Author: Mark L. Torrey

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Courtesy Don Loucks
Contributing columnist to The Statesman
Part 3 of a 3-part series

After the Great Texas Winter Storm of 2021, we have heard much about the lack of preparedness on the part of various governments and utilities. One news account in the Statesman described the storm as “unprecedented.” It was not. The winter storm of 1899 was nearly identical to the February event, but it happened so long ago – 122 years – that it was mostly forgotten.

It is never a good idea to forget such events. Just like the Carrington Event of 1859 — a massive Coronal Mass Ejection coupled with a devastatingly powerful electromagnetic pulse — that we tend to disregard for two reasons. First, it happened too long ago; and second, we fail to understand how such an event might affect our country now with its current level of technical sophistication.

In 1987, Jerry Emanuelson wrote in a letter to a scientist colleague: “An EMP attack on the U.S. does seem plausible to me. Three or four (or maybe even one) nuclear weapons detonated in space would instantly shutdown the U.S. economy. It would cause billions of dollars-worth of direct damage to electronics equipment and a much greater loss in indirect costs to the economy.”

Times have certainly changed. “Billions” is now certainly many trillions, and that’s not considering loss of life. What has changed is the complexity of interaction of our economy and society with computerization. A form of computerization is found in nearly every electrical appliance we use from coffee pots to cellular phones. What is most troubling is that we do not realize how much we depend upon that technology. In my previous column on the storm, the surprise we feel when a light switch does not turn on a light during a power outage was noted.

Imagine nothing at all working; not a light, cell phone, television, car – nothing. Just silence for the entire country. Our sophistication just might kill us.

Generally, the more complicated something – anything – is, the more vulnerable it is to failure. For example, compare a fountain pen and kerosene lamp to a personal computer. Our American society has become as complicated as our computers. Interdependence is the watch word. Look at the chaos even a truckers strike could cause. Remember all the changes to our lives brought about by COVID-19?

So, let’s consider it a given that computers and devices with microprocessors are inextricable from daily life. What single thing can disable all of them, even the ones that control your cars and microwave ovens?

The kill mechanism is overvoltage — the introduction of much higher electrical voltage into the very small circuits of a microprocessor.

Before your eyes glaze over at the prospect of technical jargon, let’s make it simple by comparing electricity in wires to water in garden hoses. Voltage is just like the pressure of the water in the hose. If the water pressure becomes too high, the hose can burst and spray water to an area of lower pressure (outside the hose). If the voltage in a wire becomes too high the electricity can arc (leak) by sparking across to another wire or place of lesser voltage.

When lightning hits the ground with 1 billion volts, it generally leaves a burn mark consisting in part of carbon, which conducts electricity. Carbon left on a microprocessor board can short out and kill a microprocessor.

Easily available “surge suppressors” can lessen the chance of a power surge from utility lines when the line voltage going into a computer spikes on the high side for some reason. However, an electromagnetic pulse overvoltage is a quite different animal. By its nature, it bypasses the surge suppressor and induces the overvoltage directly into the computer’s microcircuitry.

Remember the lightning strike and carbonized burned area I mentioned? If the tiny copper traces of a microprocessor arc from one to another there will be a carbon trace that will conduct electricity and short out the microprocessor’s delicate circuits, killing it.

Is there a solution? We have heard about “hardening” the Texas electric grid, but that has not happened. It might be possible to harden some microcircuit appliances in your household by shielding them from an electromagnetic pulse. A “faraday cage 4, 5, 6” is the usual term for such a device. Essentially, it is a metal case or metal-laced bags to cover and shield a computer or even a cell phone from the effects of an EMP.

No, the government will not be here to help. They will be in the same canoe, and also without a paddle.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Courtesy Don Loucks
Contributing columnist to The Statesman
Part 2 of a 3-part series

By now we have a pretty good handle on the many shortcomings Texas experienced during the greatest winter storm event since 1899. Back then there was no technology as we know it now. Weather forecasts depended upon barometers, measurements of wind and cloud cover, and communication by telegraph. The storm of 2021 is historic in its own way.

The near-cataclysmic failures we experience the week of Feb. 14 were not purely of technology. Rather, preparation and planning fell short. The bottom line is that we lacked preparation.

Preparing fully for “black swan” events is expensive. One such rare event is the outlier point on the bell curve that makes the gamble against it happening sometimes seem worthwhile to ignore. That gamble to save some preparation costs came 4 minutes and 37 seconds short from complete grid failure and potentially costing thousands of Texans’ lives.

The short time interval was all that remained to cut enough power demand from the Texas Grid before the remaining power generation plants were all forced offline, perhaps for weeks or months. The grid cannot be restarted like a stalled car by turning a key.

Had it happened, ERCOT said the state could have been in the dark for weeks if not longer.

In an urgent ERCOT board meeting on Feb. 24, CEO Bill Magness described the winter weather as “a devastating event. Power is essential to civilization.”

This is worth serious thought. It is probable that the concept of total electric power loss is inconceivable to most Americans. How many times have we automatically flipped a light switch on during a brief power outage and were surprised when no light came on? Or when the water stopped flowing, this latest time for days at a time? Can a months-long or even years-long outage even be possible?

The near-total collapse of the Texas Power grid was a tiny taste of the horrific damage a total, catastrophic loss of the national power grid structure would be like.

And that total loss is entirely probable, and has already happened in America.

In 1859, a coronal mass ejection (CME) occurred which was observed by chance by Richard Carrington from his observatory in London. He saw sunspots that emitted extremely bright lights which then disappeared. What Carrington witnessed was a massive CME launched from the sun and headed to Earth.

Now known as the Carrington event, its effects on Earth ranged from the Aurora Borealis being observed as far south as Cuba to telegraph stations set alight, wires melting and communications disrupted for several days.

Now consider the degree of complexity – and delicacy – of our present-day computers and communication technology. A CME as powerful as the Carrington event today could cause trillions of dollars in damage worldwide, according to astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, who wrote in Forbes last year about a possible catastrophic solar flare striking Earth.

The winter storms last month did not destroy computers, the internet, communications hardware or transportation systems. An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) mimics the effects of a CME, and both a devastating CME and/or a man-made EMP are entirely possible today.

EMP generation can be accomplished by detonating a nuclear explosion between 18 to 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. A complex interaction of the blast with the atmosphere will create an EMP that will short-circuit any micro-circuitry as found in computers, cars, trucks, pumping stations, power lines, hospitals, aircraft – nearly everything in our lives.

The essential step in protecting against the potential destruction caused by an EMP or CME is basically the same as protecting against the cripple winter storm we recently experienced, only on a much larger scale.

The weaknesses of our power grids must be re-evaluated. Grids can be hardened for EMP protection, but no one has wanted to spend the money to do so. Emergency plans must be examined and updated and hardware acquired to anticipate and be ready for that black swan event that history has shown can happen.

Courtesy Don Loucks
Contributing columnist to The Statesman
Part 1 of a 3-part series

The ferocious winter storm Texans experienced last week was historic. The last storm of such magnitude occurred in Texas in 1899. That year, sub-freezing temperatures, snow and ice were experienced all through America’s South. There was great loss of life and property.

The start of the storm on Feb. 14 was very much like in 1899, except that now the affected area is far more populous than it was 122 years ago.

It is easy to start assigning blame for the shortcomings that became evident as the storm cycle took hold. Almost immediately, power was being rationed by “rolling blackouts.” When the power capacity began to drop below the point where power generation plants could maintain line voltage, some had to be taken offline in order to prevent these plants from automatically taking themselves offline. That situation had to be avoided to prevent a complete plant restart cycle which would have meant complete loss of power generation.

The only course of action that could be taken by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state electric grid, was to drop large parts of the grid offline to preserve the generation plants still online, thus keeping the power flowing in part.

The result was devastating to much of Texas. The true cost of this disaster will probably not be known for some time.

However, it is vitally important that our various levels of governments come clean. For example, as of this writing San Antonio power supplier, CPS Energy filed to suspend release of public information regarding its handling of the storm. Why would they want to do that? Hiding information from the public by a government or utility is never a good idea if confidence is to be maintained. If the rate paying public is expected to buy-in to any solution, they have the right to see the underlying data about what happened, and what is proposed.

Emergency managers exercise various scenarios, determine the points of failure, develop solutions, then exercise again. That’s a proven method to prepare.

Now let’s look at the weaknesses revealed in this storm. The first major failure was of the “renewable energy” variety, specifically of the windmills and solar panel arrays. Like aircraft, ice buildup on aerodynamic surfaces (such as windmill blades) destroys their ability to produce torque to the generator. Further, the enormous weight of the ice throws the heavy rotating blade assembly out of balance, so it is designed to automatically brake to a stop. Solar panels only work during daylight and when they are not covered by an obstruction such as snow. Both of these problems occurred almost simultaneously at the start of the storm.

There went about 29% of the power grid.

ERCOT reported that blackouts were caused as electric plants of all energy sources “began tripping offline in rapid succession.”

But then as the situation worsened, some of the rolling blackouts occurred in the oil and gas producing area of West Texas called the Permian Basin. With power cut, natural gas destined to power plants was cut off, forcing even more shutdowns.

One should start to see that pattern forming here. It is called cascading. One event leads to another, then another, and another.

To understand why all this happened, one must research the planning process all Texas governments and agencies should have in order to prevent such compounding emergencies.

In a subsequent column I will discuss why Texas has its own power grid and how the federal government hobbled Texas’ ability to have access to out-of-state power during this horrible winter weather situation.