rushing in. Sherrifs ushered from door to door, urging people to leave or notify next of kin. Residents spilled onto roadways shrouded by darkness as towering pillars of black burst into the skies above them. Joining together in long trains of cars, they formed a press of 82,000 people fleeing the fire. By evening, homes along highway 138 were engulfed, a local McDonald’s burned, and the famous Summit Inn on Route 66 was consumed to its foundations.”
https://robertscribbler.com/2016/08/17/zero-percent-contained-blue-cut-fire-explodes-to-30000-acres-forces-82000-people-to-flee/
Apneaman on Wed, 17th Aug 2016 12:23 pm
Mold, spiders, looting: Amid deadly Louisiana floods, a heartbreaking new reality
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-louisiana-flooding-20160817-story.html
Apneaman on Wed, 17th Aug 2016 12:33 pm
Why Write A Report At All?
” agree entirely. Humans need to constantly question their assumptions about what is possible for them to achieve and what is not. Unfortunately, that questioning only goes one way.
As terrible Flatland scenarios play out, humans must constantly invent new post-hoc rationalizations which keep hope alive (e.g., Moser’s non-linear social tipping point). Humans must invent new, even more unrealistic assumptions about what is possible for them to achieve, despite overwhelming and ubiquitous evidence suggesting that humans have far exceeded the limits of what they are capable of doing to fix their self-created environmental problems.
As the environment deteriorates, at what point does this re-invention process become absurd, even to the Flatland humans engaged in this behavior? When do some of these people simply admit that it’s too late?”
http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/08/why-write-a-report-at-all.html