John McAfee thinks the grid is going down

[FrankenCub]

Simple answer is cost cost cost, utilities need to make money, they do that by charging customers and buying replacements, parts infrastructure at the lowest possible price. Basic capitalism, problem is that there is no incentive for utilities to prepare for a grid down situation. To be honest, its hard enough for them to keep the lights on now as it is.

That may be true to the book keepers involved but I'm sure many of the people in the know inside the power companies realize how important it is that changes be made. 'Keeping the lights on now' is an incentive for making repairs, every time the power goes out for stupid little reasons like it does here, rain and wind, is a cut in their income. It may be just a little per customer, but add up thousands and it's not so little any more. Add in the cost to have crews out making a temporary fix is another large cut to their bottom line. If power goes out for months on end in a large area, ie: grid down scenario, that could be enough to completely shut down many companies for good. They certainly can't afford to pay all of their employees and executives for even 6 months without an income from customers.
These electric companies are making profit hand over fist, I'm sure greed has a part to play in it but I also feel there's something else behind the scenes. Foreign stock holders and contracts maybe? I just think there's more to the problem than money. I should pick my sister's brain a bit. She works for NYSEG and knows many of the engineers for this area well, they may have their own ideas.

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

IMO, I have no research on this but just my opinion of the grid were to go down for 1 month. Just 1 month. The economic costs would be in the TrillionS (with a T). And there would be minimum of tens or hundreads of thousands dead.

If the grid is down much longer the recovery effort and cost to get back to normal would be mind boggling.

 

[nfernaays]

That may be true to the book keepers involved but I'm sure many of the people in the know inside the power companies realize how important it is that changes be made. 'Keeping the lights on now' is an incentive for making repairs, every time the power goes out for stupid little reasons like it does here, rain and wind, is a cut in their income. It may be just a little per customer, but add up thousands and it's not so little any more. Add in the cost to have crews out making a temporary fix is another large cut to their bottom line. If power goes out for months on end in a large area, ie: grid down scenario, that could be enough to completely shut down many companies for good. They certainly can't afford to pay all of their employees and executives for even 6 months without an income from customers.
These electric companies are making profit hand over fist, I'm sure greed has a part to play in it but I also feel there's something else behind the scenes. Foreign stock holders and contracts maybe? I just think there's more to the problem than money. I should pick my sister's brain a bit. She works for NYSEG and knows many of the engineers for this area well, they may have their own ideas.

Maximizing profits is the motivation on any company, utilities are no different. There are penalties from the government on utilities if power is not restored promptly and if a scheduled outage goes over. But there is little incentive for a utility do much more than maintain the status quo on the grid. There are many bright engineers that work tirelessly to keep the grid functioning and I give them credit, but most of the time buying and supplying decisions do not come from them.

Looks back at recent time, events like hurricane Irene, Sandy, the October storm, the ice storm...all events where power was out for days in some areas, these were all transmission based problems, poles, pole top transformers, wire these are items that are readily available and there were still instances where power was out for days. A true problem exists when something occurs at a substation or generating station. Those are big ticket items that are not on hand, they are engineered materials that take a long time plan, manufacture, and test. That is when we will see a real grid down situation.

 

[nfernaays]

IMO, I have no research on this but just my opinion of the grid were to go down for 1 month. Just 1 month. The economic costs would be in the TrillionS (with a T). And there would be minimum of tens or hundreads of thousands dead.

If the grid is down much longer the recovery effort and cost to get back to normal would be mind boggling.

I have no data to support you, but I feel the same way....I always just keep in the back of my mind, 3 days. Three days after SHTF and those not prepared will wish they did.

 

[Podmonkey]

Eh, there are way, waaay too many human beings suckling air anyway. The world needs a big ass Malthusian event to reset everything back to zero. Wether or not I survive it'll be fun Mad Maxing it. Be vewy, vewy qwiet. I'm hunting wibewels.

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

Eh, there are way, waaay too many human beings suckling air anyway. The world needs a big ass Malthusian event to reset everything back to zero. Wether or not I survive it'll be fun Mad Maxing it. Be vewy, vewy qwiet. I'm hunting wibewels.

As a general philosophy this is concerning to me. Throughout history everything seems cyclic. There are ups and downs, 2steps forward 1 back. Etc....

Since the end of ww2 there has been unprecedented population growth rates. Traditionally there would always be some decreases or setbacks but since then it's just extremely rapid population growth. It just seems like we are overdue for some type of difficulty to slow that down and to take a step back.

Humans are becoming increasingly urbanized and in most areas we are way over the carrying capacity of the local resources. If there is an interruption to the supply chain it won't go well.

 

[Podmonkey]

I'll just treat it like a purge day.

 

[FrankenCub]

Maximizing profits is the motivation on any company, utilities are no different. There are penalties from the government on utilities if power is not restored promptly and if a scheduled outage goes over.

This is exactly my point. Where's the profit going to be after 3 months down, 6 months down, how about more when they don't have the necessary repair parts? Don't think for a minute that they don't know this, because they do. They took a hellofa pounding after Sandy, ice storms, etc. And they were reasonably easy fixes.
I guarantee the executives know what will happen when an irreplaceable transformer goes down. It doesn't look well for profits, hell the company net worth will be whatever scrap prices bring that month.

 

[Podmonkey]

I be all

 

[spat]

Just curious, have you ever researched the Power Grid? Do you understand the workings of it? Do you understand what the threat to our Power Grid is?

CA ordered price fixing so severe that the utilities were forced to shut down power in certain areas or operate at a loss a few years ago. You think they've got money to spend hardening the grid ?

 

[tirwin1]

Switching gears a bit - I recently saw a documentary on John McAfee. That is one strange individual. A classic entrepreneur who was forced out when his company got too big because he couldn't manage it. Went down to Belize in central america and set himself up by buying the local police force and hiring his own goon squad. He had some weird preferences - the film interviewed a few girls who said he liked to have them shit in his mouth. The film also strongly implies (convincingly so in my opinion) that he had two people killed by paying local thugs to beat them to death. A smart guy but paranoid and strange beyond belief.

 

[Jem45472]

Switching gears a bit - I recently saw a documentary on John McAfee. That is one strange individual. A classic entrepreneur who was forced out when his company got too big because he couldn't manage it. Went down to Belize in central america and set himself up by buying the local police force and hiring his own goon squad. He had some weird preferences - the film interviewed a few girls who said he liked to have them shit in his mouth. The film also strongly implies (convincingly so in my opinion) that he had two people killed by paying local thugs to beat them to death. A smart guy but paranoid and strange beyond belief.

I watched that tonight. Very interesting.

 

[GOPerfect]

CA ordered price fixing so severe that the utilities were forced to shut down power in certain areas or operate at a loss a few years ago. You think they've got money to spend hardening the grid ?

According to the budget of 2014 and 2015 there was quite a bit of money allocated to harden the grid. I wonder what the money was used for?

 

[GOPerfect]

Switching gears a bit - I recently saw a documentary on John McAfee. That is one strange individual. A classic entrepreneur who was forced out when his company got too big because he couldn't manage it. Went down to Belize in central america and set himself up by buying the local police force and hiring his own goon squad. He had some weird preferences - the film interviewed a few girls who said he liked to have them shit in his mouth. The film also strongly implies (convincingly so in my opinion) that he had two people killed by paying local thugs to beat them to death. A smart guy but paranoid and strange beyond belief.

I'll have to look that one up and watch it

 

[Blimey]

McAfee is hilariously nuts these days. Not to say he's stupid, but he's gone a bit whacky.

But seriously the odds of the grid being down for a lengthy period, affecting some millions, is I think pretty plausible. We just need a carrington event and that should pretty much do it.

I imagine the grid is too wide for terrorists to do more than fairly localized damage (power out for millions, but repairable), but carrington would be a game changer.

 

[Blimey]

I have no data to support you, but I feel the same way....I always just keep in the back of my mind, 3 days. Three days after SHTF and those not prepared will wish they did.

It isn't hard to get to that point. If the power goes out, all retail businesses stop. No commerce, so now you're stuck with whatever food you have on hand and whatever emergency services can get to you (if available). The huge bulk of people don't keep much extra food in the house, so after a week they will have gone through their old boxes of macaroni without sauce and stale cereal and start getting hungry. If you have no food, the gas stations have no gas, and the stores aren't open, you will be quickly into panic/angry mode. Now add in that any city has already, a few days ago, had to lock down with marital law because night looting and rioting is totally out of control. A month of that would be an economic catastrophe.

 

[FrankenCub]

Probably wont need a carrington type event, our magnetic grid is weakening and as that progresses it takes less and less for CMEs to effect us.