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"Build Blackouts Better": Half Of America Faces Power Blackouts This Summer, Regulator Warns

by Tyler Durden
Friday, May 20, 2022 - 06:11 AM

Tens of millions of Americans could be thrown into a summer of hell as a megadrought, heatwaves, and reduced power generation could trigger widespread rolling electricity blackouts from the Great Lakes to the West Coast, according to Bloomberg, citing a new report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a regulatory body that manages grid stability.

NERC warned power supplies in the Western US could be strained this summer as a historic drought reduces hydroelectric power generation due to falling reservoir levels and what's expected to be an unseasonably hot summer. Compound the hellacious weather backdrop with grids decommissioning fossil fuel power plants to fight climate change and their inability to bring on new green power generation, such as solar, wind, and batteries, in time, is a perfect storm waiting to happen that will produce electricity deficits that may force power companies into rolling blackouts for stability purposes.

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The regulatory body pointed out that supply-chain woes are delaying major Southwest solar projects, while some coal plants have trouble procuring supplies because of increased exports. They said there's also an increasing threat of cyberattacks from Russia.

By region, the Midwest power grid will be extremely tight. Across the Western US, power generation capacity has declined 2.3% since last summer, even as demand is expected to increase. Grids in the region may have to source power from neighboring grids as extreme heat will cause people to crank up their air conditioners. A situation of low wind speeds could trigger blackouts, according to NERC. They outlined how the Midwest could face power shortfalls due to the removal of power capacity from retiring fossil fuel power plants.

NERC issued a similar warning last year, stating power grids that serve 40% of the US population were at risk of blackouts. One year later, there was only one notable blackout last June during a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest that left 9,000 customers without power. But with reduced electricity generation capacity outpacing new green power sources, the risks of blackouts are increasing this year.

In Texas, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)has already warned multiple times of grid stress as early summer-like heatwaves sent temperatures in certain parts of the state into triple-digit territory.

California's grid operators have also warned of rising blackout threats --for the next three summers -- as the state transitions to greener forms of energy. The drought and shrinking reservoir levels have reduced hydroelectric power generation on top of decommissioned fossil fuel power plants. "We know that reliability is going to be difficult in this time of transition," said Alice Reynolds, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, during a May 6 press conference.

NERC's report is an eye-opener for those living in the Western US. Many households face out-of-control inflation, soaring fuel prices, and food shortages ahead of what could be a summer of unrest as the Biden administration is bracing for a wave of violence upon the Supreme Court's overturn of Roe V. Wade.

America is slipping into the abyss as households get a taste of what it's like to live in Venezuela. It's not that far off from what people are experiencing today: soaring inflation, shortages, a ruling regime which so many claim was not elected by the majority and soon, rolling blackouts.

What? All those bird-killing windmills aren't generating enough electricity? Gee, who woulda thunk it?



Yep. Welcome to the Third World, America.

Onward and upward,
airforce

This might be the final straw to get me to buy a generator which I’ve been avoiding/stalling on for far too long. I always assumed the most likely use would be due to weather (storm or blizzard knocking out power) of SHTF… never would have guessed Democrat mismanagement of the electric grid (slashing production while increasing demand simultaneously) would be the most likely use!

It could be handy to be able to roll it out on one of those high 90s mornings when they are expecting to be cutting power anyways… our AC already gets turned off for an hour at a time due to grid shortages… this way I could run the AC as per normal and not pull anything from the grid. Could actually be helping the community by not using any of their power at these peak times.

I see that they have kits to allow generator to run off of natural gas which would be super crazy handy to not need to be filling the gas tank, though I would still keep gas on hand for a scenario where the natural gas was cut. I have the ability to siphon gas out of the 3 cars which never go below 1/2 tank.

I don't run any air conditioning now even with plenty of electricity so I sure would not put any $10/gal. gasoline in a generator. A running generator is an invitation for looters. Yuppies can't live without air conditioning but my wife and I are already used to it. With no more electricity the only thing I would run is a DC window fan on a deep cycle battery charged by a solar panel. If everyone would turn off their AC and only run a window fan in occupied rooms then there would not be any electricity shortage. If Biden and the sorry Demorats let the power plants run the coal generators then there would not be any electricity shortage. Damn the EPA.

Damn right.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Fuel... gas, diesel, propane are all going to be extremely expensive by summer and in some cases may be rationed. Expect it to be in very short supply. No fuel equals more supply chain disruptions and more food shortages. No food, no fuel will cause property crimes, theft, looting and civil unrest. Expect a stock market crash and for inflation to spiral out of control.

Welcome to the new normal. Famine and war are at the door.

One Billion People At Risk Of Power Blackouts As Global Grids Stretched

by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, May 24, 2022 - 11:45 PM

This summer, power grids worldwide won't produce enough electricity to meet the soaring demand, threatening more than one billion people with rolling blackouts. Grids are stretched thin by fossil fuel shortages, drought and heatwaves, commodity disruptions and soaring prices due to the war in Ukraine, and the failed green energy transition where grid operators retired too many fossil fuel generation plants. Combine this all together, and a perfect storm of blackouts threatens much of the Northern Hemisphere.

The power crisis, affecting a large swath of the world and top economies, could be less than a month away when summer begins on June 21. Regions that concerned Bloomberg are Asia, Europe, and the US, where there's not enough power to go around when cooling demand is set to surge as households crank up their air conditions to escape the sweltering heat.

Asia's heatwave has caused hours-long daily blackouts, putting more than 1 billion people at risk across Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India, with little relief in sight. Six Texas power plants failed earlier this month as the summer heat just began to arrive, offering a preview of what's to come. At least a dozen US states from California to the Great Lakes are at risk of electricity outages this summer. Power supplies will be tight in China and Japan. South Africa is poised for a record year of power cuts. And Europe is in a precarious position that's held up by Russia — if Moscow cuts off natural gas to the region, that could trigger rolling outages in some countries. --Bloomberg

BloombergNEF analyst Shantanu Jaiswal says the combination of "war and sanctions" disrupting commodity markets, "extreme weather," and "an economic rebound from COVID boosting power demand" is a "unique" situation that he "can't recall" the last time a "confluence of so many factors" happened together. As we noted in the beginning, it's a perfect storm of factors.

Henning Gloystein, an analyst at Eurasia Group, warns if major blackouts spread across the world this summer, "that could trigger some form of humanitarian crisis in terms of food and energy shortages on a scale not seen in decades."

If the US is any guide to the world's faltering power grids, as warned last week, regulators said half the country could experience blackouts from the Great Lakes to the West Coast. The reason is due to the lack of power generation and a megadrought.

The pattern across the world's power grids is fragility due to the lack of fossil fuel investments and the reduction of fossil fuel power generation plants as grids attempt to transition to cleaner and greener power sources.

Alex Whitworth, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie Ltd, points out that as grids transition to green energy, the lack of battery storage when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow will create instabilities and more stress on grids at a time fossil fuel plants are being retired at a rapid clip.

"You'll be facing a supply scare every time there's clouds or storms or a wind drought for a week," Whitworth said. "We really expect these problems to get worse in the next five years."

Bloomberg provides a snapshot of the most strain grids that could result in massive power blackouts this summer:

US

Supplies of natural gas, the No. 1 power-plant fuel in the US, are constrained nationwide and prices are soaring. Power in much of the country and part of Canada will be stretched, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. It's among the most dire assessments yet from the regulatory body. Consumers will be asked to step up to help keep the grids stable by curtailing their consumption.

In California, the most populous state, gas supplies are clipped even further because of a pipeline rupture last year that has limited imports. Plus, climate change is fueling drought, severely curbing hydropower supplies. The California Independent System Operator said this month that the state may be at risk of blackouts for the next few summers amid extreme weather.

On the 15-state grid operated by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), consumers in 11 states are at risk of outages. MISO, which serves about 42 million people, projected it has "insufficient" power generation to meet the highest demand periods this summer, especially in its Midwest states. The grid has never before given a warning of this kind ahead of the start of summer demand.

In Texas, the grid "is still at risk" of shortages despite the state's scramble to improve resilience after a February 2021 winter storm that left millions in the dark for days, said Gary Cunningham, director of market research at brokerage Tradition Energy.

Aging infrastructure and maintenance delays during the pandemic have added to the problems of more severe weather, said Teri Viswanath, lead economist for power, energy and water at CoBank ACB.

"The US is experiencing more outages globally than any other industrialized nation," she said. "About 70% of our grid is nearing end of life."

Asia

The epicenter of the outages so far has been South and Southeast Asia, where brutal heat waves have put air conditioners on full blast. Blackouts have been basically nationwide in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, home to a combined 300 million people. And in India, 16 of the nation's 28 states — home to more than 700 million people — have been grappling with outages of two to 10 hours a day, a state official said this month.

India's government has recently directed firms to increase purchases of expensive foreign coal, while also rolling back environmental protocols for mine expansions to try to increase fuel supply. But it remains to be seen whether these moves will ease the strain. The looming monsoon season should bring cooler temperatures and trim energy demand, though it can also flood mining regions and hamper fuel supply.

In Vietnam, the state-owned utility has been bracing for power shortages for more than a month as demand rises while domestic coal supply has sagged and foreign fuel costs have surged.

In China, where coal shortages led to widespread power curtailments last year, officials have promised to keep the lights on in 2022 and have pressed coal miners to boost output to a record. Even so, industry officials have warned that the power situation will be tight this summer in the country's heavily industrialized south, which is far from inland mining hubs and therefore more reliant on expensive foreign coal and gas.

Japan had a power scare in March, when a cold wave triggered a demand surge just days after an earthquake had knocked several coal and gas plants offline. Power supply is expected to be tight during the upcoming summer months, and demand will likely exceed supply again next winter as well, according to grid forecasts. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has started a campaign for energy conservation, asking residents to take measures like watching less television.

Europe

The risk of blackouts is lower in Europe, because fewer people use air conditioning at home. The continent is also racing to fill its gas storage.

But there's little room for error. A dry spring in Norway has limited hydropower supplies. Adding pressure to prices and supplies are extended outages at Electricite de France SA's nuclear reactors. The region's biggest producer cut its nuclear output target for a third time this year, the latest sign that Europe's power crisis is worsening.

If Russia were to cut off natural gas supplies to the region, that could be enough to trigger rolling blackouts in some countries, said Fabian Ronningen, a power markets analyst for Rystad Energy.

While he said the chances that Russia would make that bold move are "unlikely," his views have become more pessimistic as the war in Ukraine continues; two months ago, he said, he'd have put the chances at "highly unlikely."

Some countries have been receiving huge imports of liquefied natural gas and would probably have adequate supplies to absorb the blow, including Spain, France and the UK. The story might be different in Eastern Europe, where nations including Greece, Latvia and Hungary use gas for a significant portion of their power and are heavily dependent on Russian supplies. That's where the potential would be highest for blackouts, Ronningen said.

"I don't think European consumers can even imagine a scenario like that," he said. "It's never happened in our lifetime."

If grids become stressed and break down this summer, it would be an ominous sign for things to come this winter.

Consumers Face Summer Of Hell As Power Bill Costs Set To Jump

by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, May 25, 2022 - 08:00 PM

The last thing consumers want to hear is an increase in power costs this summer following the news last week of rising threats of rolling blackouts across half of the US.

Tight supplies of natural gas, crude, and coal have pushed up residential electricity rates this year. A nationwide weather outlook for this summer forecasts extreme heat -- all of this will force households to crank up their air conditions, resulting in oversized power demand that could stress national grids.

Bloomberg cites new data from Barclays Plc that says monthly power bills could be 40% more than last year's. The US Energy Information Administration expects retail residential electricity rates to increase the most since 2008.

Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Miami households spent 38% more on energy in April than a year ago. Power prices in the state have jumped due to the rising cost of natgas.

"Our continued overreliance on gas only sets us up for these burdensome and unnecessary rate increases.

"This business model is unsustainable, and it's hurting people," said Natalia Brown of Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.

Besides Miami, parts of Hawaii, Dallas, Minneapolis, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco recorded the highest increases in retail electricity costs last month.

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Barclays analyst Srinjoy Banerjee said the average residential power bills averaged $122 in April. He pointed out that power bills could raise another $49 due to natgas prices soaring over $8 per million British thermal units.

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Consumers can't escape the inflation storm that only suggests a summer of hell is ahead. Gasoline and diesel prices are at a record, food prices are screaming higher, homes and cars are unaffordable, and real wage growth is negative.

Banerjee said the inflation burden "disproportionately falls on lower-income groups."

In California, higher costs for electricity and less reliable electric grids mean consumers will pay on average 25% more this summer, according to Cisco DeVries, chief executive officer of OhmConnect Inc., which helps households save money by remotely adjusting thermostats.

The cost of everything is rising and has pushed consumers to the brink. Many have maxed out credit cards and drained critical savings to survive this terrible economic backdrop of what appears to be stagflation which could quickly morph into a Federal Reserve-induced recession due to aggressive interest rate hikes.

Then there's the risk of rolling blackouts across the Great Lakes to the West Coast due to tight power supplies may not be able to satisfy demand amid a megadrought.

Some Americans could get a nasty dose of high inflation and power blackouts, similar to life in Venezuela.

Yes, I agree, screw the idiot environmentalists, fire up all the coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power plants. Also quit wearing suits and neck ties, open windows or fix windows so they can be opened, and run fans instead of air conditioning until we get enough electricity. Idiots have designed many buildings so the widows can't be opened. With all the "smart" electric meters that can be turned on or off whenever they want to they will be shutting down power to the small towns and rural areas first so the welfare recipients in the inner cities don't riot. Electricity is not essential. We can live without having it all the time. People don't have to have a shower or a bath every day nor hot food every day. If you are fat loose weight. Fat people can not take heat as well as normal weight people. Vote out all the damn Democrats who go along with the climate change lying propaganda. Carbon is good for plant life.

The White House has finally realized we have a power problem. Nothing like showing up to the party at the end.

Biden now says HIS OWN tariffs on solar panels are a "national security threat." They're not, they're just stupid. As is his invoking the Defense Production Act to spur domestic production of solar panels. To put it another way, he's using his executive powers to increase solar panels in America, four months after using his executive powers to decrease solar panels in America.

With this much uncertainty in the solar panel industry, is it any wonder investors are reluctant to put money into the industry?



Onward and upward,
airforce

This heat wave probably isn't helping much, either. I walked into a neighbor's home this afternoon, and I thought I was walking into Ice Station Zebra. She keeps her thermostat at 65 degrees. I'd hate to see her electric bill. Honestly, if people had to live here in Oklahoma a hundred years ago, people would be dying in droves. I keep my thermostat at 83 degrees, which both lowers my utility bill and discourages visitors. I consider that a win-win.

Onward and upward,
airforce

A Surprising Threat To The US Power Grid Could Plunge The Country Into Darkness

by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Nov 01, 2022 - 10:45 PM

Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times,

The importance of a strong power grid cannot be emphasized enough. Often, when a grid fails, the results are terrifying. Of all the major power grids in the world, the United States’ is one of the more vulnerable to attack.

State-sponsored hackers from the likes of Iran, Russia, and, unsurprisingly, China pose a real threat to the United States’ electrical transmission lines. However, there’s another (far less obvious) threat to the grid: electric vehicles (EVs).

Yes, you read that right.

The Biden administration is desperate to consign the internal combustion engine to the dustbin of history. In this radical shift to embrace a new, zero-emission world, Americans are being told to embrace EVs. Such an embrace, however, requires a stellar power grid, the very thing the United States lacks.

Just to be clear, the U.S. power grid (or electric grid) involves a huge network of transmission lines, power plants, and distribution centers. The United States has three major grids: the Eastern Grid, the Western Grid, and the ERCOT Grid, otherwise known as the Texas Grid. Of the three, the Eastern Grid is the largest.

Although the three grids can operate independently, they’re also connected. A failed grid means no power for tens of millions of citizens and prolonged periods of darkness. Imagine a power grid failure in the likes of Los Angeles or New York. The two cities are already riddled with crime; grid failures would make things many times worse.

Attacks Since 2016

In 2018, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Russian hackers had hijacked the control rooms of various electric utilities. This allowed the hackers to disrupt power flows and cause blackouts.

Rather alarmingly, the DHS conceded that the attacks had been occurring since 2016, the same year the Russians started attacking Ukraine’s grid. Although the Russians have strenuously denied the attack, such denials appear to conflict with reality.

As tensions between Russia and the United States escalate, and tensions between China, another hacker-friendly country, intensify, expect more disruptions to the grid.

A photo illustration shows a background of electric power infrastructure with an Apple iPhone showing an Emergency Alert notification from CalOES urging the public to conserve energy to protect health and safety as the electricity grid is strained during a heat wave in Los Angeles, Calif., on Sept. 6, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

However, as mentioned, Americans must concern themselves with more “benign” threats. A recent paper, published in Applied Energy, discussed the threat of electric cars to the grid. Currently, there are 2.5 million electric vehicles in the United States; four in five owners opt to charge their cars overnight. This decision, according to the researchers, is putting a considerable strain on power grids.

By 2025, the United States will have more than 20 million EVs on its roads. By 2030, according to Bloomberg, more than half of car sales will be electric. The strain is increasing, and power grids are ill-equipped to shoulder the load.

If Bloomberg’s projection proves to be correct, then, as the researchers note, it will take 5.4 gigawatts of energy storage to charge EVs. To put 5.4 gigawatts into perspective, one nuclear power plant produces 1 gigawatt of energy. The United States currently has 55 power plants. To facilitate the new EV revolution, the United States requires many more. Considering California, the largest state in the country, has moved to ban the sale of gas-powered cars, and other states are considering introducing similar measures, the United States needs to get a move on. Time is very much of the essence.

What would happen if, say, the power grid was to fail in EV-crazed California? To answer that question, we need only rewind a few months. This past summer, plagued by scorching hot temperatures, the Golden State’s power grid came incredibly close to collapsing.

It survived, but only just.

The grid will be tested again. With California’s desire to push the sales of EVs, the next test could prove to be an unmitigated disaster. Energy is a finite resource, a fact that seems to be lost on so many EV enthusiasts.

In truth, the nation’s power grid is already on its last legs. It has been for years. In a sobering piece for Smithsonian Magazine, Dr. Massoud Amin, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Minnesota, explained the many ways in which the country’s power grid, “the most complex” one ever assembled, could fail. The grid, he wrote, “underpins our economy, our quality of life, our society.” Without it, society will be brought to a screeching halt. Crime will rise. Lives will be lost. Chaos will reign supreme.

By 2025, according to the American Society for Civil Engineers, the inability of the United States to maintain its many power lines will cost the country dearly—$130 billion, to be exact. EVs, so often hailed as the best thing since sliced bread, come with a whole host of sizable problems.

Across the United States, as the author Ben Guess recently noted, there are currently 21 EVs per public charging port. By 2030, to keep up with EV purchasing trends, the United States must install almost 500 charging ports every day for the next 8 years.

Does this sound realistic to you?

Even if the United States does somehow manage to install enough ports, the grid simply isn’t strong enough to support the battery-related demands. This is a point that needs to be emphasized, repeatedly and unapologetically. Yes, state-sponsored hackers are a threat, but state-sponsored EV initiatives aren’t exactly harmless. In the blind embrace of all things green, we must not lose sight of the bigger picture, the objective realities that stare us straight in the face

Only idiots buy electric vehicles. The batteries don't last and generating the electricity creates emissions as do gasoline engines. The flooding in Florida caused electric vehicles to catch fire and burn down houses.

..."As of Oct. 26, USA TODAY has been able to confirm 11 cases in which EVs caught fire in Florida after flooding from Ian, all believed to be due to the cars' battery packs shorting out after being submerged in saltwater or physical damage to the batteries during the flooding"... source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...orida-flooding-what-happened/10553207002



The idiots in Commiefornia are banning sales of non electric vehicles in 2035.

Damn the government and the globalists for the electricity shortage they created and their green energy scam! There would be plenty of electricity if Biden did not shut down coal fired power plants. The Chi-Coms are building more coal fired power plants as fast as they can. The US and UK should not have blown up the pipe line from Russia to Germany and our natural gas that can also run power plants should not be going to Europe. It's all part of the Democrats and Globalists plan to destroy us. Install propane and wood heat while you still can.

We had rolling blackouts in my area for 2 days this weekend. Although it was bitterly cold, it was no worse than we've had it the past. While they were shutting off the power we had 2 of the most advanced, clean burning coal fired power plants in the nation sitting idle...shut down by order of Biden. Apparently global warming is more important than people freezing to death.

No power outages where I live, but I've heard reports of brief outages in other parts of Tulsa. Winds have been pretty high, and I would imagine that trees or branches falling on lines would account for most of them.

If people want to complain about coal, maybe they should be complaining to China. Just a thought.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Global warming is a scam. A few years ago they were scamming over global cooling. Biden should be impeached for shutting down power plants. The lying major news media and the idiot greenies are our enemy. We should not put up with either. They are being lead by the nose by the Globalists who want to kill as many people as they can. The Chi-Com coal burning power plants are low tech and dirty as hell while air pollution circles the globe so it does no good to make our coal burning power plants clean and it is outrageous to shut them down. My firewood is almost free so I am going to burn lots of it to leave more electricity for others.

"Geoengineering scheme launched to DIM the sun, POLLUTE the skies and FREEZE Earth’s ocean water" Tuesday, December 27, 2022
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-12-27-geoengineering-scheme-launched-to-dim-the-sun.html

Extreme heat means two-thirds of North America could suffer blackouts this summer
New York CNN Business —

The heatwave leaving tens of millions of Americans in sweltering temperatures will test the power grid’s ability to keep the lights on.

Periods of extreme heat stress the grid by spiking demand for electricity as families and businesses crank up the air conditioning to stay cool. Just as demand surges, supply can simultaneously be constrained by problems at power facilities caused by those same sizzling temperatures.

Power grid officials have warned that large swaths of the United States could face blackouts if it’s a hot summer.

“Two-thirds of North America is at risk of energy shortfalls this summer during periods of extreme demand,” the North American Energy Reliability Corporation (NERC) concluded in its summer outlook published last month.

According to NERC, virtually the entire United States west of the Mississippi River could suffer energy shortages during “extreme conditions.” That includes the Western half of the United States, the Central region and the power system that serves most of Texas. New England and Ontario are also at “elevated” risk of blackouts, NERC said.

“The elevated risk outlook is driven by a combination of conventional generation retirements, a substantial increase in forecast peak demand and an increasing threat to reliability from a widespread heat event,” NERC said.

The good news is that officials believe the entire power grid should have enough power to meet normal peak summer demand this year. The risk of blackouts comes into play only if there is extreme heat.

But many Americans in the South and Central regions of the United States are dealing with extreme heat right now. Almost 40 million people from Arizona to Alabama are under excessive heat warnings and heat advisories on Monday.

In the deserts and West Texas, forecasters are warning of temperatures above 110˚F. Some locations could reach or feel like 120˚F. Meteorologists say the heat wave could continue through the beginning of next week.

And more could be on the way: Large parts of the United States are at risk of hotter-than-average temperatures over the next three months.

According to the most recent forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, much of the Pacific Northwest, Southwest, Texas, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast have the highest probability of above average temperatures in the next 90 days.

There are several X-factors that could determine whether the power grid holds up or not.

One issue is that as coal power plants retire, parts of the power grid are increasingly reliant on cleaner sources – namely wind and solar – to meet high demand. But conditions don’t always allow these renewable sources of power to generate as much electricity as needed.

“The intermittent nature of wind power (wind turbines only generate electricity if the wind is blowing, and how much electricity they generate depends on how windy it is) present operational challenges for grid operators,” analysts from the US Energy Information Administration wrote in a report on Monday. “Low wind and high demand periods could result in energy emergencies.”

Wind plays a central role in meeting demand in Texas as well as the two power grid regions that cover most of the central part of the United States. Drought conditions and low levels of major reservoirs could also hurt hydro power generation.

NERC also flagged concerns about new environmental rules that restrict power plant emissions, warning these regulations will limit the operation of coal-fired generators in 23 states, including Nevada, Utah and states along the Gulf Coast, mid-Atlantic and Midwest. This is the first summer since the implementation of the EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan, which aims to reduce cross-state smog from power plants and other industrial sites.

The power grid is also grappling with supply chain and worker shortage problems that have cause some power facilities to delay or cancel maintenance aimed at getting the system primed for summer.

Specifically, NERC warned that low inventories of replacement transformers could derail efforts to restart power facilities following hurricanes and severe storms.

Wind power and solar power for cities is a sick joke. Coal, gas, and nuclear power plants need to be started up not shut down. Stupid sheeple need to quit buying electric cars and quit running central air conditioning cooling their whole house 24 hours a day. If they can't live without air conditioning then they should only run one small air conditioning unit in one small room at night to sleep. All I run are fans. When there is no more electricity it won't hurt me becasue I am already used to it. If the electricity stops I can sleep outside under mosquito netting if it is too hot in the house. My grandparents used to sleep on sleeping porches when it got too hot. If I get too hot I can soak my shirt in water. We are fortunate that the terrorists quit shooting the transformers. If a terrorist shoots a hole in a transformer then the oil runs out and the transformer blows out. Many illegal aliens coming across the Mexican border are Chi-Com and Mooslim sleeper terrorists.

“Our Country won’t go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won’t be any AMERICA because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!” -- Major General Chesty Puller, USMC

Level One Electrical Grid Emergency Declared for Eastern US

PJM Interconnection has declared a grid emergency and has advised ALL power plants to run at full capacity.



Largest US Power Grid Declares Emergency Alert Amid Scorching Heat

A heat wave continues to blast the Midwest, Northeast, and South through the end of the work week, forcing the largest US grid operator to declare a level one emergency for Thursday as tens of millions of people crank up air conditioners to escape scorching temperatures as summer in the Northern Hemisphere peaks.

On Wednesday evening, PJM Interconnection LLC declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 1 in 13 states that stretch from Illinois to New Jersey with over 65 million customers. PJM is concerned about maintaining adequate power reserves on Thursday as power demand is set to soar because of air conditioners. It expects demand to reach 153,286 megawatts as of 1700 ET and has about 186,000 megawatts of generating capacity.

The power mix of the grid shows natural gas, coal, and nuclear are doing most of the heavy lifting of 0600 ET. Power prices across the grid appear normal.

The surge in above-average temperatures for the Lower 48 is expected to peak on Friday and return to normal levels for this time of the year. According to Bloomberg data, 5-10-30-year average temperatures show the Northern Hemisphere summer has peaked.

Before corporate media blames “human-induced climate change” on power grid woes, we must note PJM’s reliability has worsened because of federal and state decarbonization policies.

US Electrical Grid Dependent on China–Made Transformers
Attack on 9 substations could black out the whole country for an extended period of time, says expert


By Jan Jekielek and Jeff Minick
July 27, 2023

“Every single way you look at it, modern society is not prepared to live without electricity,” says Tommy Waller, the president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy and an expert on the U.S. grid. He’s also featured in the documentary “Grid Down, Power Up.”

In a recent episode of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek and Mr. Waller discussed the vulnerabilities of the United States’ electrical grid, why the industry and our government have failed to correct these problems, and what happens if the grid goes down.

Jan Jekielek: In May 2020, President Trump signed an executive order declaring an emergency around the national grid. This happened after one of these large, high-voltage transformers in the grid made by a Chinese manufacturer was inspected by authorities. The results of that inspection are classified, but this grid emergency ensued. Tell us what happened.

Tommy Waller: On May 1, 2020, an executive order declared a grid security emergency. It recognized that our bulk power system has become dependent on certain countries hostile to the United States, including communist China. In this case, the transformer was seized by the federal government in 2019 and brought to Sandia National Laboratory, where it was inspected.

Many experts consider these extra-high-voltage transformers to be the backbone of our modern grid. If this device that we depend on for the lifeblood of our modern civilization could be manipulated or turned off, then that would be extremely problematic for us. It’s a vector of attack that the Trump administration tried to address through executive order. Unfortunately, on the first day of the current Biden administration, that executive order was suspended. Our nation has since imported about another 100 transformers from China. There are now somewhere around 400 in the U.S. grid.

When we say the grid, we’re talking about the whole system that generates electricity, transmits it, and distributes it. This transmission normally occurs over long distances. These extra-high-voltage transformers are needed to step up the voltage and then to bring it back down. It’s that high voltage that allows it to travel those long distances. These assets are absolutely critical.

If that transformer stopped working for any reason, then you’re not moving that electricity from where it’s produced to where it’s needed. The assets themselves, the large ones, may take years to produce. The lead time for that production has gone from about a year to more like four years, and there’s only so many of those assets. We can’t afford to lose them for any reason, whether it’s because they were manufactured with the malicious intent of manipulating them, or because they’re somehow attacked.

Mr. Jekielek: What does a situation look like where power goes down in a significant portion of the country?

Mr. Waller: In 1977, there was a 24-hour blackout in New York City. It was a natural form of an electromagnetic pulse [EMP], a lightning strike that hit a substation in New Jersey. In that 24-hour period, more than 4,500 looters were arrested, more than 550 police officers were injured in the line of duty, and there was over $300 million worth of damage in that city.

Think about our dependence on electricity. If you’re in an urban environment, you lose water right away. Refrigeration is critical to our food system, and that depends on electricity. Every single way you look at it, modern society is not prepared to live without electricity. In short order, you have suffering and chaos.

Mr. Jekielek: “Grid Down, Power Up” asserts that taking down just nine of these power stations or substations around the entire United States could result in a complete failure of the grid.

Mr. Waller: “Grid Down, Power Up” covers that, but it wasn’t the documentary that discovered this. It was actually the federal government, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC], which oversees our bulk power system. This came in the wake of a physical attack and sabotage. In April 2013, a substation outside of San Jose [California] was attacked by a gunman.

FERC did a classified study in the wake of that attack. They discovered that if an adversary knew which nine substations to attack, this could cause cascading failures that could black out the whole country for an extended period of time. Some may remember the great Northeast blackout of August 14, 2003, when there was a cascading failure from a tree branch in Ohio striking a transmission line. That single point of failure caused a cascading blackout that resulted in 55 million customers losing power, some for up to two weeks. Whether it’s Mother Nature or a human adversary, the system can be taken down if it’s not properly protected.

Mr. Jekielek: How did we start importing these absolutely critical pieces of infrastructure?

Mr. Waller: In the same ways we as a nation came to depend on China for lots of different things. We know that the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] has been executing unrestricted warfare against the rest of the free world, predominantly the United States. One method of unrestricted warfare is looking for the critical vulnerabilities of a society and figuring out how to exploit them.

In this case, what the Chinese did was genius. They realized that these transformers need a certain type of steel to be manufactured, grain-oriented electrical steel. What do the Chinese do? They dumped into the market massive amounts of grain-oriented steel. They cornered the market for the precursors that are needed to create the transformers. I’m sure you and your viewers are familiar with the inexpensive aspect of purchasing products from China, which is made possible by slave labor, if you want to call it that.

Mr. Jekielek: By multiple factors, but yes.

Mr. Waller: Exactly. The CCP uses these different factors to corner the market on an asset that any modern civilization needs to survive. That put a lot of other manufacturers out of business. The utility industry has to make an investment in a transformer and asks, “What’s the price of these things?” Any investment is going to result in the utility spending money and all of us who pay electricity bills paying more, the more the utility spends. It’s understandable for them to look to save money. That’s one avenue that the Chinese used to get into that market by providing these transformers.

Today, our country needs to identify where these transformers are and get them inspected. Then we need to produce these domestically or else have our allies produce them while ensuring they are not using components from communist China.

Mr. Jekielek: How many have been inspected to date?

Mr. Waller: We know that one was inspected at Sandia National Laboratory. That’s all we know. We know that a president of the United States declared an emergency on May 1, 2020, so we know this is a big deal. The good thing is that even if the federal government isn’t moving as fast as it should, the states are waking up.

Texas, for example, has its own grid. The last legislative session passed the Lone Star Protection Act or Infrastructure Protection Act. It was designed to identify whether critical infrastructure components were coming from adversaries to make sure problems like this don’t happen in that state.

Mr. Jekielek: The cornering of the market for these high-voltage transformers is as much a military decision as it is a state business decision. An interview that came out later by an expert said they found something in this transformer that would allow it to be turned off remotely.

Mr. Waller: We imported this massive 500,000-pound electric transformer from China. They decided to send it to one of our national labs when it came into the country. They found hardware in it that had the ability for somebody in China to switch it off.

Mr. Jekielek: This is just one shocking way that the system can be compromised. But we also have other potential routes. Please give us a picture of these.

Mr. Waller: We talked about physical sabotage like what happened in California. We just saw this in North Carolina at the end of last year with rifle fire. There’s lots of different ways you can harm the grid: cyber attack, a localized electromagnetic attack, a directed energy weapon, or a nuclear electromagnetic pulse.

There will also be blackouts if we continue some of the policies of our government. You can’t shut down large baseload powered generators like nuclear, coal, and fossil fuel plants and replace them with renewables, when the sun only shines and the wind only blows intermittently, and at the same time electrify everything.

The grid is also vulnerable to threats from Mother Nature. It’s 100 percent certain that at some point the grid will go down because of solar weather. That’s a warning I’ve personally issued at least twice to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. So far, it doesn’t look like we’re doing what we need to do about it, even though it’s a completely fixable problem.

In fact, just this past March, there was a massive solar storm, and it happened to be on the opposite side of the sun. Had it traveled toward Earth, we might not be having this interview right now. The reason is that these highly charged particles react with the Earth’s magnetosphere. In fact, in the northern latitudes, people can see the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, which is the visual depiction of the electromagnetic energy generated when these particles slam into our magnetosphere.

In 1921, there was a solar storm. They call it the railroad storm because there were railroad stations in Connecticut and throughout the Northeast that caught fire and burned to the ground. Why did they catch fire? Because the telegraph lines were 100-plus kilometers long and had ground-induced currents from a solar storm that caused sparks and fires.

Those currents go into our transformers. The level of protection we have from the current standards is so low that the grid will go down if we have a significant storm. When I say that it’s 100 percent certain, all I’m saying is that the level of protection we have now and the standards that have been set by the industry and approved by the government guarantee that the grid goes down if we suffer a solar storm of significant magnitude.

Mr. Jekielek: You would think they would care about this.

Mr. Waller: Some do. The people who keep the lights on in this country, they do. They provide for our survival every day. Unfortunately, when it comes to the rules that govern that industry, there are a lot of people who’ve been obstructing and lobbying against really reasonable, prudent, and affordable methods to protect this infrastructure.

Mr. Jekielek: Before we talk about those, tell me a little about yourself.

Mr. Waller: I felt a calling to serve in uniform since I can remember, and I was sworn into the Marine Corps on my 18th birthday. Eventually, I became a Force Reconnaissance Marine. It was a privilege to be part of that community. The Marines I served with are among the best in the nation.

I told myself I’d stay in until they kicked me out, and we reached that point. I took a stand on the COVID vaccine mandate, and unfortunately, along with many others, my religious accommodations were denied. I waited a year, I appealed, and did everything I could, but I was not allowed to continue serving.

I was also recruited at one point by the U.S. Air Force’s Electromagnetic Defense Task Force, to be a staff member of that organization and to help them form a task force to address electromagnetic spectrum threats, and to produce two reports on this issue that lay out the challenges.

I was blessed that during the last half of my career in the reserves, I had this civilian job with the Center for Security Policy, a nonprofit founded by Frank Gaffney, who worked for President Reagan. Frank knew all about nuclear EMP years before it was declassified. He’d been worried about the grid for decades.

This job is more than a job, it’s a calling in life. He taught me about electromagnetic pulse and about these threats. Then, he assigned me the duty of managing this nationwide Secure the Grid Coalition.

I’m not a physicist or an engineer. I’m an infantry guy. But I was blessed to be the apprentice to some of the world’s foremost experts in all of these different threats to this critical infrastructure. I was able to translate to the American people and to our policymakers the reality of those threats and what needs to be done to defend against them.

Mr. Jekielek: Please give me an overview of the specific grid-related threats that are coming from China. I know you see that as the biggest threat among the many you’ve just described.

Mr. Waller: If we adopt policies that rely on China to produce our transformers or the tens of thousands of inverters we need for our wind and solar technology, we are using markets cornered by China.

When we embrace policies that create a dependency on China, while at the same time creating vulnerabilities because we are not producing enough electricity, that’s one threat. The second one is cyber. We know that China has a significant cyber capability, and that can mean cyber espionage where they’re stealing secrets in our power production, whether it’s nuclear power or otherwise.

The supply chain we mentioned already. They could be producing different things with a hardware backdoor that would allow them to remotely control certain things. Then there is electromagnetic attack. We know that the Chinese are obviously nuclear-capable; it’s part of their war-fighting doctrine to focus on both that and cyber. Part of their cyber doctrine is the use of electromagnetic pulse.

Nuclear EMP is in the cards if they wanted to use that. We just watched a balloon cross the entire continental United States, and that balloon could be a platform for an EMP attack. It doesn’t take an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Then there’s the possibility of physical sabotage. Look at our open borders and our immigration policy with respect to the People’s Republic of China. If they put the right people here with the right know-how, they can conduct physical attacks on the grid.

Mr. Jekielek: Please tell us about the Secure the Grid Coalition. This is something that American citizens can get involved in.

Mr. Waller: Our Secure the Grid Coalition is a bipartisan group co-chaired by Ambassador Woolsey, who was President Clinton’s director of Central Intelligence, and by Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House. We’ve got hundreds of members around the country.

We’re talking about a volunteer effort in the states and at the federal level to shape policies to protect this critical infrastructure. One valuable product of that effort has been “Grid Down, Power Up.” One of the members of the Secure the Grid Coalition, David Tice, sank an immense amount of money, time, and effort into the film. Dennis Quaid is the narrator. Now you’ve got David Tice and Dennis Quaid speaking all around the country because they care about this. But the film they produced, “Grid Down, Power Up,” is the culmination of nearly a decade of interviews of the experts in our coalition. I’ve been trying to brief policymakers for nine years, and this film can teach them in less than an hour.

The producer, on his website, GridDownPowerUp.com, created a tab called “participate.” You click on that tab and see all the policy recommendations that we’ve been promoting for years. Click on that, and you can get involved.

Mr. Jekielek: Apparently there are some easy ways to harden some of this infrastructure that aren’t that expensive.

Mr. Waller: Yes. Let’s take one example, the threat we can’t deter: the sun. We know it makes harmful ground-induced currents that can travel into certain vulnerable transformers. There are technologies out there like neutral ground blockers which can be applied to those vulnerable transformers.

If they were to install these neutral ground blockers on these transformers, analysis has shown they could solve that problem for the entire United States for just over $4 billion. This is what I explained to the secretary of energy regarding the bipartisan infrastructure bill, $1.2 trillion.

So one-third of 1 percent of that infrastructure bill could solve the problem of solar weather. Yet there’s no indication, despite multiple attempts, they’re spending the money on that.

Here’s another example. Your viewers can drive down the road and look at the substation that provides the lifeblood to that neighborhood with only a chain link fence around it. It should be ballistic protected to make sure these transformers can’t be shot up and can’t be viewed. It’s a fixable problem.

Mr. Jekielek: The viewers of this program might be thinking: “So, where is the hope? How can we change these large bodies that are doing things in this highly problematic way?”

Mr. Waller: The hope comes from the bottom up. Right now, for instance, there’s legislation in Texas authored by state Sen. Bob Hall that would create a commission that would analyze all these threats and decide how to address them, as opposed to depending on the federal government. There’s no reason why states can’t do that around the country.

Mr. Jekielek: Any final thoughts as we finish?

Mr. Waller: We need to be better prepared to live without electricity for as long as we can. We also need to get involved. The Participate tab at GridDownPowerUp.com gives every American the opportunity to do just that.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Power Failure - Biden Policies Could Put Millions in the Dark Today

PJM Interconnect has declared Friday another day of a Level 1 Grid Emergency. Now you can add water problems to the mess too. Get yourself ready NOW!

Ther eis a dangerous shortage of transformers in the US.



Onward and upward,
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