by William C. Jones, V
There is no question that power grid vulnerability represents a significant national security threat. Here's a suggestion as to what can be done.
Jack Gleason correctly points out that our electrical grid is completely and totally vulnerable to cyber and physical attack. But there are other risk factors as well.
There is no question that power grid vulnerability represents a significant national security threat. However, there are short-term solutions to address this endemic problem. It has been demonstrated on numerous occasions over the past several decades that the power grid is vulnerable, both regionally and nationally, from both natural disasters and cyber-attack or asymmetrical warfare — as shown most recently by the domestic terror attack Moore County, N.C.
The threat from such attacks is real, but it is the natural disasters that can cause (and have caused) widespread power outages, such as when Texas lost power in February of 2021. In that event, a severe winter storm overtaxed the power grid as the demand for electricity surged beyond capacity. A more recent example of a natural disaster–caused power outage is when Hurricane Ian left millions without power.
In addition to localized natural disasters, there is also the risk of a global natural disaster that can bring down the grid across all seven continents. (Yes, there is a power station at McMurdo Station, Antarctica.) Case in point: On March 13, 1989, the entire province of Quebec, Canada lost power as a result of a massive solar storm, which created a natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP). That solar storm was mild when compared to the 1859 Carrington event, which was so intense that Saint Elmo's Fire was seen glowing on telegraph lines. An event of that magnitude in today's hyper-connected world would shut down not only the grid, but essentially all of our critical electrically powered machines and devices, from hospital monitoring equipment to (gasp) PlayStation game consoles.
In both the 1989 Quebec incident and the 2021 Texas incident, the ability to restore power quickly was hampered simply because power companies do not have sufficient replacement equipment or reserve power generation capacity on hand to handle a massive and widespread power outage and subsequent damaged electrical grid equipment.
However, there is a simple and low-cost solution to address the vulnerabilities that needs to be examined by state and local governments. Rapid response to widespread power outages can save lives. There is a need to establish an emergency action plan that can be executed within 12 hours to mitigate the power outage. This plan is centered on the fact that ships in port and locomotives on the rails have, collectively, hundreds of megawatts of power, which can be used as a back-up system, which can be executed in two parts through the advance coordination and planning with ship operators, the port authority, the U.S. Coast Guard (in coastal states and along the inland waterways), and railroad companies in each state.
All modern locomotives today have a minimum of 2.2 MW of power generation capacity in AC current. Each ship of 10,000 tons or more has multiple generators to provide power on a megawatt scale. In an emergency, it is possible to bring the ships' power generation capability on line by hooking up the ships' generators into the shore power system, with no new infrastructure modifications, whether we are talking about New York Harbor or along the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
For landlocked states, the emergency action plan would be to mobilize the railroad companies to hook locomotives into to the power grid by means of the stepdown stations that are near the various rail spurs and rail lines. This would require some infrastructure modifications to adapt the stepdown transformers to accommodate the power hook-ups from the locomotives. It may require the laying of rail spurs to numerous stepdown stations, at an estimated cost of $2 million per station. Approximately one hundred stepdown stations would need to be modified across large states like Texas and California, with a considerably smaller number of modifications in states like Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Ownership of these rail spurs as state property will prevent dual use and thereby ensure that the rail spurs are used only for the stabilization of the power grid.
It should be noted that both the shipboard generators and the locomotives are inherently resistant to an EMP, since their construction is consistent with a Faraday cage, a device that shields against the damaging effects of EMPs.
When this action plan is implemented, it will provide for substantial grid stability regardless of the cause of the outages. Implementation of this plan is a start and by no means represents a panacea for grid variability. But at least it is a start.
Image: Eric Fischer via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).
William C. Jones, V is the CEO of Quantum Industrial Development Corp. a
company that has developed a microgrid technology based upon the APEX
Power system.
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/12/an_emergency_plan_for_electrical_grid_stabilization.html
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