This is not some internet secret, gained by going to T - erroristiness sites. For decades drunken amurkans have been shooting out transformers, where it only takes a small while before the oil leaks out, the transformer shorts, and big sparks make quite a show. A side effect is that whatever the transformer was transforming stops flowing. When it happens at substation, the cascade effect takes out most of the buses and capacitors.
A Volkswagon vanagon with a sunroof and vietnam era mortars would do even more. Coordinate on the most important substations across the land, say between six and sixty, and amurka has no electricity for months. You don't just go to Home Depot to pick up a utility transformer.
Of course, that would also mean mar-tial law and susdension of the constidution, so they win again. Roar. (Typos intentional)
Wish i hadn't said this. But if hundreds of energy activists have been talking about this for decades, could we be the only ones knowing this? "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Cut: late 90's. the guys next to me in the posh San Fran bar seemed like government types. We talked, they offered me a fine cigar. (Smoking was against the law in SF then, but not in this connected bar.) Turned out they were Clinton staffers. I detailed the above scenario, their reaction was "the government would never allow that to hapen."
Three days later, i'm driving a truck w/ girlfriend's belongings down from Portland to SF. When it's time to refuel, the first couple stations said they couldn't pump, so i finally turned on the radio, to find out the power was out from border to border, and wide into the west. Winds got some lines swinging in NorCal, causing a short which blew safety buses and fried a transformer, setting up the cascade.
The fragility of the grid is worse now. Only rebuilding it from the perspective of renewables can change it, until then the vulnerability remains. But there's no money available, because it's all going into bunker-busters and their delivery systems.
Does anyone think the general strike on 6 November has a chance of stopping this steamroller. i sure hope so. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
