If the universe doesn't get us, the electrical grid will. Won't take near as long. Could happen tomorrow. Already has tried it. Might be the result of hostile action -- remember that North Korea is boasting that they have a new weapon, more destructive than anything previous, though they decline to name it. So far it has only happened by what we think is accidents, widespread regional blackouts that are caused by faulty equipment or perhaps natural intervention in the form of a big bird that shorted out a transformer or a rodent that cut electrical lines. A transformer is basically an insulated bomb that can blow up anytime, which is why they are usually placed somewhere remote when possible.
The worst example so far is that the State of California has thousands of miles of vulnerable high tension lines, some of it old, that crosses forest and mountain and in even minor short circuits sets massive fires that wipe out whole towns and and territories. Thorough monitoring is expensive and depends on high-level intention. "Good intentions" are challenged by our satanic greed.
And the new player is computer control -- AI written by humans so that two big airliners have crashed to the ground and others narrowly escaped because of techie fat-finger or loopy thought error.
"In critical facilities across the country, experts predict that it is only a matter of time before the electrical infrastructure holding society together undergoes catastrophic failure. According to the most recent report of the United States Congressional Commission appointed to assess the risk, published July 2017, we face the threat of ‘long-lasting disruption and damage’ to everything from power and clean water to electronic banking, first-responder services and functioning hospitals. Until now, such a dire prediction has typically been associated with only the most extreme doomsday true believers but William Graham, the former chairman of the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission, says that in this case they could be right."
I'd read about all this in the past but sort of forgotten about it. But now it seems more possible, maybe even likely. Part of the reason is that the imagery has been borrowed to picture fantasy stuff like "the rapture" when some invisible power stops everything and grabs believers up up up into some invisible and unimaginable paradise. "Game of Thrones" pictures a fleet of warships immolated by magical green fire.
"In the broadest sense, an EMP is a sudden burst of extreme electromagnetic interference that causes systems using electricity – especially devices controlled by chips or computers – to fail when the load gets too high. EMPs come in three basic varieties, including a ground-level or high-altitude EMP (HEMP) released by a nuclear burst that could potentially impact power lines, transformers and other critical devices; drive-by EMPs created by high-powered microwave weapons that could silently incapacitate equipment from hundreds of yards away; and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) resulting from solar storms that could interfere with the magnetic sphere surrounding the Earth."
"According to the 2017 report, Russia, China and North Korea could already have these weapons under wraps. And CMEs from solar storms are like metaphorical magnetic earthquakes: they vary in intensity from relatively harmless ripples all the way to a potential Big One that could take down a nation’s grid within minutes, creating widespread destruction that would take years to repair."
Around here we are aware our electricity is often "dirty," varying more than is good for the machines. And sometimes we have blackouts that last hours. A transformer in an old deserted city on the line feeding to us blew up and burned -- they say it was very old-fashioned and couldn't stand modern loads. It destroyed the embroidery-capable sewing machines of a precious small business, taking with it salary hours and expensive litigation over repairs. Some household machines were affected.
Infrastructure should be the most basic priority, but anyone who drives on pot-holed highways knows reality. Our distribution system is one of the most crucial infrastructure -- how to get food and gas where it should be and how to store and deliver it once there. Gas pumps need electricity. Computers and pocket phones need electricity. Stores have electronic cash registers and credit systems that depend upon electronic bank records.
"As the EMP Commission concluded in 2004, even low-yield nuclear weapons detonated at an altitude of 30 kilometres could create extensive damage, while a detonation at 300 kilometres could affect the entire continental US and have a catastrophic impact on the nation."
We talk about being bombed back to the Stone Age, but the 30,000 local survivors in the US would only be bombed back to before rural electrification. Around here a few can remember that. We know how to do it, but there wouldn't be a lot of energy left over to do much more than that. Without TV we'd have to talk to each other. I don't know whether landlines would work -- the microwave towers would not.
So this is your spring scare, something like the big blizzard that has arrived to the East. I can see it on highway camera feeds, though the sun is shining through the window. The earlier major floods have already messed up the billing cycle so my checkbook is a mess. I figure we won't starve once we figure out how to steal grain out of the bins that almost outnumber houses in Valier. If you want meat, there are cows all around.
But how would I blog? Luckily I have a little hoard of good pens and a stack of legal pads. Publication is the only problem, and it always is anyway.
New story: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kxb85/cyber-event-california-wyoming-utah-dont-panic
New story: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kxb85/cyber-event-california-wyoming-utah-dont-panic
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