Category Archives: Electric Grid & Fast Collapse

The grid powers the pumps at service stations, the financial system, lighting, and more which we’ve grown as dependent on as fossil fuels. It can’t stay up without natural gas, which is finite (see posts in Energy Storage for details on that)

Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and other ways to bring down the electric grid

Preface.  At some point of energy decline the electric grid will fail, and civilization will take a giant step downward (financial systems gone, knowledge stored gone, computers / phones inoperable) and so on. Vaclav Smil (2015) in his book Energy … Continue reading

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Electromagnetic pulse threat to infrastructure: U.S. House hearings 2012 & 2014

Related articles: Russian hackers suspected in attack that blacked out parts of Ukraine How the weapon works (pdf): CRASHOVERRIDE Analyzing the Threat to Electric Grid Operations The EMP Commission estimates a nationwide blackout lasting one year could kill up to … Continue reading

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When Trucks Stop Running, So Does Civilization. Energy and the Future of Transportation.

When Trucks Stop Running. Energy and the Future of Transportation. Available at Springer, Amazon, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Alibris When Trucks Stop Running: Table of Contents, Preface, References Book review: “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of … Continue reading

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Wind’s dirty secret: it goes on vacation in the summer and year-round in the South East

  Figure 1. Summer wind across the USA is barely to not economically viable Class 3 (light blue), or not at all economically viable Class 2 (orange) and class 1 (blank) (NREL), with very limited darker blue (class 4) and … Continue reading

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Out of time: 50 years to make a transition, 210 years at the current rate

If transportation is to be electrified, then electric generation and the electric grid must be doubled, or even tripled. So by Cobb’s calculation, that would push back the transition time to renewables 420 to 630 years.  Alice Friedemann. By Kurt … Continue reading

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Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System. National Academy of Sciences.

Much of what follows is from the National Academy of Science 2012  (for the Department of Homeland Security): “Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System” & 2013 “The Resilience of the Electric Power Delivery System in Response to Terrorism and … Continue reading

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Electric Grid Overview

[ Our energy, transportation, electric, water and other infrastructures are all heavily dependent on each other, making the U.S. one of the most vulnerable nations on earth.  Although transportation is the most essential of all, especially trucks, which make the … Continue reading

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How the sun could end Nuclear Power

Flare-up: How the Sun Could Put an End to Nuclear Power Gar Smith. Spring 2012. Earth Island Journal. According to NASA, the planet will soon face an outbreak of powerful solar flares capable of collapsing global power grids. Were this … Continue reading

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Lloyd’s of London EMP solar storm risk to North America

2013. Lloyd’s Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid. Atmospheric and Environmental Research. Society depends on electricity for everything from communication, banking and business transactions to basic necessities like food and water. Executive Summary A Carrington-level, extreme geomagnetic … Continue reading

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Magnetic Reversal could knock out power grids and communication systems

Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen. 1 Jul 2012. Eccentricity of the geomagnetic dipole caused by lopsided inner core growth. Nature Geoscience 5, 565–569 Lopsided growth of the Earth’s core could explain why its magnetic field reverses direction every few thousand … Continue reading

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