Lights Out
Adventures in Sustainable Living Podcast
Episode 42
Lights Out
In 1977, in less than one hour, three separate lightning strikes resulted in the entire power grid for the largest city in the United States being completely shut down. All vehicle traffic was in grid lock, thousands of people were trapped in high rise buildings and subways, all airline traffic was diverted, New York City was in total darkness.
In the next 24 hours thousands of stores were looted and suffered fire damage, 4,500 looters were arrested, and 550 police officers were injured.
And this grid failure was from natural causes. What most people don’t realize is there are numerous other reasons that the power grid could shut down not just for a few days, but for weeks, to months. But you can actually protect yourself from such things.
So, what will you do when it’s lights out?
Welcome back everyone to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast. This is your host Patrick and this is E42 which is called Lights Out.
In E29 and E37 I talked extensively about the ransomware attacks and a sustainable life being your best security blanket. At this point I want to take a different approach just to hopefully drive home some of these principles and again point out the importance of living a simple sustainable life. In fact, I hope this episode is somewhat of a reality check.
I do think it is fair to say that most of us take a lot of things for granted to the point that we feel entitled to certain things. Now I am not being overly critical here. But, as Americans and by the basic nature of our culture and society, we have easy access to almost anything we want any time we want. When you live in a culture like that all your life, you begin to have a sense that you are entitled to live that way. So maybe that is an understandable if not predictable result of our culture.
And sense we live in a modern culture, we also expect, in fact we take for granted, that when we turn on the tap we have fresh water, when we flip a switch we have lights, we open the refrigerator and we have fresh food. But depending on the generation you are from, most of us tend to forget that it was not so long ago that this was simply not the case.
Even up until the late 1930s more than half the homes in the United States still did not have electricity or phones. Daily life just did not include dishwashers, refrigerators, TVs, air conditioners, cell phones, computers, iPads, email, instant messaging, microwaves, food processors, etc. In fact, when I was growing up in a rural part of north Georgia, most homes had electricity but no one had a phone. If you really needed to talk to someone, you drove to their house.
Obviously modern technology adds a huge level of convenience to our daily lives. And thanks to modern technology I can live in the middle of the forest with my satellite internet and produce podcast episodes. For the most part our basic necessities are taken care of due to a vast and interconnected infrastructure. But I have long said that this level of convenience also adds a level of vulnerability. That is one of several reasons we maintain a very simple lifestyle.
So, here is the problem. Actually there are multiple problems but I am just going to mainly discuss the electrical grid and hopefully give you a reality check because there could easily come a time when you have to return to living just like your grandparents did. And I am not talking about when the grid goes down after a storm and power is restored after a few days. I am talking about the possibility of the power grid going down for months to years. Additionally I want to point out just how easily this could happen and the enormous impact it would have on our way of life.
If the power grid did go down for a long period of time, certain critical areas of our society such as hospitals, police stations, government facilities, cell phone towers, fire and rescue, food supply lines, water treatment facilities, etc, would cease to operate. While many of these facilities do have back up power in the form of generators, these are only designed to operate for a few days to weeks. Then its lights out.
So here is the challenge. Every stage of our power generation and distribution is controlled and monitored by sophisticated and automated computer systems. This is because hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity from multiple generating plants are pushed through over 200,000 miles of high tension power lines to our businesses and homes 24 hours a day.
The demand for electricity is constantly changing as millions of people are turning appliances on and off, turning lights on and off, commercial facilities are adjusting heating and cooling systems, etc. What this means is that utility system computers must instantly respond to large swings in power demands and this is what eventually lead to automated control devices that were standardized across the industry. This became the gold standard. These control devices are extremely reliable and have been working flawlessly since the 1990s.
But the critical flaw is that when these control systems were installed, they used hardwiring for communications. The entire architecture of the system was set up for open communication. It was not set up to limit access. There simply was no need to include any security or password protection. In fact, when these systems were developed, it was before the internet came into play as a means of system wide communication and monitoring.
And that is the Achilles heel. Now that the internet is widely used, an intelligent and properly motivated hacker can access utility system control functions from anywhere in the world. That includes electric facilities, water treatment facilities, gasoline facilities, as well as other critical parts of the infrastructure. As a prime example, I discussed the hacking of the colonial pipeline facilities in E29.
Allow me to pose a couple of potential scenarios.
If hackers were to access the main water treatment facilities of a large city it would be possible to change the chemical mix in order to add toxic levels of standard water treatment chemicals. But they would not even have to do that. If they simply shut off all chemical treatment the water would now be tainted with all sorts of bacteria, viruses, and various other pathogens that are normally filtered and treated.
If hackers accesses the control systems of a large electrical utility and redirected multiple sources of generating power into substations and electrical lines not designed to handle such loads, high tension lines would over heat and short out, transformers costing millions of dollars would melt down. Or if the grid voltage was simply altered and rapidly cycled on and off, millions of appliances that we rely on everyday would be damaged.
And if you think such things are not possible, think again.
In December 2015 a malware virus infiltrated the computers controlling Ukraine’s national power grid and shut off the power grid to half the country.
In January 2016 hackers attacked the computers controlling Israel’s entire electric grid.
And then there is the Colonial Pipeline hack which shut down the gasoline supply line to the entire eastern sea board of the United States.
And then there is the JBS meat packing plant hack which shut down their operations for a few days causing meat shortages.
And these are just isolated instances. What if there was a coordinated attack to multiple utilities, water treatment facilities, and food processing facilities. It would be possible to shut down the basic infrastructure to half the country and cause such wide spread damage that it would take months to years to correct. In fact, congressional studies determined that the destruction of about 6 carefully selected electrical substations could effectively shut down all electrical power to half the country and it may take up to a year to get everything back on line.
Now I could go on to list several other examples of well planned malicious attacks that have shut down basic utility systems. But there are also natural causes that could do the same. New York City is a prime example. But there is also the concern over and EMP event, which is an electromagnetic pulse. This can simply happen from a large solar flare, which has happened before.
What this means is that any of these things could happen at any time. And when it does, it would literally be lights out. As I said before, all this ease and convenience also leads to a certain amount of vulnerability.
And I think about this every single time I see news reports of a major storm or some other event that results in the loss of power to millions of people. Hurricane Ida that just hit the Louisiana coast is just another example. I sit and think that if only people lead a simple, basic, independent, sustainable lifestyle where they managed many of their own resources, such things would not be that much of a concern.
Can you even imagine what life would be like if something happened and the power grid went down for over a year? What would you do? Well, you would be living in a time where your lights just might be candles. You would have no cell phone, no internet. You would not be able to get gasoline for your car. You might not even be able to get to the supermarket. And if you did, they may not even be open. Most people would panic. There would be widespread violence and basic lawlessness.
Now you have to know that I am not one of those people that focus on the apocalypse and the total collapse of our society as we know it. But when I look at these very real and possible scenarios I do have to say it concerns me.
I purchased my off grid property in 1996. I put up my first solar panels in 2012 but this was only enough to recharge some basic batteries for lighting. I did not install full solar until 2016. It was not until then that I had a fully operational refrigerator, freezer, and essentially had full, standard household electricity. So, I lived for 20 years without electricity and running water. Yes you heard be correctly, 20 years.
Now was I super happy when I had electricity? Yes I was. It completely changed my lifestyle. Did I suffer during those 20 years without. Absolutely not!
But what this did for me is that when I travel somewhere or for whatever reason I am without some basic amenity, it never even phases me. I immediately shift my thinking and figure a way around it. About twice every winter, usually sometime in December, January, or February, when I get the least amount of sun hours, my electricity shuts off for about half a day. This is because the inverter has a low voltage shutoff to protect the battery bank. I just have to wait until the batteries recharge.
When that happens, we almost never even react. We have backup systems in place to provide lighting and some other basic things until the batteries recharge. It is just not even a worry. When I still had my second home in South Carolina and a storm knocked out the power grid for almost 10 days in the middle of winter, it never even phased us. We switched into off grid mode, made ourselves as comfortable as possible and quietly watched the neighbors suffer.
And some of you may be thinking about now, “Well this is so easy for your to say. You’ve been living off the grid for decades. Not everyone is comfortable with that.
Well, there are a number of very easy things you can do to protect yourself from such things. The first thing to realize is that you must take responsibility for yourself and your own choices. You must never depend on some government organization to rush in and help you in the event of a national emergency. Nothing could be further from the truth. And the time to make some changes in your life is now.
That said, you must know that entire books have been written on the subject of prepping, survival, bugging out, how to survive the apocalypse, etc. But that is not what this episode is about. But, I will have a list of some of my favorite references in the transcript of this episode. But for now, I want to simply give you a handful of tips on how to survive a grid down event.
The way I look at it, you only need a few basic things in order to truly survive: food, water, shelter, and protective clothing. That said, there are many other things you can do to make your life more comfortable.
Food
I strongly recommend keeping at least two weeks of extra food on hand. Whatever it is that you store away, make sure it is something you are accustomed to eating. I would recommend storing foods that have a long shelf life and are calorically dense. Make sure to keep a variety of foods and especially things that can be eaten without any cooking. For example energy bars, granola, raisins, other dried fruit, hard candy, canned soups and pastas.
If you want further information, I have a blog post called Establishing an Emergency Food Supply. There is a link to this post in the transcript.
Water
Keep a water filtration and purification system on hand at all times. I use a gravity fed system produced by a company called Life Straw. I have used their filters for years and this is actually what we use almost every single day to purify stream water.
I do have an extensive blog post on How to Maintain a Safe Water Supply as well as How to Choose the Best Water Filter. I also have links to these posts in the transcript for this episode.
Shelter
I have a small water proof bivy shelter that I keep with me all the time. It stays in my truck with some other survival gear. These can easily be purchased at a shop that sells outdoor gear. Now this is for emergency situations only and for when I am away from home. Ideally of course in an emergency you would simple shelter in place at your home.
Protective Clothing
I highly recommend waterproof Gortex clothing. It is light weight, breathable and compact. It is not the cheapest clothing you can buy but it is some of the best on the market. I have used this type of clothing for most of my life and I highly recommend it.
Solar Power
There are numerous portable solar charging kits on the market these days designed to recharge just about any thing you can think of: cells phone, laptops, GPS devices, etc. Portable solar generators also have built in inverters so that you have standard AC household current.
But for home use, with minimal investment you can set up two 100 watt solar panels connected to a charge controller and then charge a small battery bank. Once charged, those batteries can sit on a window seal and provide power for lighting. You can even purchase a small power inverter for less than $60 that has clip on connections. This inverter can then be used to recharge or run small appliances because they are equipped with standard household outlets.
I have two very informative blogs posts on Simple Solar Projects that you can check out if you want a lot more information.
Refrigeration
If you really want to go all out, purchase DC appliances such as a refrigerator and freezer. These appliances are extremely efficient. Once set up, they are hardwired into a battery bank and is charged by a small solar array. This is in fact what we use every day.
I have known some people to do this simply because they live in a rural area that is particularly prone to power outages. Once they set this up, they never again had to worry about food spoiling due to loss of electricity because their refrigerator and freezer were no longer connected to the power grid.
Radio Communications
I keep a multi band AM/FM weather radio in my survival gear in my truck. This thing has 5 different means of power: built in solar panel, hand crank which charges an internal lithium battery, standard battery compartment for AA batteries, AC connection, and USB to connect to a computer or wall outlet. It also has a USB connection for charging devices.
Now this is just a one way radio but it gives you a means of monitoring emergency radio communications so that you can at least stay informed on what is going on in the outside world.
Cooking
There are numerous ways to cook meals other than your kitchen stove. You can use a grill, a back packing stove, a simple propane burner, a rocket stove. I have a great blog post on this topic called 14 Ways to Cook Without Using Your Kitchen Stove.
I will also have a link to this blog post in the transcript.
Summary
Now I want to just to give you a quick summary of some of things I have covered.
By now I hope you understand how and why our major utility grids are subject to going down, potentially for a very long time. The biggest weakness is how connected we are these days, meaning the internet. Any intelligent and motivated hacker can access the computers that control grid functions and essentially shut it down.
But there are also naturally occurring events such as storms, lightning strikes, and even solar activity that can happen at any time.
The problem is that if the damage is extensive enough the equipment needed to repair the grid and make it functional is not exactly an off the shelf item. We are talking about transformers the size of a house that weighs hundreds of thousands of pounds that not only have to be manufactured but then transported to the needed location and installed. This type of equipment does not exactly sit around in storage waiting to be used. You see now why it could take months to more than a year to replace this type of equipment.
As far as hackers are concerned, it would only take a coordinated attack on as few as 6 electrical substations to shut down the grid for half the country.
But contrary to popular belief, it is not difficult to live completely without electricity. I know because I did it for 20 years. But that truly does not have to be the case for anyone. You can easily puts some safeguards into place to protect yourself and your family. And this does not mean you are being paranoid, or being a preppier, and preparing for the end of the world.
By doing a few simple things you can easily be prepared for the long haul. Things such as having an emergency food supply, the ability to filter and purify your own water, having an emergency shelter, proper protective clothing, basic solar capabilities, off grid refrigeration, rechargeable radio for emergency information, and learning how to cook without ever using your kitchen stove.
Can you even imagine the relief on emergency services personnel if even 25% of the population was prepared to completely take care of themselves.
The bottom line is that living a simple sustainable life means taking responsibility for everything that you choose to do and everything that you choose not to do. Many people just have to learn to make better choices. And learning a little bit of self sufficiency is a huge step toward sustainability.
Now in closing, if you have enjoyed this episode, then please take the time to leave me with a review. And of course, subscribe to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast as well as my companion blog Off Grid Living News.
This is your host Patrick signing off until next week. Until then, always remember to live sustainably because this is how we build a better future.
References
Establishing an Emergency Food Supply
How to Maintain a Safe Water Supply
How to Choose the Best Water Filter
