Now Russia, as well as South Africa, is on the list of industrial countries whose electric grid is on the verge of collapse (as explained in detail in Brace for Impact Chapter Six: Grid Lock). An exploding transformer at a major Siberian hydro-electric plant has taken out three of ten turbines and has moved the whole region closer to the edge of blackout.
[See “Accident at Russian hydroelectric plant kills 8.” — The Associated Press]
Read past the account of the accident to get the real news. It will take years to repair the three turbines, while widespread power shortages were immediately reported. Russia is in desperate need of more electricity for its desired industrial growth, but its grid is aged, deteriorating and failing. In this it is not much farther down the road to disaster than is the US grid.
The power shortages that have plagued South Africa, the most industrialized country on the continent of Africa, are about to become common to southern Siberia. This affects a lot more than hot-plates in yurts; the world’s larget aluminum plant, an all-electric smelting operation, is located there aong with myriad mines that can operate only if they have electricity for their lifts, ventilating fans and other motors.
Watch that space.Now Russia, as well as South Africa, is on the list of industrial countries whose electric grid is on the verge of collapse (as explained in detail in Brace for Impact Chapter Six: Grid Lock). An exploding transformer at a major Siberian hydro-electric plant has taken out three of ten turbines and has moved the whole region closer to the edge of blackout.
[See “Accident at Russian hydroelectric plant kills 8.” — The Associated Press]
Read past the account of the accident to get the real news. It will take years to repair the three turbines, while widespread power shortages were immediately reported. Russia is in desperate need of more electricity for its desired industrial growth, but its grid is aged, deteriorating and failing. In this it is not much farther down the road to disaster than is the US grid.
The power shortages that have plagued South Africa, the most industrialized country on the continent of Africa, are about to become common to southern Siberia. This affects a lot more than hot-plates in yurts; the world’s larget aluminum plant, an all-electric smelting operation, is located there aong with myriad mines that can operate only if they have electricity for their lifts, ventilating fans and other motors.
Watch that space.
Now Russia, as well as South Africa, is on the list of industrial countries whose electric grid is on the verge of collapse (as explained in detail in Brace for Impact Chapter Six: Grid Lock). An exploding transformer at the country’s largest hydro-electric plant has taken out three of ten turbines and has moved the whole region closer to the edge of blackout.
[See “Accident at Russian hydroelectric plant kills 8.” — The Associated Press]
Read past the account of the accident to get the real news. It will take years to repair the three turbines, while widespread power shortages were immediately reported. Russia is in desperate need of more electricity for its desired industrial growth, but its grid is aged, deteriorating and failing. In this it is not much farther down the road to disaster than is the US grid.
The power shortages that have plagued South Africa, the most industrialized country on the continent, are about to become common to southern Siberia. This affects a lot more than hot-plates in yurts; the world’s larget aluminum plant, an all-electric smelting operation, is located there aong with myriad mines that can operate only if they have electricity for their lifts, ventilating fans and other motors.
The only way anything industrial or electricity-based is going to survive the crash of the grid is if everybody starts right now to provide the electrical energy we need on site. That means everybody, residential, business and industrial, and it means now. (Before you snort “impossible,” remember the former Sears Tower in Chicago, which after renovation is going to provide 80 per cent of its own electricity from on-site wind and solar.)
Can you imagine the town-hall meetings on that legislation?
I’ve been interested in grid reliability since the ice storm in 2000 that cut our electricity off for two weeks. In all the stuff I read my impression is that we are approaching a point of electrical demand exceeding supply. Of course there is lots of misinformation everywhere maybe “they’re” trying to scare me. One thing is sure. The U.S. can not maintain order with large segments of the grid down. During the ice storm outage I went to the EZ Mart to fill my gas cans for the generators each day and I noticed a changed expression on my fellow pumpers. The look of adventure of the first few days gave way, in the second week to a look of despair.
Despair leads to disparate.
As individuals living in a quid pro quo government system we have little impact against the suicidal policies directed by the “big brother corporations”.
BUT,
there is something that any of us can do and that is to shade our air conditioned spaces. Please check out the GreenShade Systems pages @ solarincome.com We are a non-profit (not by design unfortunately) trying to cut electrical demand equal to one power plant…….at a time.
Aubrey Enoch……Staff Designer
Good for you. One step at a time, an old children’s book said, is how we climb.
I don’t think “they” are trying to scare us. I think they are trying to reassure us that all will be fine if we let them build their new power lines (as opposed to fixing the old ones) and power plants. They tell us they’re going to build a “smart” grid, which tells you in their own words what the present grid is.
There’s a detailed workup on all this in Chapter Six of Brace for Impact, titled Grid Lock. If you’ll keep in touch via the Brace for Impact page on Facebook, or braceforimpact.thomasalewis.com, I’ll let you know when it’s available.