Hmmm... What an interesting coincidence, just days after the story broke of American infiltration of the Russian power grid. Could this be something akin to the Trinity test, proving that the "science package" actually works?
1
With the revelation that America's intelligence agencies have been installing malware into Russia's power grid, doesn't this seem like a warmup to things to come.
2
Instead of looking at centralized power, which depends on a complex transmission system, why not consider freestanding individual or neighborhood power generation, probably dominated by individual photovoltaic systems? As technology continues to improve and costs go down, many residential and commercial buildings could generate all, or at least a majority, of their own power needs, especially when coupled with conservation and energy-saving appliances. Storage could be consolidated in neighborhood "pools" as needed. Widely dispersed interconnected grids are really technology of the past. Gigantic utility companies like PG&E in California should fade into oblivion.
1
It is reasonable that people would compare an event with another similar from the past which they know about , as in the case of this blackout with the New York one decades ago. Or that some persons would be moved to meditate on the fragility of our modern life. But what has Trump, the Chinese, Russia, have to do with what occurred mostly in Argentina and Uruguay? Why not learned exactly what happened and why? The explanations have been given, and it was an extremely rare occurrence which we hope it will not be repeated. By the way, the Uruguayan system is state owned while the Argentine is private. Uruguay is completed independent in energy which is 97% renewable (damms, wind and solar). It could go alone, it has more energy than it needs, but it makes sense to sell to Argentina. I am writing from Uruguay now.
2
I work for a major public utility in Chicago, and I'm not worried about our systems being hacked. We don't need the government's help in preventing attacks, and regardless of what you may read about how "feeble" our infrastructure condition is, it is much more robust than 95% of the rest of the world. And much has been done in the last 10-15 years to increase reliability, with work ongoing, both in the electric and natural gas distribution systems. Anyone who pays the bills in a household knows that the rates have climbed, due mostly to construction costs, while the actual cost of both electric generation and the gas itself has stayed fairly consistent. It would be nice if Washington had the conviction to help out with these upgrades, but the work goes on regardless. Weather is, and will continue to be, our biggest adversary, but we have been battling mother nature for over 150 years in this business,and while the climate is changing, extreme weather is nothing new, but many of our methods for dealing with it are. All of us in the utility business, and our families, rely on these systems at home just like everyone else, so we have a vested interest in keeping the lights on, and the stove hot.
P. S. I'm just a longtime (25yrs.) worker in the trenches, not in the PR dept., lol.
2
With all these countries hacking each other's power grids, it kinda makes you wonder.
1
Three basic facts:
1. Power networks are designed and operated to withstand multiple simultaneous events.
2. Many key breakers across a large power network must successively open to create a widespread blackout.
3. It is extremely rare that a set of critical events that can force opening of key breakers successively occur.
Based on these facts, one can reasonably suggest that in this case probability of a cyber attack is much higher than that of a chain of critical events occurring almost simultaneously in specific order.
If one accepts the hypothesis that the blackout was initiated by a cyber-attack, then one has to explain why the attack was directed at Argentina.
Argentina does not have many enemies. Thus one has to assume it was targeted by another country either to demonstrate its cyber malware capabilities to others or the attack was part of testing a recently developed malware in a "real world environment".
Also, the choice of Argentina for testing malware may be due to similarities between its power network, and/or its control system, with the eventual target of the malware. It is also possible that presence of large hydro plants in that network, which make fast power restoration possible, has been a consideration.
A recent report (Please see A) suggests that both Russia and the US could engage in such attacks or tests.
A. The NYT article: "U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid," by David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth, June 15, 2019.
2
While we are talking ageing infrastructure, the ICBM nuclear arsenal operates on floppy disks and cathode ray tubes. I guess it can't be hacked, however if I am going long distance, I want something newer than grandpa's old 61 buick. Repairing ageing infrastructure is what will provide needed quality jobs, while we all know people who want to live in the past , but not when it comes to roads, bridges, levees. something needs to be done.
1
Wow! A record. I like to see how many comments I have to read re an article which seemingly has nothing to do with Trump until someone attacks/blames Trump. First words of the first sentence of the first comment this time.
6
@james lowe
James, across the political spectrum people unfortunately seem to prefer bumperstickers to actually acknowledging and thinking about complexity.
2
What I find most notable is how few readers think this situation is important and relevant to them (judging from Comments and Recommends.) I suppose if the article was about a Trump tweet or Meghan Markle's hairdo, there would be a thousand comments by now (rather than 181) and a zillion Recommends.
Such inevitable electronic meltdowns notwithstanding, people seem to insist on pretending it will never happen to them and that a hyper connected world, "the internet of things", is not only desirable but constitutes progress.
Sorry folks, but this situation is one thing that is not about Trump or the #metoo movement or racism. This is about you and me accepting the internet, not just to see what our high school sweetheart may be making for dinner tonight or to comment to the Times, but accepting that everything from the electric grid to our medical records to our nuclear command and control structure is hooked in and subject to fatal compromise.
Making matters worse, Americans are content that almost all the chips controlling our grid (and almost everything else) are made in China, chips that may well have sabotage and/or control code clandestinely embedded in it.
"Alexa, please turn off the power in my ex's home."
"Starlink, please make all the cars go 100 m.p.h."
"Kaiser, please send your medical records to AIG insurance."
"Cheyenne Mountain, please crash that F-35 into the Superbowl."
4
The timing is sublime in context with the recent reports of US cyberattacks with Russkie.
However, I am not sure for which it is sublime.
2
Sounds like someone turned the lights off, to get someone elses attention. Was it Russia, USA, China? Edward Snowden leaked the NSA has the technology to simply switch off the power grid to entire nations for many years now. Then he found sanctuary in Russia where he is currently living with his girlfriend. Karma, goes around and comes around.
2
Modern civilization is an electrical civilization. The Oldvai Theory postulates that the electrical grid will eventually collapse resulting in the collapse of Industrial Civilization:
http://www.oilempire.us/olduvai.html
1
correction: Olduvai Theory!
Could it be a warning for America from Donald's line manager?
3
This is an obvious cyber attack to let Russia know that the USA has the capability to extend this to their homeland. Classic espionage.
3
Yesterday, 6/15/19, the NYT headline was:
"U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia's Power Grid"
One day later, the NYT reports:
"Massive Failure in the Power Grid Causes Blackouts in Argentina and Uruguay".
Is this a warning?
6
It's not an if it will happen but when here in the US. With an absolute clown and criminal as POTUS it's starting to worry more and more people.
4
Reliable power is going the way of other features of Western civilization: transportation, education, safety, health care. None of these were free, but were reliably available and affordable to almost everyone.
Taken separately, each item has its own dynamic, but somehow all of these went from taken for granted to something you have to pay attention to and plan for. No wonder the middle classes everywhere feel cheated.
5
When the lights went out in NYC during the late 1960s it was approaching sundown and there was still light from the sky. Had the blackout occurred an hour later it may have been a disaster since all the street lights were out including traffic lights. Driving, as I was doing would have probably been dangerous for all.
1
Crumbling infrastructure, record breaking climate events, cyber-terrorism. There are many crises awaiting this country and the world, only some of which we can predict with confidence. Does anyone think our current president and his administration are the most well equipped leaders to see this country through these disasters?
4
this is the price the US will pay for not going to 100% decentralized renewable energy.
thankfully this blackout didn't take down any nuke reactors.
the next one very well might.
3
And yet Americans are content that almost all the chips controlling our grid (and almost everything else) are made in China, chips that may well have sabotage and/or control code clandestinely embedded in it.
Sorry folks, this is one thing you cannot ascribe to Trump or #metoo or racism. This is about you and me accepting the internet, not just to see what our high school sweetheart may be making for dinner tonight or to comment to the Times, but accepting that everything from the electric grid to our medical records to our nuclear command and control structure is hooked in and subject to fatal compromise.
"Alexa, please turn off the power in my ex's home."
"Starlink, please make all the cars go 100 m.p.h."
"Kaiser, please send your medical records to AIG insurance."
"Cheyenne Mountain,, please crash that F-35 into the Superbowl."
1
Shoddy Chinese-built infrastructure, what else can it be?
1
Evidence please? I am wondering why China does not have such blackout... it is a joke that an American talks about infrastructure...
1
Cascading transmission and generation outages
It's just a matter of time before the US gets hacked and the infrastructure goes down probably at a bad time of the year. I don't want to see the US use this against others either. I hope this isn't the case here.
3
Personal solar panels.
This is a warning.
You don't get many more warnings.
You are dependent on the power grid at your own risk. It will fail. Who knows when or for how long.
4
So much for Europe on the Pampas. The future is more like Congo on the Southern Cone.
1
Actually a good idea to prepare for something similar to this, which is akin to preparing for a major hurricane. Have paper money on hand, stock up extra water, canned goods. Credit is no good without electricity.
5
Probably the virus the US used against Venezuelan electricity supplies got loose. The same thing happened with stuxnet, computer viruses are indiscriminate weapons.
1
Please Russia, China and North Korea, turn out the lights just before the 2020 election.
1
What good would that do?
2
@C A Simpson
Would you vote for the President under whose watch it happened?
2
@A. Stanton So let me get this straight; your hatred for a person in a position who is just doing what the world order bids, is so strong, you'd rather see 10's of thousands dead than this man being reelected? So, what makes your view here any better than the man you hate? Sounds to me, you are as bad, if not worse than he is. Furthermore, when people behave this way towards Trump, you only SERVE TO GIVE HIM what HE WANTS. When will people learn here man?
2
A few decades of free stuff for everybody will eventually have grave consequences.
3
IS Donald Trump anywhere near Buenos Aires?
2
This should be a warning to every American: NSA malware is being used by unknown hackers all over the world, as reported here by the NY Times>
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/us/nsa-hacking-tool-baltimore.html
1
Hello Times readers, I am from Argentina, just wanted to say that the network is being restored and judging by the "power generation across time" charts provided by CAMMESA (our national electric market administrator) energy production will meet the national demand needs arround 22:00 local time (21:00 in NYC). Thanks for all your support and attention!.
13
U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/us/politics/trump-cyber-russia-grid.html
Coincidence?
1
Looks like a cyberwarfare directorate was testing a new weapon on two guinea pigs, demonstrating what it could do should the need arise. Round up the usual suspects.
8
Is anyone else connecting dots?
Yesterday, NYTimes disclosed that US is improving ability to strike the Russian power grids.
Today, South American power grids wink out.
Damaging Central American economies could intensify issues at the Mexican border, helping the political strategy of Mr Putin’s good friend.
Attacking the power grids of Putin’s good friend? ...that’s not a good strategy? But economic damage in Central America? ...seems to make sense to me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/us/politics/trump-cyber-russia-grid.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
7
My heart goes out to the people affected. I am picturing a lot of workers standing around looking at another worker trying to fix the problem. At least that is how it is done here in this country.
8
Is anyone confident that our great president and his wonderfully abject party members are doing anything whatsoever to protect America from a hacking of our national power system, or is that threat as phony as climate change?
111
"...our great president and his wonderfully abject party members protect America from a hacking of our national power system..."
Just like they're scrambling to protect our voting systems from being hacked? I.e., doing everything they can to block legislation that addresses the problem.
But not to worry. Our President is a strong supporter of alternative energy sources, as we all know...
22
@Joe
Probably little to nothing....but then it’s not like it all stopped two years ago. For decades the US has allowed ourselves to become woefully unprepared for such things, regardless of who’s in the White House.
10
Well, we’ve stopped being number one in just about every area, why not the electrical grid, too? I am so embarrassed by the way this Country is acting.
10
Large energy production plants and large inter-dependent distribution systems have the danger of these large outages. Whether by natural disaster, terrorism, faulty or aging equipment or cyberwars; these systems can be taken down.
Smaller local generation and usage systems can only affect smaller numbers of people, and limited transmission lines between nearby small systems can link them enough to handle emergencies.
We are also turning a corner in energy production, to where wind and solar have become cheaper than coal/gas/nuke in most market areas. Large capacity battery storage isn't far behind. Solar and wind can easily be built on a smaller scale, and along with better storage they can provide for most of our needs, in the US, Argentina, wherever.
Large generation and transmission systems are more profitable for a few large companies, but they benefit nobody else and they can cause large disasters like this one.
66
The power failure occured from transmission lines connected to a large hydro generation plant. You dont consider hydro power as renewable with zero emissions?
A good network will have a mixture of all power generating elements, where power can be moved around the country.
13
@Mark Miller. I agree with you about the need for renewable energy from a variety of sources. But, such a goal virtually requires a sophisticated transmission system that can move power from where it IS being generated at the moment to where it isn't. A city such as New York, with minimal wind potential and a number of winter/cloudy days, is going to have to draw power from a great distance.
7
@brian, unnecessary complexity is the nemesis of a good network, or competent engineering in general.
That a "mixture of all power generating elements" is an aid to reliability is a fabrication of renewable energy entrepreneurs, whose products are forced to rely on such a mixture by nature.
2
California can expect the same this summer when PG&E shuts down parts of the grid during high fire danger periods
1
The NYT just reported that the US has put malware on the Russian Power grid. A couple days later 2 countries in the Western Hemisphere suffer nationwide power outages (In Argentina right before local elections in which Russia would support Peronists). Coincidence? (Not.)
1
Proxy power grid war?
Maybe the usa can blame maduro and his allies for the blackout
And you're content that almost all the chips controlling our grid (and almost everything else) are made in China and may well have sabotage and/or control code clandestinely embedded in it?
Sorry folks, this is not about Trump or #metoo or racism. This is about you and me accepting the internet, not just to see what your high school sweetheart is making for dinner tonight or to comment to the Times, but accepting that everything from the electric grid to our medical records to our nuclear command and control structure is hooked in and subject to fatal compromise.
2
Some background info having lived and grown up in Argentina. The country has a long history of blackouts due to insufficient energy infrastructure. Recent hot summers have led to energy rationing with scheduled blackouts. I was just there and don’t find this shocking at all. Argentina has enormous resources but is economically poor.
5
@Daniel B as an argentinian I actually find what just happened shocking, the power cuts usually happen isolated, maybe a town, a city or just a couple blocks. It’s the first time that the whole country is affected
4
I guess we will never know the truth.
For sure the word "unprecedented" is something that, in this worldwide turmoil, is always something that makes me insomniac.
2
A few years ago the reporter Ted Koppel wrote a non-fiction book, Lights Out, about a possible cyberattack on our electric grid. Despite Koppel’s prominence, the book received very little attention in the mainstream media.
http://www.tedkoppellightsout.com
As I recall at the time, critics said the big electric utilities had safeguards built into their systems and the smaller utilities would be the only ones vulnerable. Maybe a second look at our electric grid is needed.
10
Reminds me of the Northeast power outage in 2003. 55 million were affected, some places for days. New York City dark, rather spooky.
We'll be seeing more of this, caused by lack of upgrading and sabotage.
3
Plenty of money for tax cuts and aircraft carriers. But not for infrastructure maintenance. We’ve become stupid.
15
Russia is probably gearing up for 2020 to take down the power to democratic leaning states so they can't vote since Manafort gave them all the polling data in 2016. Of course Trump already said he would gladly accept the help.
6
@Jacquie - We vote by mail here on old fashioned paper ballots. Unless Boris and Natasha pose as U.S. Postal workers, I'm good...and I know my mailman:))
1
We don’t in Texas, and I sure wish we did.
1
Could it be a practice-run by Iran, N.Korea, China, Russia, and/or other U.S. opponent?
1
Hopefully not an outside hacking job as a test prior to vulnerable US. Now we can see what is effect of total loss of power across a big country.
Hard to believe it cause caused by bad weather.
17
@Myer Biggins
Exactly my thoughts.
4
@LD
Mine too.
I'd suggest that our aging and vulnerable-to-hacking power grid should be a major presidential campaign issue, but we know that Trump cultists + Mitch don't believe in spending money on anything except tax cuts for the ultra-rich, fantasy border walls, and the Dept of War.
75
Exactly. Nail hit on its head.
6
@Joe Agreed, and neither does any Democrat running for President as well. When are people going to wake up and realize that both major parties serve the same master? The Democrats serve the ultrarich as well in different manifestations - put aside petty partisanship - this is an issue that effects all Americans of all persuasions
8
Del, Elizabeth Warren? She’s got a plan for that!
7
I experience two power outage in Brooklyn and the rest of NYC during the 1960s and 1970s. I was on my way home from work crossing Eastern Parkway when the lights went out. I was at home for the 1970s blackout. I do not recall if areas other than NYC were affected.
What happened in Argentina and Uruguay certainly more dangerous than what I experienced because I knew Con Ed would get their act together.
4
someone is running their version of a stuxnet test.
8
Other news outlets also reported that Paraguay has its power out. What did the NYT only report on Argentina and Uruguay?
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 kilowatts that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our terrorists.”
9
From sunny Venezuela to Argentina, if you ever wanted to see how much electricity to use then wait for a month long outage.
Water in your pipes to gasoline in your tank to traffic lights unblinking to fridges stinking.
Attacking each others grid, be careful what you wish for ...
5
Regardless of the cause of this outage the US power network is vulnerable because the infrastructure is owned by the power companies. At least they are regulated, so there is a mechanism for enforcement, but the current administration is more likely to back off than apply rules.
Apart from ensuring that the infrastructure is sound, there is a huge risk from automation. Software is not infallible. You can get close if you spend enough money but even NASA has the occasional problem. One wonders if there are any rules for the software that runs power stations. If not, there should be. The problem in Argentina and Uruguay shows how damaging the effects of failure, whether in the physical infrastructure or the software that controls distribution.
This is exactly why the US and Russia (and probably others) are intent on damaging each other's networks. It's a national security issue and any country that (a) allows remote access to its power control structure and (b) doesn't treat development of the control software the same way as military development deserves all it gets.
13
Yup. We should have a back up system. There has to be redundancy in any vital service.
Thus in a hospital if the power goes there is a back up generator. The respiratory ventilators keep functioning and the patients survive.
Redundancy. We have no backups. If the financial institutions are hacked, no back up. We need more clouds.
But that involves money which tight fisted governments and corporations will
not invest.
6
@Myer Biggins - We were without power for 12 weeks after Katrina. Where we are everyone needs power for their wells too. Cell's down. In NOLA the largest hospital Charity (now shuttered) lost it's power and it's back up generators were knocked out too. Babies were taken out immediately by choppers but many elderly people died there and in nursing homes. In the NE the talk is about 'Super' storm Sandy. Well, what was 'Super' storm Sandy's surge? Katrina had a 28' storm surge. Imagine NYC with a 28' surge or anywhere on either coast. 1,833 people died and half were seniors. We lost our house but luckily I was fairly prepared but I lost my wages for 6 months. My wife worked for decades for a 100 year old company located on the industrial canal that was breached right next to it. The company closed and hundreds lost their jobs. My wife was the GM and still works for 1/2 of what she made then. I'm a Viet Vet and in the pinch I can find a VA but for almost 2 years my wife had no coverage because COBRA was too expensive. She's a 4th stage cancer survivor and has had 2 PE's and numerous DVT's. I learned a lot about our country I defended and was seriously injured for. That's why fixing our old infrastructure is tops on my list and Medicare for all. Now that I have it, it's a Godsend and everyone should be able to buy into it. Before the ACA if you had a preexisting condition, you could not buy health insurance. Rich people can self insure but the rest of us are on our own to die!
8
@Jim
You have made a good case for the fact that we are living in a country which is inhumane and evil and should no longer exist.
Look how we responded to the Puerto Rico disaster... Trump throwing paper towels. And we go along with it.
May the US disappear from the world stage. We are a pathogen. Ripping babies from their families and putting them in cages.
And killing thousands of innocents in the Middle East in wars all of which we lose.
2
I don't usually bite, but the recent front page stories, here, of the escalating cyber-sabre rattling between the Pentagon--clearly the word is meant to be out--and Kremlin, followed by news that a good chunk of S. America's power goes out makes me do a hmmmm? Whom might be telling whom...what? It's enough to urge me to buy more candles. And can we please go back to paper ballots?
34
Yes! Yes! Yes! By all means. Paper ballots. That’s the ticket!
Such an easy way of protecting our democracy. Much more effective than voter ID which is in reality a voter suppression technique. And let the voting be over 2 days on a weekend.
But guess what. Corporations rule the country and will block your suggestion for the people would then be calling the shots and corporate power will be threatened.
In the 1960s the chant was “ power to the people”. Well, why not now?
6
@fourfooteleven - At the last election, I sat at my desk in pajamas, smoking a bowl of legal homegrown, listening to either some Zappa or Dead while voting. It took me about an hour and a half to get through all of the local stuff but there was no rush and no standing in line after work. When I was done, I tossed on some clothes and walked my ballot down to the official collection box rather than put a stamp on it and hand it to my mailman.
2
@Myer Biggins I'm with you on the two day voting. A weekend would be nice.
2
This can happen anywhere. Blockchaining is cybersecurity.
2
Differences in publishing the news. Apagon in Venezuela blames President Maduro. Apagon in Argentina Consequence of Climate Change. The Right Press always protects governments that align with Washington
3
Time for the NYT’s headline writers to pay attention to what they are posting. Is it Latin America or South America? Argentina and Uruguay where the countries in South America effected by the outage, not Latin America, which is a collection of countries in which some form of Spanish is spoken as the main language.
7
@Philip: Well, as long as we're stewing about geo-political nomenclature, how about tossing "Ibero-América," a denomination concocted by the Peruvian pol Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, into the pot?
Incidentally, "Latin America" was coined by one Francisco de Bilbao, a Chilean pundit and commentator of La Belle Époque, who apparently lifted the descriptor Latin from the woolly-headed, alternative-factual, apocalyptical rants of "screwy" Louie Bonaparte.
Louie's best-known biographer, Karl Marx, penned a particularly acerbic screed about him, titled "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Reading it is a hoot-and-a-half!
1
Nope, not where some form of Spanish is spoken. It’s where Romance languages, Spanish, French and Portuguese are spoken.
2
@Cathy Moore
Yes. Poor Belize! South American but not Latin American. Nomenclature would be somewhat easier if the US hadn’t co-opted the term America. Now everyone else needs a hyphenation of some sort.
It's not a good sign that the Argentine power company can't provide substantial information about the a failure of: "...500,000-volt lines in a corridor that takes power to Buenos Aires from the Yacyretá dam..." Those systems are generally well-instrumented, mostly so they can be controlled. That means that someone there has a pretty good idea of the source of the failure.
As many commentators have pointed out, it comes at a time when the cyber war against electric power infrastructure has escalated. The cyber war, of course, usually involves psychological operations, so a demonstration of capabilities would be viewed as a form of escalation. A failure to provide real-time information by the Argentinians is particularly distressing, given that a demonstration would serve both to test the effectiveness of methods, and to determine whether the intrusion could be obfuscated and blamed on other causes.
7
@W
"Can't" is not the same thing as "won't". They know how this happened, and who is responsible. But telling people the truth risks geopolitical consequences they can't afford to pay.
Argentina tried that the last time, and paid dearly for it.
2
@Viv
Nice conjecture.
It’s a more than 1,100 km line that needs to be inspected. Even if they have a good idea of the probable cause, the engineers involved will be very careful before releasing any finding and they will be wholly focused on restoring power.
2
Trump on Election Day 2020:
“Russia, if you’re out there listening, a beautiful, gorgeous, total and complete electrical blackout throughout the States of California, New York, and anywhere else that did not vote for me in 2016 would sure be nice right about now.”
14
@Scott F
That's not a joke. It's a prediction.
Get ready now.
Your report neglected the fact that millions of people who were voting in local elections were effected.
What would be the motive for having this occur if any group or person was behind it?
Was it simply a failure of systems?
6
Good lord people. Coincidences are not rare. This is a coincidence unless you can explain the strategic importance of Brazil and Uruguay to Putin’s planned Takeover of the World.
1
@Angelus Ravenscroft, You are right, coincidences are not rare. I hardly ever take that bait. But in this instance it has a definite pot stirring, headsup vibe that's harder to dismiss right off the bat. One possible scenario is that if the power goes out again in Venezuela Maduro can lend a little bit of plausibility to a claim it was the US behind it.
2
@Angelus Ravenscroft Brazil?? Right now is pretty much run by someone who is afraid of the color red. Uruguay is pretty much neutral.
1
Extreme weather will take out many power grids. When the wind velocity outside is 100 miles an hour the power grid will go out. Wild fires will ensue.
When the king tides take out the power grid, the water supply and the sewage system, the coastal cities will be uninhabitable.
Right now melting ice is absorbing lots of heat energy. Once the ice is melted the temperature will rise to the over 100 degrees range and much of the planet will be uninhabitable by humans.
Argentina and Uruguay are among the poor countries of the world with fragile, vulnerable infrastructure.
They are canaries in the coal mine of global warming.
Send Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to Argentina to experience heat without air conditioning, a clue to the future of the planet.
9
@Robin Foor
Just checkin: is it summer in Argentina now? Or winter?
@Robin Foor no to much Poor really, Argentina have many energy resource like hydroelectric, thermoelectric an nuclear power plus a bast oil and gas resources but probably a failure or a internal sabotage by political motivation ;)
@Robin Foor
With PG&E shutting down power during high risk of forest fires, it must feel a lot like Argentina and Uruguay right now.
Let's return to the time before the internet, when utility company employees actually pushed buttons or flicked switches at their facilities by hand. Systems functioned fine and foreign interference wasn't possible then.
3
@tif Agreed. But machines/automatons are now cheaper than people, and businesses - all businesses - always try to maximize profit. So the “good old days” of human workers are now coming to an end.
2
@tif in nyc
My understanding is that much of Russia’s power grid still runs on hand-operated switches that must be turned on and off by a human. They understand the vulnerability of a totally automated system, and will make certain that the United States can’t retaliate by disrupting their automated transformers the way they potentially plan to disrupt ours.
2
A great motivator to reduce dependence on the centralized grid of power and water. If each building made, captured and stored their own electricity and water onsite, an incident like this would be less disruptive.
7
I"m going to do my part to conserve. After this post, I"m shutting down all non essentials. That's pretty much all but the refrigerator and one led light to read a book beneath.
Fortunately air conditioning is not even a thought today.
1
When the power goes out for two days, not just 6 hours, food perishes and water pressure drops (after the first 8 to 12 hours). Generators run out of fuel and there is no way to get more fuel when the pumps cannot run.
Power outages for a short time are mere inconveniences. Outages for a longer period would make people panic for lack of water and food -- there are only a few days worth of food before it goes bad and pretty much no one can grow their own in time for dinner.
It takes up to 2 weeks for stores to be restocked when an outage is longer than 12 hours because the laws require all perishable foods to be thrown away and restocking such a huge quantity of goods requires a major logistics effort. Usually, a big rig truck comes every night to restock what was picked off during the day, and the logistics for that are organized well. Multiple trucks to every store requires weeks.
If the electricity went out for a prolonged period, the damage would be like a bombed out city. Short term losses are no big deal, and for those in the defense department, they know it's the length of time the power is out that matters.
102
@Chris
rurally isolated=good
NYC high-rise even with camping equipment,MRE's and water tank=bad
5
@Robert -- I lived in Vermont as a kid on a farm, then San Diego for my career, and now back to a rural area in the PacWest and what I have found is that we in the boonies are just as much at risk as those in the cities are.
We need to pump our wells with electricity, our freezers thaw in a couple of days, our few stores shut down as does the gas station in town. Cell towers go out, phone batteries die, there is no internet or WIFI, and really, there's nothing much to do but sit around and wait for the power to come back on.
I have found that living rurally is the same as living in a dense urban metropolis but with less density. Our region experiences generational poverty, and some folks have described our area as a leafy ghetto. What makes us similar to cities is that rural people don't really use the land anymore to live off of, and pretty much everything they need comes from a store. Sure, there are homesteaders with gardens and a few small farms, but they too survive off the stores, fuel pumps and power company.
Thank you for your kind suggestion we are better off, and perhaps the urban density means much greater friction when looting starts and bands of thugs get hungry but rest assured, there are going to be thugs in our town rampaging about as well should serious power supply problems ever persist over a wide geographic area.
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What you report is unnerving. It’s amazing how vulnerable we are and are doing nothing to remedy this.
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This should be a wake up call for every American. Our power grid and infrastructure are antiquated and overstrained. At some point significant swaths of the US could find themselves in a similar predicament. Rather than tax cuts for the already rich, let’s invest in modernizing our infrastructure and power sources.
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@J.Well said, in Argentina, the President, The Panama Paper guy, and his corrupt administration has sold the country to any outside power and totally neglected the infrastructure of the country.
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@Maita Moto Because the Ks did soooo much better, right? This is a multi administration catastrophe. I know it must be nice to make Macri a punching bag, but there hasn’t been any real investment in infrastructure for decades, if ever, really, since Argentina relied on foreign investment for pretty all utilities since the late nineteenth century. Thank Pellegrini and Juárez Celman.
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@EMLI am not opposing any of your arguments, it's a fact, Macri ruined the country, he destroyed the economy, it's worse now than Venezuela, he is a Panama Paper guy and yes, no investment in his corrupt adminsitration for any
infrastructure program.
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Interesting to see mostly US commenters without evidence immediately frame this story around US concerns. It's possible bad actors in Russia did this, but it's also possible that there is another entirely different cause. Jumping to conclusions based simply on a Russia vs. US news story that ran in the Times yesterday helps no one.
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@Tres Leches, c’mon man, wallow in the conspiracy sty, it’s fun! Why should only all the House investigative committees get to have all the fun?
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Well, on a lighter note, there may be a baby boom nine months from now.
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@Amy Marta The blackout was at 07 in the morning, most people are sleeping, most of the country had energy around 13. So it's unlikely xD
@Amy Marta
Haha.
The VERY LAST thing Argentina (or South America in general) needs is more mouths to feed!
I wonder if the excess rain is a consequence of climate change? That would mean that our modern world is also based on the consistency of climate which means the world as we know if will just be a memory with a few decades. Man is killing is world and future.
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@Jerome Stoll I don't know, but the weather was acting "odd" this april, may and june usually are cold and rainy, but the weather was warm and fresh. Until this week....
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@Jerome Stoll Argentina has been having excessive rains for the past twenty years but it has gotten much much worse. Climate change has much to do with this. This is not a one-time event in the Southern Cone.
With news of the US and Russia placing code in each others grids plus this South American nightmare and the tension in the middle east, I would advise all New Yorkers in high-rises who don't want to walk up or down to take precautions.
We are way overdue here for a blackout anyway.
We have a camping stove, a watertank and 3 days of MRE's for our 28th floor rental.
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New Yorkers should pay attention. This may well happen in New York City, on a regular basis.
Today, NYC gets about 25% of its electricity from the Indian Point nuclear plant. Several years ago, Gov. Cuomo made the decision to close the plant, understandably concerned about a nuclear plant not far from NYC. There are now 2 functioning reactors at Indian Point, one will close in April, 2020; the second and last reactor will close in April, 2021.
The plan was to substitute alternative sources of power generation, most notably natural gas (a fossil fuel, though the cleanest of the fossil fuels). However, environmentalists have blocked construction of natural gas pipelines, limiting supply of the fuel in the NYC region. Today, ConEd will not grant new hookups to the natural gas infrastructure for new homes and businesses, because there isn't enough availability.
The major types of renewable energy are wind and solar, but they are in short supply, and there is no effective way of storing power, for nights or when the weather doesn't cooperate. Con Ed tried to construct a pumped storage facility, the only practical means of storing power, at Storm King Mountain just north of NYC during the 1970's, but it was blocked by environmentalists.
There is good reason to worry there will be shortages of power leading to blackouts in NYC before long. Hopefully, the city's politicians are taking time off from their presidential campaigns to do the arithmetic and take preventive action.
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@Alex Thanks to the crazed environmental (mental, literally) wackos and the Panderer In Charge, Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York City is shafted as far as their future is concerned. Blackouts will become more and more common after the nuclear power generating plants are all shut down.
Unfortunately, the environmental wackos want to return civilization back to the stone age.
Have fun New York City - you elected the pandering fools.
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@Alex: The power failure in South America is due to an infrastructure problem, not due to power shortages. We can have all the power generating and storage capabilities we want, of whatever type, but when the infrastructure fails, it won't do us any good. I'm reluctantly in favor of a temporary reliance on nuclear energy until more sustainable and scalable energy generation methods have been developed, but living in the 10 mile zone around Indian Point, I am weary of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that somehow has developed among my "boomer" generation...
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@Alex, the most effective preventive action would be simply keeping Indian Point Energy Center open. The plant provides 25% of Westchester County's electricity with zero carbon emissions; it does so reliably and safely.
Too many don't realize U.S. nuclear is the safest in the world, without a single casualty from generation or waste in its 60-year history. Far more dangerous than nuclear energy is the irrational fear making $billions in revenue available to media outlets, fossil fuel vendors, and pseudo-environmental organizations by prolonging it.
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Revelations about US interference with Russian power grids two days ago, now power fails in two countries in South America? I hate to be a conspiracy theorist but this seems like too much to be a coincidence.
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@AJ
You are wondering if this was an attack by another nation/state as a test of capacity to disrupt the grid?
Hmm...I wonder if the Argentinian authorities would tell us if this is what happened if it was the case.
But to the point made more recently, the mega-grid is vulnerable for a number of reasons. Let this be another lesson to go solar, go wind, go storage...build resilience.
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@AJ
Don't cut yourself short. There is no "theorist" in play here. I would bet on it.
1
So this was just in the news about the US hacking Russia’s grid with a potential shut off switch. Was South America a try out for some sinister actors? I guess we’ll find out.
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Maybe the US needs to rethink its published statements about hacking the Russian power grid.
And why did all of Target’s cash registers go down yesterday?
Something stinks...
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@Charles Dennis Tarje' surely you jest.
@Charles Dennis - Target went down because Target employees were busy solving the world's economic problems.
Yesterday
U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid U.S
Today
Massive power failure in South America
Coincidence. ?
17
Russia doing a test run? Get generators, folks.
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@NB Hernandez Or a shot across the USS Cyber Command's bow. BTW generators need gasoline, gasoline pumps need electricity. The short message is without electricity for a few months, maybe weeks, civilization as we know it will disappear.
Coincidentally, on Saturday, Target stores nationwide lost power to their registers (again). Not so serious as the outages in South America, but a reminder (warning?) of how dependent we all are on the power grid.
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@tinhorse. They didn't lose power to their registers. The stores had power. Their system was down.
1
Russia, China, and America would want to test their hacking capabilities on other countries before they start using it on each other.
A dress rehearsal?
Who's doing the testing?
Was this just an inevitable infrastructure breakdown?
Infrastructure breakdowns are occurring more frequently here in the United States because the public will to force politicians to fix things is LACKING.
You might be surprised how close America IS to suffering this kind of breakdown in our grid.
It would be EASIER to hack a grid that is teetering on the brink of collapse, anyway.
9
Russia, China or North Korea giving the world a little sample of what they can do to the power grids. Is the US ready, of course not.
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it is because they lost to Colombia yesterday. t
someone couldn't take it and shut down the power grid
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@Jhon - That is the best theory I have read, yet.
Putin flexing his muscles, just to prove a point.
4
In order to make any real progress on curbing carbon emissions while also protecting the planet's citizens from the vagaries and unpredictability of grid supplied electricity, we must make rooftop solar/battery storage installations an immediate global initiative.
In order to do this and do it in a hurry, I challenge all of the members of Warren Buffett's "The Giving Pledge" consortium to advance and facilitate this initiative. After all, what good is having billions of dollars if your home planet (I know of nowhere else billionaires can live) is rendered wholly inhospitable to the web of biological diversity and the humans that depend on it?
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Paige- I’m also concerned about transitioning to carbon free electricity, however rooftop solar / batteries (i.e. distributed power) are not the solution. Even with two tesla batteries, which would set you back around 30k and need to be replaced every ten years or so, you could not be independent of the grid. Lithium ion batteries are not a practical or affordable solution for large scale energy storage.
I too used to blindly believe in the solar dream, however after actually crunching the numbers I realized this is not a practical solution. Speaking of the giving pledge- Bill Gates is a member, and as a practical person he supports nuclear power. Google his youtube talks if you’re interested. He also supports some renewable efforts, but Bill Gates funded a company developing next generation nuclear power. Unfortunately the U.S. public has been misled on nuclear safety (it’s by far the safest form of energy production), so the real advances in nuclear power are taking place is China not the U.S.
Current carbon intensity of the grid (lower is better):
Germany (attempted renewables) 282 gCO2/kWh
France (nuclear) 27 gCO2/kWh
Source: electricitymap.org
7
One hopes that looters don't take advantage of this calamity
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@Tony I always see how in American movies and television power outages are almost a synonymous of looting, something I sill don’t quite understand. At least here in Argentina we only wait for electricity to be back on and, of course, complain a lot in social media hahaha
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@Pedro Ortolani We have our share of looters in the USA. Hurricane Katrina would be one example.
2
Russian warning in response to our planting malware in their electric grid?
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That would be my guess
8
@Mr. Peabody Of course, it's Trump's fault.
1
@Mr. Peabody
Putin flexing his muscles, just to prove a point.
7
Didn’t the Times run a story just yesterday about how the USA was trying to hack Russia’s power grid? Couldn’t find a quote speculating about potential linkages? This could easily be a Russian attempt to threaten the USA, show us what they are capable of when threatened. I know Baltimore city employees are still recovering email access. I feel terrible for everyone effected by this massive disaster.
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U.S. Cyber Command flexing its muscle.....?
8
Think your story about US threatening Russian power grid has anything to do with this. I mean Japan did visit Iran before a Japaneses oil tanker got "bombed"? It May be that something is going on, we all might want to hang on! And look up.
11
Not all of Argentina was affected. Tierra del Fuego has power because, being an island, it is not connected to the national power grid.
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@Ricardo Barreiro That's why the article said "mainland."
3
@Ricardo Barreiro
Tierra Del Fuego is a testimonial on the virtue of "distributed" micro-grid electric technology...to the point made by others about building resiliency into our electric systems.
1
@Ricardo Barreiro
Great, so when Putin decides to hit us Catalina will be fine. Really fills me with confidence in our administration.
3
How healthy and well is America's electrical infrastructure grid?
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@Blackmamba
Did you read the article recently about how the NSA uses more juice at its Virginia facility than the whole city of Baltimore? They have collected so much "mega-data" that the computers are running overtime. The ran their system from a back-up facility in Georgia to keep the Virginia facility from turning off.
Talk about a point of vulnerability.
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@Chuck
No I did not. But I will.
I had cousin who 'didn't' work for the NSA headquarters her entire career. She couldn't tell anyone what she did.
2
@Chuck
NSA in Virginia?
Not sure why the NSA seems like such a big deal to you - the data centers powering apps on your phone, particularly Google's, Facebook, Apple, Amazon (AWS, not amazon.com), Microsoft Azure, etc surely consume orders of magnitude more electricity and their loss would have far greater immediate impact on the public in a sustained outage.
Perhaps a demonstration of the recently noted ability to hack power grids?
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@DisplayName, too soon, or is Russia trying make the US look bad. Fun and games.
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@David J Let's not jump to conclusions about hacking. But what this clearly indicates is vulnerability
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Hope by the time this comment is written the service has been restored and nobody has been hurt by the lack of electricity such as people in respiratory assistance in the hospitals.
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@samuel a alvarez Hospitals often have their own emergency generators to provide power during outages.
7