Our Man-Made Dependence on Electricity Will Eventually Doom Our Civilization By Will Wainwright ELECTRICITY - ONCE WE LIVED WITHOUT IT. Humans have lived for eons needing only food, fire for cooking and warmth, water, shelter, and the air we1 breathe to survive. Then, around the end of the 19th century, we added electricity first in the form of lighting. Electricity then improved so many aspects of our way of life. All it took was a spark of electricity, combined with refined petroleum and along came the internal combustion engine which eventually replace the steam engine. Aside from fuel, petroleum products, are in everything from pharmaceuticals, fibers like nylon, and acrylic, to plastics and pigments. But the machinery that makes the aforementioned runs by electricity. The machinery that makes Automobiles, Airplanes and sends radio signals through the air also depend on electricity. Now a days Electricity keeps us alive with pacemakers, dialysis and a myriad of medical devices. YET WE SELDOM GIVE ELECTRICITY A SECOND THOUGHT. As mentioned Electricity is needed for everything from your car to your kitchen appliances. It’s in electric trains, subways and the elevator in a city skyscraper, and those tiny things like your electric tooth brush and your hearing aids. It’s needed for all communication devices, radio TV, iPhones. Dont forget about medical devices from dialysis machines to MRI’s. Ask yourself, what would your life be like without electricity today. THE DIGITAL AGE During the second half of the twentieth century came lasers, diodes and its big brother the transistor. Today, transistors miniaturization has morphed more than a billion of them into the space of that first transistor about the size of a pencil eraser. Then add an integrated circuit which we now call a CHIP. This resulted in analogue being shelved as a novelty. Gone were vinyl records, vacuums tubes and even lightbulb filaments. It was the advent of the digital age.* Lastly, have you stopped to think how your water arrives at the faucets in your bathroom or kitchen? And what about its return trip in the form of sewage? It ain’t gravity that does that. It’s electricity! ELECTRICITY CAN BE TURNED OFF AND WHEN THAT HAPPENS……. Yes, Electricity can be turned off regionally, nationally and even globally. There are numerous ways. Some are quite simple and then there is natures way which will be quite devastating which is inevitable and happen one way or another. It all depends how we will lose our electricity in which there are several ways. Risk assessment is up to you. Just count on it happening. As for when, who can say. The only thing for sure is natures way has happened a couple times before with little impact because it was during electricity’s infancy. However it will be catastrophic next time. It is the most severe.
1. OUR SUN / SOLAR ACTIVITY
As a reminder, the most vulnerable of all devices is the CHIP - those electronic devices and used in just about everything electric and about the size of a postage stamp with a billion transistors packed inside. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to imagine what will happen to the connections inside a chip when overloaded by a high powered magnetic field. The standard protection for shielding electronics is placement in a metal container called a Faraday Cage. Our Aurora Borealis (northern lights) producing Solar Flares have a big brother called an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse). If you've not heard of them, 'a Physics Girl's Video will explain'. If they are aimed our way, they can wreak havoc with our satellite and GPS systems as they are above our atmosphere. Just this year a rather mundane space storm knocked out 40 of Mr. Musk's SpaceX satellites. When solar flares are active, the aurora borealis or northern lights can really light up the skies of the earth’s northern hemisphere. Our sun cycles between periods of storm and slumber over the course of 11 years or so. It has more to do with our global warming than the climatologists acknowledge. We are now moving into our active period with its peak due 2025. These cycles are linked to the sun’s internal magnetic activity, and are unmasked by telltale phenomena such as sunspots and the aforementioned solar flares. This time, maybe the sun will wake from its hibernation with over due fervor. Meanwhile while at the same time, NASA’s Parker Solar Orbiter is continuously swooping closer to our sun than any craft to date. It is intended to give advance warning (15-18 hrs.). See The Nat Geo Story. A newly discovered threat was just added in 2023 and has to be added to the mix of solar activity. In 2012, Nagoya University graduate student Fusa Miyake was studying the faint growth rings of a 1,900-year-old Japanese cedar. Miyake was looking for a story bound in the cellulose of the tree’s rings. Most notably, violent space weather events, like the solar flare responsible for the 1859 Carrington event, which can unleash short, exceptionally intense showers of high-energy particles and increase the atmospheric concentration of carbon-14. Since then, more “Miyake Events” —characterized by sudden, single-year leaps in the concentration of carbon-14 in trees, as well as beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 in ice sheets—have been confirmed - six in all. A Miyake event exhibits significantly greater intensity, than the solar or stellar events that could have triggered the Carrington event in 1859. which was barely a blip, compared to The carbon-14 stored in tree rings of Miyake events. “We don’t know what causes Miyake events” say the scientists researching this phenomenon. It could be associated with our own solar flares or even super nova from outside of our solar system. See story and video here. Governments have no control over solar activity - only a short warning period. Just know, it will happen. We have a pretty good idea how often they occur and we are presently past due. Also know, the CME might not be aimed directly at us, and it could be aimed at the other side of the earth sparing lucky folks on its dark side. And if you are wondering, yes, it has happened before. The first recorded happening was the “Carrington Event” during the birth of the telegraph in the late 1800’s. Sparks leaped from the telegraph and their wires set fires. Again in 1989, ground currents from a less intense geomagnetic storm knocked out a high-voltage transformer at a hydroelectric power plant in Quebec, plunging the Canadian province into a prolonged 9-hour blackout on an icy winter night. There have been still other CME's in the interim since the Carrington Event in the late 1800’s. Fortunately they were aimed in a different direction - away from Earth. Remember a CME is not to be confused with a SOLAR FLARE which is less harmful but usually proceed a CME and arrive in a few minutes. Where as the CME takes hours to arrive. As mentioned, for an early warning of such an event, NASA and the European Space Agency have launched a Solar Orbiter to monitor our sun’s activity. 2. MIMICKING OUR SUNS ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE Essentially it’s a nuclear bomb set off high in the atmosphere emitting an electromagnetic pulse which could cover our whole nation. It has the same effect as a CME. The US, China, Russia and even Kim Jong Un already have them in their arsenals. (Digressing; North Korea has two polar orbiting satellites passing over the US twice daily. They are closely watched and have never once communicated with their home base. Are they awaiting a signal?) As an example, a 1.5 Megaton bomb ignited about 100 miles above the center of our nation, would destroy most of the electronics that was not protected (shielded) in the entire Continental United States. Ironically there would be no damage to structure or life. Video: Early experimentation. 3. PHYSICAL ATTACK ON OUR ELECTRIC SUBSTATIONS We have given attack to our electric substations as now a highly significant possibility, which wasn’t the case too long ago. Why? Because of the increased number of attacks against our electric company sub stations and high voltage transformers - often in easy access areas. This is where the high voltage is reduced to being usable for homes and business. We have over 50,000 substations in this country, Disabling one can set off a cascading effect through out our electric grid well beyond the area for which it is intended. A well planned attack in multiple areas could effect the entire country. The first event (CBS 60 Min Video) of this type was in 2013. It was well organized and easy enough to carry out. All one has to do is shoot at the transformers, which could be done from afar. It came a hair's breadth from blacking out Silicon Valley. The story was for the most part hushed up for a decade, presumably because of its simplicity and concern for copycats. To this day, it has not been solved. In recent times they have begun anew with in Charlotte, NC (Video) in December of 2022. followed by Oregon and Washington on Christmas day. (Video) This time with media coverage. Understand, simultaneous attacks at a handful of transformers could set off a cascading effect knocking out large parts of the country or worse. As for duration, it all depends on the availability of replacements which could take up to two years,
4. HACKING You've no doubt read of municipalities, industry, and banks being hacked using ransomware - a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid, usually in bitcoin. A most outlandish hacking heist by the notorious "Scattered Spider" occurred in early 2024 in Las Vegas paralyzing casino operations including slot machines, room entry locks and even elevators. It cost their owners over 100 million dollars to remedy the problem. (Video). In addition there is spyware, used by corporations and the military to steal industrial secrets or cause sabotage. In early 2024, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified "Beijing is preparing to set off potentially damaging cyberattacks in any future conflict, including over Taiwan". Also about the threat posed by Chinese cyber intrusions into U.S. critical infrastructure networks before the House China committee saying, "The U.S. government has disrupted a uniquely dangerous and potentially life-threatening Chinese hacking operation that hijacked hundreds of infected routers and used them to covertly target American and allied critical infrastructure networks. The story. In this regard, the government tells us there has been plenty of foreign and domestic cyber snooping (hacking) around power stations and their grid networks. "They've [the hackers] have had access to the power off button, but they haven't pushed it", said a Jonathan Homer, Homeland Security's chief of industrial control systems. Back in December 2020, cybersecurity professionals began to unravel an extraordinary cyberattack on a little-known company based in Texas called Solar Winds. By hijacking the firm’s software-update mechanism, the hackers had gained the means for covert entry into their choice of thousands of unsuspecting customers. That attack, which the U.S. government blamed on Russia, infiltrated scores of federal agencies and private companies and was widely described as one of the worst intelligence failures in history. Then, it seemed, things couldn’t get much worse when in Mid December '21, saw a large flaw in widely used internet software known as Log4j, which has left companies and government officials scrambling to respond to a glaring cybersecurity threat to global computer networks. Both the aforementioned are almost forgotten about today. Remember the hacker doesn't have to be Chinese or Russian, he can be a recluse in Estonia, or in a basement in Brooklyn. He could be trying to turn off our power for the fun of it. In this regard a regional grid can easily be brought down by hacking remotely into an EV Charger outlet no matter its location. Thats explained in a WSJ Video Here.
Lastly, have you thought about an extended loss of power? That also means no water and sewer, and no re-charging your Tesla. We’ll get to that later. 5. ARTIFICIAL INTELAGENCE - A/I Spring of 2023 saw numerous dire warnings issued by tech leaders to slow down, even stop on AI development. None other than Elon Musk led the pack. Sam Altman CEO of the US premier AI Company was fired by its board for not following the industry consensus. Adverse employe reaction had him rehired in four days. At some point A/I will be able to, for example, suggest recipes for novel cyberattacks or biological attacks—all based on publicly available knowledge. There is even a startup called Veritone which is in the business of installing AI systems to control our grid. Now that really scares the hell out of this writer. Their promo video is here AI has become so "intelegent" that it can even write essays, term papers, legal briefs and computer code. I asked ChatGTP, Microsoft's version of OpenAI on its browser Bing the following: Write an essay on our total loss of electricity and the odds of it happening by the following; 1) Physical attack on grid and transformers. 2) Cyber and or hacking. 3) Solar activity such as Flares and CME's. 4) EMP’s by man and Nature. 5) Artificial Intelligence: 6. THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION & Politics With the exception of solar activity, the other four mentioned threats are within the purview of our enemies. And what would be a better time than when the pusillanimous Joe Biden is president. Additionally, "his administration has determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability." -Joe Manchin D-WV.
As For What To Do - Get out of the city EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS You may remember the first wave of ‘prepping’ that began around the time of Obama’s election. There was even a TV series of the same name. Well, prepping hasn’t faded away. It’s now treated more as the hobby for conservatives, and more practically as Emergency Preparedness.
With todays sociopolitical unrest, cyber security threats, especially to power companies, super bugs, and global tensions, Emergency Preparedness seems more practical than ever. To better paint a picture of what you’d need to know and preparer we have included the video below. Its intended as an introduction to the subject of prepping so you know what you’d be dealing with when the SHTF**, as it is
not our intent to get in to the subject of prepping here.
Still ask yourself, can you purify water if you loose your primary source? Can you start a fire without matches. How long will the food in your pantry last if that’s all you had to rely on do I have the means to cook it. And what about all your electric needs, lighting and communications. Your kitchen for all practical purposes will be useless. To start your prep, here is a list of items that are first disappear in any emergency.
The video above is Just one of many on the subject of prepping on YouTube. While the internet is available. search YouTube: * January29, 2024. Elon Musk said that the first human received a Neuralink brain (CHIP) implant, a potential milestone in the development of “brain-computer interface”.
** The common vernacular used by all preppers SHTF (shit hits the fan) by what ever the cause. |