our electrical grid

[Lloyd Smale]

click on watch show. its an eye opener for people that dont have a clue how fragile our grid is

https://griddownpowerup.com/

[gene_225]

I wonder why people don't pay attention to this. NCIS showed how fragile the grid is in the first season. Ahhhh... but that is TV so no reason to pay attention.

[Ranger99]

People today are very disconnected
from what used to be everyday things
that are taken for granted.
When I was fairly young,  we had
wood shop, metal shop, electrical
shop in school, and learned the basics
of how things worked and how to
build and repair things

Yeah,  many things such as the
electrical grid and buildings and
everything else is pretty much
built right on the edge of failure.
Decades ago, things in general
were built to last lifetimes.
Hasn't been that way for many
years now.

[Lloyd Smale]

face it. just interrupt cell phone transmitters and everyone under 40 would be just standing there looking off into space and half of those older then 40. just last month my wife went to do our monthly grocery shopping. town is 60 miles away. she left an drove 20 miles and realized she forgot her phone and turned around and drove back to get it. she didnt need it a bit to get grocerys. her reasoning was what if someone tried to get ahold of me!! real reason is its an addiction just like heroin and people feel lost and even have withdrawals. can you imagine the kayos with millions that would rather have there Tonge cut out because there main means of communication is now tapping on a phone all of a sudden having to actually talk and deal with people in person and figure things out without an internet search or by asking some virtual lady. ai doesn't have to take over crap its already happened

People today are very disconnected
from what used to be everyday things
that are taken for granted.
When I was fairly young,  we had
wood shop, metal shop, electrical
shop in school, and learned the basics
of how things worked and how to
build and repair things

Yeah,  many things such as the
electrical grid and buildings and
everything else is pretty much
built right on the edge of failure.
Decades ago, things in general
were built to last lifetimes.
Hasn't been that way for many
years now.

[Ranger99]

I have relatives and friends that
are using their smartphones
every waking minute, so don't
feel alone. Millions in America
do the same thing every millisecond.

I laugh, but almost want to cry
when I see them post every move
they make online for the world to
see.
" Now,  I'm sitting on the toilet.
Now,  I'm getting ready to eat
supper. Look at this hamburger.
Now I'm eating some fries.  . "
Etc. etc. etc. etc.

They can't figure simple change
from a purchase,  or legibly
write a dozen paragraphs though.

When I was a kid,  I  learned to
install 110V wall sockets and
properly wire them. They taught
that in electric shop at school
also. Not just high school either.
I had electric shop at like 12 years
or thereabouts. They had welding
( 220V AC and DC stick welding-
No 110V flux back then) in JR
high and a shooting range in
high school ( attached to the
nuclear fallout shelter)

Different world now

[Dixie-Dude]

A giant solar flare could knock the power out like it knocked out the telegraph lines in the US and England in 1858.  They say we are overdue for another one.  Then an EMP blast can knock power out.  One nuke exploded 250 miles above Kansas in Space can knock out the power to the entire US.  Newt Gingrich tried to get congress to spend about 200 billion to fortify our grid against an EMP bomb and terrorists attacks to the grid. 

The grid has to also be built to handle wind from the plains and offshore an solar from the southwest.  You can build all the windmills and solar panels you want, but they all have to be connected to the grid to transfer power to where it is needed.  That hasn't been done yet either.

You can take 10 acres near a power transmission line and a nearby gas main and put in a natural gas generator in just a few months, especially where the wind don't blow or the sun don't shine much. 

[gypsyman]

Thinking of moving my power lines from the street to underground to my house. I've got quite a few trees around the house, and had a tree service out last year and had a few trimmed back. Probably will do it again this year. Had to look it up to see if I could do it and meet code. I can where I'm at here in Ohio. What caught my attention was when reading, was why they don't do it everywhere. The article said the cost factor was an extra $100,000 per mile run underground. Seems kind of high, but then would take a lot of extra time and equipment. Not sure if that would help if an EMP or solar flare hit us, with all the power plants being exposed.

[Lloyd Smale]

i dont think it would matter. even if your service is underground most likely the main distribution lines in your area are overhead and about all the transmission lines in the country are overhead. your underground conductor would still be subject to overcurrent voltage spikes that could make it fail. what it would do is get it out of your trees and our company did some number crunching and claimed underground services are about twice as reliable. but it didnt factor in that the overhead services they used to compare were as old as 80 years and we only started doing underground about 35 years ago.

[gene_225]

Lloyd, that is true. The subdivision we lived in in Sandy Oregon had all the power lines under ground, however when a truck hit the pole by hwy 26 (3 blocks from our house) where the power transitioned from overhead to underground, we went without power about 8 hrs. To be effective the whole system (grid) has to be underground. Take a look at the novel "Alas Babylon" to see what an author in 1958 or so thought an air burst would do to life in Florida. Or "One Second After" with forward by Gingrich. Good reads anyway.

[Lloyd Smale]

its just like the ignored fact with ev cars. if you want two in every yard or want a truly safe power grid youd best be wiling to pay 5 times as much for your electricity and 5 times as much income tax. power companys cant absorb it and are basically run by the government (public service commission. can you imagine the cost of putting every single wire underground. every transformer underground, (even transformers for underground service to homes sit on top of the ground)  then factor in making every substation in the country underground because sub station would be the most important thing to protect and some of them are measured in  acres. they would have to build about the equivalent of missile silos or nuke bunkers in every town in the country. can you imagine the cost and the time it would take. believe one ting this isnt some big secret im privy to. its something that everyone knows about and just brushes off. but the fact is russia or china and probably iran and korea could put us to our knees in a day without even puttin a ma in an AK and our only way to stop it is to hit them first and start a war that nobody can win. yet the biden administration wastes our money on (censored word) wind mills and solar panels  and ev cars banning gas appliances ect that make us more vounderable. think thats by accident or there to dumb to know it?? 

[Ranger99]

Yeah
Also nobody ever thinks about
how vulnerable the thousands of
cell towers are.  It wouldn't take a
terrorist with sophisticated training
to take a dozen down in a single
night.  Or in the middle of the day
for that matter. Same  thing for high
voltage towers. How many unknown
terrorists have slipped in across
the southern border  ? Nobody has
the least clue.  How much biological
agent can each terrorist carry in
their pockets to dump in the surface
water supply  ?

Oh well.  . . . .