Even the worst imaginary scenarios for global warming are nothing compared to a year without electricity. Bunky Mortimer III thinks US priorities are screwed.
The US will spend some $555b to prevent a theoretical warming of a degree or two. A warming which may not occur for a century, if at all, and about which the largest competitors to the USA are doing nothing.
In contrast, a solar Carrington event, one nuclear blast, or a cyber attack taking out just nine interconnector sites could collapse the entire US grid for 18 months.
Which environmental threat matters? The West is in apoplexy over the environmental degradation affecting polar bears, but the environment we need the most right now is the one with fresh water, edible food and a room temperature above freezing.
Securing the grid should be this country’s highest environmental priority
Taki’s Magazine
A prolonged collapse of this nation’s electrical grid—through starvation, disease, and societal collapse—could result in the death of up to 90% of the U.S. population. This figure has not been disputed, yet this prospect has received virtually no attention from policy makers or the media. The environmental issue holding center stage, of course, is global warming.
The weak point are the Extra High Voltage transformers which may take one to two years to replace. Not many EHV Transformers were made in the US, and concerns were raised a decade ago, even thirty years ago. Some estimate the US manufacturing is so low they have to import 85% of them. By 2016, not much had changed, despite the urgency, and dire threat. If a crunch is widespread, these transformers will be impossible to get without long delays.
A study published in 2010 for the Congressional EMP Commission calculated that a nuclear detonation 170 kilometers over the United States would collapse the entire U.S. power grid.
A 2017 report by the Department of Defense states that “the United States today lives in a virtual glass house.” In 2018 the Department of Homeland Security issued an alert that Russia could shut down American power plants at will. The grid is also vulnerable to small-scale coordinated military operations. An internal Federal Energy Regulatory Commission memo states that “destroy nine interconnector substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for 18 months, possibly longer.”
With no power, there’s no frozen food, no water pumps, no fuel pumps, no banking, no internet, no phones, and soon no deliveries, no fertilizer, and no hospitals.
The CCP must like the Pentagon:
Climate change is defined by the Pentagon as a threat equal to that posed by China. Meanwhile, China has developed a hypersonic missile, traveling at five times the speed of sound, that can produce an EMP without the need of a nuclear warhead.
Hopefully adversaries of the USA haven’t been reading old reports by the US Dept of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, or Emergency Response. They might get ideas.
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Grids, who needs em? Even polar bears. A prolonged grid collapse would have people hunting seals too — armed, loaded and not happy about competition.