Sunday Morning Quarterbacking

I was shocked to learn that the US had no plan to deal with a pandemic, and had not even done basic things like stockpile enough surgical masks or an adequate supply of testing equipment (or at least the ability to produce the testing equipment rapidly.)

Some people say this is “Monday morning quarterbacking”. It’s easy to throw stones after an event that “no one could have foreseen”.

OK, then today I’d like to do some Sunday morning quarterbacking. I’d like to ask you guys whether we are prepared for other black swans. Let’s start with a collapse of the electrical system due to solar flares or electromagnetic pulse attacks.

This 2019 article caught my eye:

In testimony before a Congressional Committee, it has been asserted that a prolonged collapse of this nation’s electrical grid—through starvation, disease, and societal collapse—could result in the death of up to 90% of the American population.

Well that caught my attention. It sounds worse than being cooped up for a few months watching lots of Netflix films.

HV transformers are the weak link in the system, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has identified 30 of these as being critical. The simultaneous loss of just 9, in various combinations, could cripple the network and lead to a cascading failure, resulting in a “coast-to coast blackout”.

If the HV transformers are irreparably damaged it is problematic whether they can be replaced. The great majority of these units are custom built. The lead time between order and delivery for a domestically manufactured HV transformer is between 12 and 24 months, and this is under benign, low demand conditions.

OK, I think I understand what needs to be done—stockpile some of these transformers that cannot be quickly replaced.

Ordered today, delivery of a unit from overseas (responsible for 85% of current American purchasing) would take nearly 3 years. The factory price for an HV transformer can be in excess of $10 million—too expensive to maintain an inventory solely as spares for emergency replacement.

Yes, $300 million dollars for a stockpile of 30 HV transformers is far too expensive to prevent 90% of the public dying and the rest reduced to cannibalism.Too much for a government that spends trillions of dollars with about as much care as a drunken sailor spending his wages in a red light district.Instead, let’s buy another F-22 jet fighter.

And people wonder why I’m so cynical.

Obviously I’m no expert here, and I expect commenters will tell me why I’m wrong. Perhaps the very same commenters who told me that I was foolish to think that surgical masks would provide any protection.

BTW, this isn’t one of those once in 60 million year events like dinosaur-killing asteroids; a huge solar flare hit Earth in 1859.

Update:I forget to mention that I’m far more worried about accidental nuclear war, bioterrorism and AI run amok than I am about solar flares.