Written by William F. Pickard   

A couple of weeks back, an article by Matthew Wald in the New York Times revealed that “the electric grid ... is the glass jaw of American industry”. This wasn’t entirely virgin news because, when the Millennium occurred a few years ago, there was a stir over “electrification” being named the premier technical advance of the Twentieth Century; and almost all of the other nineteen of the top twenty advances could not have achieved their present ranks without it. Nevertheless, the grid is the glass jaw of American industry, and Wald’s point is well taken: if the North American grid collapses utterly, we go from living enviably to subsisting precariously.

The article then went on to say that agencies in the United States, Canada, and Mexico are exploring the issue and searching for ways to assure that major natural disasters, hacking, sabotage, and happenstance events become much less likely to cause a catastrophic collapse from which recovery might take weeks or even months. Precautions to protect us from failures worse than the great Northeast power blackouts of November 1963 and August 2003 are desirable (but nonetheless fallible) bulwarks against really catastrophic (as contrasted with merely inconvenient) failures.

Exploring, modelling, testing, conferring, and coordinating to limit risk are not efficacious substitutes for launching immediate precautionary action. Because no electrified work of man is apt to stand against a “thousand year” natural disaster or a sufficiently virulent cyber attack, the first line of defense should be to assure that potentially dangerous departures from normal grid behavior are recognized automatically and the affected portion of the grid isolated instantaneously. Governments must do more than meditate upon instituting precautions designed to make major grid disruptions rare: they should forthwith take action to assure (a) that such disruptions are sensed in timely fashion, (b) that the affected portions of grid are disconnected gracefully, and (c) that the disruption is CONTAINED. When any portion of the grid shows the first signs of going dangerously awry, it must at once be isolated (that is to say, disconnected from the rest of the grid and quarantined until the fault is cleared). Spreading collapse of a grid, like the spreading contagion of a plague, is a danger demanding quarantine.

Because the present grid emphasizes interconnection of alternating current power lines and because this can lead to system instability when large powers are transferred between cities that are far apart, it might make sense to stand on its head the whole issue of grid resilience and security: rather than emphasizing interconnection, greater complexity and more sophisticated sensing and control, why not subdivide North America’s grid into maybe a thousand independent mini-grids, each rated at around 1000 megawatts, and each designed to be resilient if isolated from its neighbors. Power transfers amongst these mini-grids would be only by way of direct current links, which are far more stable than alternating current links. When hacking or other devastation is detected, the mini-grid(s) affected would simply disconnect from their neighbors. And our problem goes away!?!

For this to work, each mini-grid would require internal sources of electric power generation and/or massive energy stores that can be readily converted into electric power. There are at least two catches in this scenario. First, once the World’s fossil fuel becomes scarce in the latter half of this century, many mini-grids won’t contain adequate generation because their sun and wind resources are low grade and because carbon-based fuels won’t be affordable. Second, massive electricity storage, is at present a pipe dream dismissively known as the Achilles’ heel of renewable energy: unfortunately, you can’t just go to the Yellow Pages and take your choice among a multitude of models, for each of which there exists reliable information on technical characteristics, price, and delivery. This leaves the Public with a choice between a glass jaw and an Achilles’ heel: one is a rock; the other is a hard place.

If a government were forthwith to jump-start Research, Development, & Demonstration of mini-grid interconnection and energy storage, it might by the mid-Twenties have enough information to begin a decades long (and dauntingly expensive) program to make its electricity grid both resilient and disaster resistant. Disaster resistance by simplicity of design is preferable: (A) because simple structures are easier to analyze and test for reliability; and (B) because complex structures offer greater scope for accidental inclusion of chinks in their armor, chinks which diligent hackers will surely be seeking.

There is one incentive that might make the prospective cost more palatable: even if sudden disasters do not occur, the normal ups and downs of consumer demand for electricity can be effectively matched to the normal variations of generation by sunshine and wind only if supply and demand are buffered by massive electricity storage. Sooner or later such storage will have to be developed and installed because the Age of Fossil Fuels is drawing to a close. Why not sooner and in an orderly thoughtful manner rather than later and in panicked haste?


William F. Pickard, older ‘n’ dirt, is a retiree from Washington University in Saint Louis where he specializes in issues of sustainability and renewable energy.