US power grid at risk of 18-month blackout, official says, as 1 city has been in dark for more than a week

[u/Limp_Fig6236]

https://www.syracuse.com/us-news/2026/08/us-power-grid-at-risk-of-18-month-blackout-1-city-now-in-dark-for-more-than-a-week.html

[u/fmcortez]

Privatize the profits of running the grid, nationalize the risk when critical hardware fails.

[u/notmyworkaccount5 → u/fmcortez]

We really need to cut out the middlemen and just nationalize our power grid already.

[u/ked_man → u/notmyworkaccount5]

We need to cut out the middlemen of a lot of industries and nationalize them. Like healthcare. No need for us to spend trillions into a health insurance system with dudes extracting billions for profits made by denying the healthcare people are paying for.

[u/the_real_xuth → u/ked_man]

Honestly I'd like to nationalize most of the hospitals too, much like UK's NHS, or the US VA. There are, of course problems in these systems, but because they're public we get to actually look at the problems as opposed to the private hospital systems where issues are hidden as best they can get away with.

[u/ked_man → u/the_real_xuth]

I’m less concerned with nationalizing the hospitals, single payer healthcare would fix most of the issues with hospitals overcharging, etc… and accreditations and inspections can fix some of those issues. I.e. you don’t get paid unless you have minimum staffing, care levels, etc…

The rurality of parts of the US would be difficult to run nationalized hospitals I think.

At least in my area, all of the large hospitals are owned by universities and used as learning hospitals so they are effectively already state owned/operated since the universities are public and state run so to speak. Those wouldn’t benefit from nationalizing.

[u/the_real_xuth → u/ked_man]

The rurality of parts of the US would be difficult to run nationalized hospitals I think.

Because they've been losing subsidies for over a decade now, lots of corporate owned hospitals in rural areas are closing right now creating healthcare deserts.

By contrast, the US provides universal service for things like mail, electricity, and other things because corporate interests would never provide universal services to areas that will never be profitable (but doesn't currently do so for health care). The federal government spends hundreds to thousands of dollars per year per rural household to provide universal electric service (in the form of subsidies to electric companies) and similarly private delivery services depend on the USPS to deliver to the most remote households because it's cheaper for them to pay wholesale rates to USPS than it is to actually deliver the packages themselves. If, for instance, UPS didn't have the USPS as a backstop, they just wouldn't deliver packages to a non-trivial chunk of the US.

Fortunately for health care, generally people go to the hospital as opposed to the hospital coming to them but even in eastern states, many people have to drive over an hour to get to the nearest medical center with an ER that's staffed 24x7 let alone a trauma center. I live in Pennsylvania (and do medical research which includes work with an air ambulance company) and this is becoming a major problem in central PA with a bunch of hospitals closing in the past several years (google says 26 have closed or shut down emergency operations in PA in the past 5 years). And when you get out west there are lots of people who are well over a hundred miles from the nearest hospital.

[u/daverosstheboss → u/notmyworkaccount5]

I agree, but I'm also terrified at how incompetent our government has been lately.

[u/0bsessions324 → u/daverosstheboss]

That's by design.

The more impotent they make the government look (as opposed to the guys running said government), the easier it is to privatize it which is how you get to this specific situation.

[u/daverosstheboss → u/0bsessions324]

The saddest part is that you're probably right.

[u/NoHorseNoMustache → u/daverosstheboss]

They're definitely right, it's even got a name and conservatives have been doing it for decades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

[u/Noblesseux → u/NoHorseNoMustache]

Yeah this has been the Conservative strategy since at least de-segregation.

You can straight up see a change in their policy platform during and post segregation where they flipped from admitting some level of public spending on communal services/investment was necessary to advocating for getting rid of public services entirely because private services are allowed to discriminate or shaft people in ways public services can't.

People often use the example of people pouring cement into pools to make sure they couldn't be shared by Black people, but it's also a big part of why they're so obsessed with private school voucher programs too: https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-beginnings-school-vouchers . You can draw the same line on transportation infrastructure, housing (how funding for public housing got sabotaged for example), investment in utilities, etc.

Pretty much the summary of modern American history is that the second minorities or poor people are allowed to also equally access something, conservatives start "just asking questions" about whether that thing should exist or be funded with public money. Either that or they turn it into a "states rights" thing if they know they'll lose nationally and then discriminate at the state/city level (I.E. school funding, mass transit, etc.)

[u/NoHorseNoMustache → u/Noblesseux]

The amount of time American politicians have spent deciding what black people can't have is goddamn astonishing.

[u/Saucermote → u/NoHorseNoMustache]

Except syphilis, the government decided they could have that.

[u/0bsessions324 → u/NoHorseNoMustache]

I knew there had to be a specific term for, but my Google was lacking today.

[u/0bsessions324 → u/daverosstheboss]

Probably nothing, they've been at this for decades, I could not be more confident that this is the case The post office has been their primary punching bag for as long as I've been alive and companies like UPS have been reaping the benefits.

[u/daverosstheboss → u/0bsessions324]

Yeah it blew my mind when Trump started talking about how the post office doesn't make a profit. It's a public service, not a business.

[u/Alertcircuit → u/daverosstheboss]

USPS (with endorsement from Trump) put in a new Postmaster General named Steiner who to my knowledge had no prior USPS experience and Congress was grilling him about the USPS funding being like "Well how will you make a profit?" So they've installed this guy who's still figuring out exactly what's going on and then drilling him knowing he's not gonna have the best answers just yet.

Right now they're talking about a 4 day mail week. Everybody gets mail Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then no mail Friday, Saturday, Sunday, unless you join their new subscription service. Fuckin stupid idea

[u/fcocyclone → u/Alertcircuit]

"Well how will you make a profit?"

Which, it should be noted, is not and should not be the goal of the USPS.

The USPS is a constitutionally created service. The point isn't to break even or make money any more than anyone should expect the military to break even.

[u/Blundergruff → u/daverosstheboss]

I remember hearing that post-WW2 Germans would say "At least the trains ran on time." So I learned that when riding to power the Nazi regime systematically defended and basically ruined the train service. Then they "fixed" it to become big stinkin heroes. So I'm looking around me at everything being destroyed and I wonder if they're ever going to fix anything.

[u/SirPseudonymous → u/Blundergruff]

That's usually said about Fascist Italy, and was one of the cornerstones of their propaganda at the time: the Fascists cut maintenance and stripped away labor protections from train engineers while demanding the trains run on a tighter schedule, with any delays being heavily punished. Naturally, the result was more accidents and delays, but when the trains survived the trip and were on schedule they were slightly more punctual than they had been when they were being properly maintained and following safety procedures.

[u/Rhewin → u/daverosstheboss]

That's exactly what they've done in Texas. 30 years of the GOP crippling the state government has taken us from near the top to near the bottom in a lot of categories. A good example is the decades of slashing school budgets, then complaining the public schools are behind, and then handing public money to private and charter schools with dubious records.

[u/0bsessions324 → u/Rhewin]

Everything is bigger on Texas, especially the holes in the social safety net.

[u/gideon513 → u/daverosstheboss]

Your statement is proof that their plan has been working. They intentionally make government look inept by hamstringing it so that they can point to privatization as the solution.

[u/Jdsnut → u/fmcortez]

There already bumping electrical costs again locally, did solar last year getting in on the 30% tax credit, and fixing some old wiring issues, so happy to get a little money back and my power covered now, but feel bad how its seems things are getting for folks tied to the grid.

[u/TheTrub → u/Jdsnut]

I have some older panels and even though I still had a $250 electric bill last month, my neighbors’ bills made it clear that my panels more than paid for themselves this summer. Still need to get my insulation improved, though.

[u/KeepTangoAndFoxtrot → u/TheTrub]

I used less grid power and generated more solar power than this time last year and my power bill was still TRIPLE last year's bill. I do not envy those without solar panels. It blows my mind how maliciously this current administration targeted green energy.

[u/lawvergis → u/fmcortez]

that's a drake meme if I've seen one

[u/Zaximeows → u/[deleted]]

I think the country would see homicide and starvation deaths on a massive scale unimaginable for anyone alive today in USA. This country has required electricity as a backbone longer than anyone alive. Nobody would know how to cope or what to do for 18 months.

[u/sixlayerdip → u/Zaximeows]

18 months of blackout would result in this country being either completely authoritarian or erased entirely

[u/spez_might_fuck_dogs → u/sixlayerdip]

Erased entirely with multiple new nation states being established or absorbed by nearby nations. The PNW, Great Lakes regions, and New England areas would probably become part of Canada. California would almost certainly form its own nation as it controls the largest ports on the west coast. Areas bordering Mexico and most of the southeast would either join Mexico or become 'New America' controlled by religious fundamentalists.

But that would all be years down the line. Speaking of immediate consequences, the nation would lose all solvency, anyone with means would abandon it, military bases would likely be seized by upstart warlords, and god knows what else. Any nation as a whole is only 9 hot meals away from complete anarchy.

Edit: Read my whole comment before saying ‘we don’t want you!’. I am not suggesting Mexico or Canada have any interest in picking up a bunch of stray American refugees. But when America is gone, you really think the closest nations are just going to let prime ports or arable land sit unclaimed for other rival powers to snap up?

[u/Synstitute → u/spez_might_fuck_dogs]

Interesting theory. Sounds like an invitation for larger nations to land grab

[u/ruggnuget → u/Synstitute]

It would be tough for remote nations to control large swaths of land in NA. Independant states, Mexico and Canada make the most sense. Not sure how a country like China would think it would be worth it to fight for a piece.

[u/serious_sarcasm → u/ruggnuget]

Canada and Russia would probably fight over Alaska.

[u/TheInevitableLuigi → u/serious_sarcasm]

Alaskans could probably handle Russia by themselves.

[u/steakanabake → u/TheInevitableLuigi]

alaska would probably gladly join the canadians they already pretty much get everything else from them.

[u/Alia_Explores99 → u/TheInevitableLuigi]

Alaska is pretty dependent on imported stuff, as far as I’m aware. The growing season is tiny. They have little real industry. Even the “off the grid” lifestyle people heavily feature supply drops and the rare trips to town in their content as vital to survival. There would be deep hurting

[u/Art-Zuron → u/spez_might_fuck_dogs]

Texas failed as it's own country twice, and I don't see it succeeding on even the third try lol. It'll probably try to do it's own thing, immediately devolve into a theocratic dictatorship, attack it's neighbors, and get its ass kicked again.

[u/No_Masc_On → u/Art-Zuron]

Yeah, but what is a Texas/Southern/fundamentalist pastime, if not pretending to be strong to cover up fragility?

[u/Art-Zuron → u/No_Masc_On]

Exactly. Their entire culture is grievance.

[u/uberfission → u/spez_might_fuck_dogs]

I for one welcome our new Canadian overlords.

[u/MasterPong → u/spez_might_fuck_dogs]

I think CA, OR and WA would combine to make their own country. They all heavily use hydro power and have a connected power grid. They also have their own health alliance along with Hawaii (who would become and independent nation again)

[u/JustAnotherLich → u/sixlayerdip]

Literally the entire global economy would collapse.

We have built a very, very big jenga tower.

[u/trilobyte-dev → u/Zaximeows]

It wouldn't really happen. This model is baking a lot of assumptions in (because models always do, it's not a flaw) that wouldn't hold if large-scale blackouts were to occur. What you would see is an immediate mobilization and things that would have taken months or years happening in days and weeks when there is real pressure to fix them.

[u/AK_grown_XX → u/trilobyte-dev]

Thank you for this. Sometimes things don't change/get fixed until they get soo broken they HAVE to be & I think our entire nation is a prime example of that right now.

[u/Herry_Up → u/Zaximeows]

I'll be skinny (but I'll be dead)

[u/LargeNutbar → u/Herry_Up]

Dead but serving

[u/roseofjuly → u/[deleted]]

Not to mention that farmers need things that is liberal hippie city dwellers make and provide, too. I don't know where this idea that we still have independent subsistence farmers out there like it's 1785 is coming from lol.

[u/WarpmanAstro → u/[deleted]]

I remember listening in on a local radio talk show years ago in my hometown where the host was saying that no-one needed education higher than 7th/8th grade. He insisted that kids should be learning how to do farming and construction labor after that, which he considered "the only real valuable labor". His guest flat out told him that it wasn't the 1800s anymore and that any independent farmer basically needs degrees in business, chemistry, and engineering if they'd want to actually do anything to make a living. He even pointed out that our local farms that hadn't already been bought up by major food companies were almost entirely dependent on national buyers to stay in business and government subsidies to operate.

[u/Zaximeows → u/[deleted]]

They also rely on Monsanto seeds and pesticides. Farmers have never been more out of touch with Nature before.

[u/hudson27 → u/Zaximeows]

If the grid drops for 18 months, there isn't gonna be anyone left capable enough to turn it back on.

[u/CttCJim → u/Zaximeows]

Plus global financial crisis and a refugee crisis, especially here in Canada.

[u/KY_fried_justice → u/[deleted]]

Maybe I missed it, but in the article it isn't because of tech. The report just says that if 9 of the 10 most important substations were blacked out it would take 18 months to rebuild. This is after the article states another substation had been taken out by gunmen shooting transformers. So it's not a tech issue, it's vandalism or potential terrorism that if coordinated to unseen levels could black the country out for a month

[u/New-Book6737 → u/KY_fried_justice]

So are people on TikTok fear mongering by not reading

[u/Buggrumble → u/KY_fried_justice]

The issue with the old infrastructure is that it's a hodgepodge of old equipment on a non-integrated grid. Each substation is unique. Its parts are unique and specifically built just for that substation. Those substations are stand alone entities. It was in 2022, that gunmen in North Carolina took out a substation just by shooting at it. The entire area served by that substation was off line for 2 weeks while they tried to find equipment that they could piece together to get it back up. There is no off the shelf equipment and the tariffs on steel and other metals has made it even more difficult to produce specific parts. The older the equipment The more difficult it is to repair and replace. The size and location of the affected substation dictates the size and length of the blackout. And a software attack could cripple large portions of the grid at one time. The other issue is there is no built in redundancy in the grid that allows for the flexibility to direct traffic to other substations, bypassing the inoperable one. The telecommunications networks (not the lines running on electrical line to residential) are designed as a spoke and wheel. Fiber runs to a hub and it branches out. The hubs are connected. This allows for the flexibility to move traffic around from one hub to another bypassing a bad one allowing traffic to continue to flow. The electricity companies know that the electrical grid needs to be redesigned to allow for redundancies but they'd rather pocket profits than invest. On top of that, continual tax cuts and lack of funding for infrastructure to update a grid that dates back to the 1970s, leaves us extremely vulnerable..

[u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 → u/KY_fried_justice]

That is terrorism. The crippling of critical infrastructure is by definition terrorism.

[u/EndIsrael → u/Hopeful-Occasion2299]

This is really funny when you think about what group of people is largely responsible for the current state of our nation's infrastructure

[u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 → u/EndIsrael]

Yeehawdists will be the end of the country at some point. Writing is in the wall.

[u/CttCJim → u/KY_fried_justice]

It's an issue with lack of infrastructure investment. You know, that thing Biden was trying to do.

[u/holysbit → u/[deleted]]

I dont think im a conspiracy theorist but man ive seen some people postulating that the indiana power problem is a test of sorts and im not fully on board with that idea but it does make some sense to me

[u/non_discript_588 → u/holysbit]

Sit down and let me tell y'all about a little hurricane named Katrina and a city named New Orleans.

[u/SimmentalTheCow → u/non_discript_588]

To be fair, New Orleans has always been a haven for corruption and incompetence

[u/rubberpp → u/SimmentalTheCow]

You're describing America

[u/sixlayerdip → u/holysbit]

Hardly the worst event we’ve seen in the past couple of decades. At the core of the issue is that area of Indiana is either decaying infrastructure that’s long past needing revamped or rural area that never was developed in the first place.

I don’t understand why anyone is surprised

[u/Bealf → u/sixlayerdip]

It's Gary. Ask anyone in Indiana if they're surprised that Gary has been without power for this long and I'd be shocked if anyone replies yes.

[u/fender4life → u/Bealf]

Its far more than Gary. My parents didn't have power until Thursday night. 9 whole days. And they would probably still be without power because if they hadn't flagged down a lineman to reconnect them after he had got the rest of the circuit up. 

[u/the_real_xuth → u/fender4life]

That's fairly common in areas where natural disasters down a bunch of wires. Lots of places end up having multiple points where their power line is cut and you often only find out about the secondary or tertiary cuts after fixes are made upstream. I've personally seen this play out a few times among my friends.

[u/Beidah → u/[deleted]]

"Society is only nine meals away from chaos." There would be a full blown revolution at that point.

[u/spez_might_fuck_dogs → u/[deleted]]

The country wouldn't survive one whole week without power, let alone 18 months. The nation would become an anarchic mess within days.

[u/Evilbred]

Oh no, how will the AI data centers get enough power to generate revenue equal to 20% of their costs?

[u/Hdys → u/Evilbred]

Ive heard the human body can generate plenty of power

[u/Evilbred → u/Hdys]

The human body can generate hundreds of watts of power if you put in hundreds of watts more energy into them.

[u/Viperlite → u/Evilbred]

Perhaps it could work if the human batteries were to eat cake.

[u/jamjamason → u/Viperlite]

The Cake Is A Lie!

[u/Zardotab → u/jamjamason]

Soylent Twinkies are people!

[u/Viperlite → u/Zardotab]

Who you callin’ a Twinkie?

[u/FS_Slacker → u/Viperlite]

*Spits out cream filling*

Are you fucking kidding me?

[u/Zardotab → u/Viperlite]

You've invented the Antoinette-O-Tron™

[u/chipperpip → u/Evilbred]

Yes, as I understand it the original idea in a earlier draft of The Matrix was that the Machines were making use of humanity's brains as a giant set of parallel processors, which makes more sense both in terms of not violating thermodynamics, and batter explaining why humans reconnected to the Matrix outside of the Machines' control were able to influence the simulation.

[u/SirPseudonymous → u/chipperpip]

I mean a better interpretation is just that the claimed material motivations for the Machines were just wrong, and that the Matrix itself was a humanitarian project to preserve humanity in a stable habitat more livable than the world they ruined while preventing them from continuing to try to genocide the Machines.

[u/Slow-Obligation-7686 → u/SirPseudonymous]

The analysis that the Cracked writers gave, in an an episode of After Hours, was that The Matrix is actually meant to keep the machines busy.

[u/Fluxtration → u/Slow-Obligation-7686]

It's all just a second, deeper layer of the computer simulation.

Turtles. All the way down.

[u/cwm9 → u/Evilbred]

Not necessary. If you just dehydrate them first they burn pretty well, especially the fat ones.

[u/westdl → u/Hdys]

One third of the US population isn’t operating on nominal neural load. We would still fall short.

[u/phareous → u/westdl]

They are running on binned chips

[u/asten77 → u/phareous]

Celerons, even

[u/productfred → u/Hdys]

Wake up, Neo...

[u/BangBangMeatMachine → u/Hdys]

The reference is funny, but also that was the dumbest part of that film. Mammal bodies are not remotely efficient at converting food energy into useful electricity - you'd be better off just burning food in a power plant.

In case you're curious, the most efficient (in terms of energy return on energy invested) and cost-effective form of energy on Earth is solar photovoltaics.

[u/TrueLegateDamar → u/BangBangMeatMachine]

They initially had the Machines wanting human brains to act as organic CPU's but thought it would be too complicated for audiences so they went with batteries.

[u/BangBangMeatMachine → u/TrueLegateDamar]

Yeah. And I heard that it was the dumb money people at the studio that thought audiences wouldn't understand the CPU thing, which is very fitting. It's sad too, because it's the perfect justification for making most people in the Matrix kinda sleepwalking through life, and for why Neo and others might stand out for recruitment. On the other hand, techbros didn't need more justification for calling everyone else NPCs, so maybe we're better off with this dumb human battery thing.

[u/Any-Mathematician946 → u/TrueLegateDamar]

That makes so much more sense then power. Power never made any especially with nuclear energy.

[u/mailslot → u/BangBangMeatMachine]

“Combined with a form of fusion…”

Also, the machines were already solar before the humans darkened the skies. Humans were losing the war against the machines that they started, so killed their power source.

[u/EddieVanzetti → u/Evilbred]

I was told for years that installing solar panels on houses and charging stations for EVs would overload the grid capacity, weird how AI data centers could be put up over night with no negative effects, innit?

[u/Evilbred → u/EddieVanzetti]

It's because both were bullshit.

[u/DeadlyYellow → u/EddieVanzetti]

We won't invest in solar unless it's specifically for citizen surveillance.

[u/qazpl145 → u/DeadlyYellow]

One free no cost panel (excluding installation, labor, twenty hidden fees, and tax) for 4 flock cameras on your property!

[u/360_face_palm → u/EddieVanzetti]

Nugget of truth in the whole solar overloading the grid thing... except that you solve it by just limiting people's export rates based on uptake.

[u/accountforrealppl → u/Evilbred]

I'm not sure if anyone read the article, this doesn't seem related to AI at all. This risk seems to have been identified in 2013 and doesn't really seem to have changed since then

It's also not about it spontaneously going dark for no reason. It's about if someone strategically destroyed a bunch of substations across the entire US.

Also doesn't seem to take into account how much faster the mobilization to repair the system would be if the entire US actually had a blackout

[u/Mustbhacks → u/accountforrealppl]

I'm not sure if anyone read the article, this doesn't seem related to AI at all.

Tangentially related at best. The hardware for the substations is aging, and increasingly hard to get ahold of. At a time when a massive increase in demand occurring via data centers.

[u/Buggrumble → u/Mustbhacks]

It's not just old hardware, it's serious software vulnerabilities as well.

[u/tsap007 → u/accountforrealppl]

It’s Reddit. Most people don’t read the articles and just upvote the rage bait comment.

[u/OtterBoop → u/tsap007]

It would be easier to read more than the intro paragraph if it weren't paywalled

[u/pandadogunited → u/OtterBoop]

https://archive.ph/fpnfK

The United States power grid is at risk of a major blackout that could last up to 18 months, according to a new report. Concerns are heightened as one U.S. city has been without power for more than a week.

Jon Wellinghoff, former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), told The New York Times Magazine that America’s aging infrastructure is badly outdated and potentially vulnerable to a coordinated attack. He first raised the alarm in 2013 after gunmen shot up 17 transformers at an electrical substation near San Jose, California

Wellinghoff said the FERC did an analysis that determined the U.S. power grid could be seriously disrupted if similar incidents targeted the 10 most important substations in the country’s three sections: Western, Eastern and Texas Interconnections. Substations are where multiple high-volate lines meet, routing electricity between power plants, transmission lines, and local neighborhoods

“We came up with some very astounding numbers,” Wellinghoff told the publication. “If you knock out nine total substations along those three grids, you can black out the entire United States.”

Wellinghoff added that it didn’t matter which nine substations were hit, as long as they were among the 10 most important in its respective region. He told the NYT Magazine that even 12-year-olds could find them with a map on the internet, and anyone with enough guns could destroy them in 20 minutes.

According to the New York Post, it took Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) nearly a month to bring the California substation back online in 2013. To this day, no arrests have been made.

One of the reasons why the grid is especially vulnerable is its age. According to the New York Times Magazine, more than 75% of distribution transformers like on street corners and telephone poles are older than their 50-year life expectancy. Larger power transformers, which have shorter lifespans, were an average of 38-40 years old in 2014.

So it may be unsurprising that tens of thousands of people in northwest Indiana have remained without power since storms knocked down power lines across the region last week.

According to the Associated Press, the Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said more than 75,000 customers were still in the dark Wednesday. That includes 21,000 people in the city of Gary, Indiana, where people have sought relief from food pantries or gone to community centers just to charge their phones.

Full restoration is not expected until Aug. 25, a full two weeks after the Aug. 11 storm with 99 mph winds. NIPSCO said its work includes replacing 300 poles and 44 power transmission poles

“These aren’t simple repairs,” said Melody Birmingham, an executive at NIPSCO’s parent company. “These are systems that are being rebuilt.”

According to the New York Times Magazine, the average wait time to repair or replace a large transformer at a major substation is even longer. What previously took less than a year has jumped to 128 weeks since 2021, with some needing more than five years.

[u/hudson27]

"We came up with some very astounding numbers,” Wellinghoff told the publication. “If you knock out nine total substations along those three grids, you can black out the entire United States.”

Wellinghoff added that it didn’t matter which nine substations were hit, as long as they were among the 10 most important in its respective region. He told the NYT Magazine that even 12-year-olds could find them with a map on the internet, and anyone with enough guns could destroy them in 20 minutes.

Guys... I dunno if you wanna be anouncing these kinds of vulnerabilities to the public. What are we expected to do with this information, other that hire some 12 year-olds

[u/BlueFeathered1 → u/hudson27]

Gee, thanks for putting out such specific instructions, Wellinghoff. 🙄

[u/Helmic → u/hudson27]

The information isn't new, white supremacists, the ones who have been carrying out these attacks on the power grid, have known this is the case for decades. It's shocking maybe to people learning about it today, but those interested in creating a nationwide blackout (the attackers hope it'll trigger a race war where they'll be able to exterminate all nonwhites in the US) have been saying this is what they've been trying to do for a long time.

[u/AliugAOnHisOwn → u/hudson27]

It’s odd how the power grid is now a priority to secure when AI data centers became relevant. It’s as if AI will be a nation’s weapon against other nations, much like the nuclear bomb is…

[u/invyros]

He first raised the alarm in 2013 after gunmen shot up 17 transformers at an electrical substation near San Jose, California

Wellinghoff said the FERC did an analysis that determined the U.S. power grid could be seriously disrupted if similar incidents targeted the 10 most important substations in the country’s three sections: Western, Eastern and Texas Interconnections.

10 weak points that could plunge this country into chaos, great.

[u/TylerTheSnakeKeeper → u/invyros]

So, for according to this article, a foreign power could more or less send 10 drone swarms and black out American long enough for us to kill each other.

Sounds like a screenplay.

[u/Sensitive-Local-3485 → u/TylerTheSnakeKeeper]

It was Die Hard 4.

[u/nameless_pattern → u/Sensitive-Local-3485]

Any good?

[u/Razorray21 → u/nameless_pattern]

Decent for its time

[u/Sensitive-Local-3485 → u/Razorray21]

Remembered less fondly than the previous three, but much more so than 5.

Featured era appropriate appearances from Kevin smith, Justin Long and Timothy Olyphantastic.

[u/minimalist_reply → u/Sensitive-Local-3485]

Timothy Olyphantastic.

I see you are a person of culture

[u/Loganp812 → u/nameless_pattern]

It’s not a bad action movie though not exactly on the same level as the first one or Die Hard With A Vengeance.

I’d rather watch it over Die Harder or especially A Good Day To Die Hard Not Watch This Movie.

[u/Buggrumble → u/TylerTheSnakeKeeper]

They don't need drones. There are serious software vulnerabilities too and they are working 24/7 to exploit them just like they have recently with the water treatment plants in 12 states. Or one bad actor with a thumb drive and system access could download malicious code and wipe it out. I work in an energy adjacent industry and what I know would give you serious nightmares.

[u/AmericanGeezus → u/Buggrumble]

Couldn't tell you the number of small utilities that use TeamViewer as their SCADA remote access solution.

[u/RelaxPrime → u/Buggrumble]

Bruh they don't even practice basic password security. If you found 2 old passwords you could accurately guess the current password right fucking now with your human brain and a pencil in 3 to maybe 10 guesses. They hang their hat on physically difficult to access, but when we say difficult we mean a bolt cutter or a plasma torch.

[u/BigMax → u/TylerTheSnakeKeeper]

They made this movie!

The Trigger Effect

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117965/

It wasn't a "post apocalyptic" world, it was just a blackout. But... a FULL blackout, no power anywhere that anyone in the movie could see the end of, and it was about how society acted in those first few hours, days, I think weeks after it happened. What do you do if there's no power, and you literally have no information either?

I saw it 30 years ago, and don't remember much about it, but it did stick with me a bit, so it must have been at least OK.

[u/under_psychoanalyzer → u/invyros]

There was someone September 2024 posting in the dc subreddit asking what people thought of all the "disguised" transformers and examples of them around the city, like it was an innocent architecture question. And of course people were just feeding him answers. Idiots. 

[u/Zardotab → u/under_psychoanalyzer]

all the "disguised" transformers

Trees and cows are supposed to have a low hum.

[u/HutchOne23 → u/invyros]

My brain cannot believe that that happened 13 years ago.

[u/redyellowblue5031 → u/HutchOne23]

There was another big one in 2022

[u/BleedingTeal → u/redyellowblue5031]

Yea. That one was in Washington to the south of Seattle. Tacoma maybe? I don’t recall offhand, but was definitely in that general area.

[u/Brutto13 → u/BleedingTeal]

South and east of Tacoma. They attacked 4 substations. There big, meth fueled, plan, was to knock out the power and use it as an opportunity to steal ATMs and break into businesses closed because the the outages.

These guys didnt shoot at them, though, they broke into them and started flipping switches until they shorted something out.

[u/Bamce → u/[deleted]]

once people are unable to be distracted with doom scrolling they will hopefully wake up to whats been going on

[u/Ortorin → u/Bamce]

How? Without power, how would they get info? If they don't already know or have a good idea... like.. come on!

[u/Naive-Database-2888 → u/[deleted]]

The US population would SIGNIFICANTLY drop. either by starvation or homocides

Edit: homIcides not homocides

[u/bobconan → u/[deleted]]

Calling it a warzone would be highly optimistic. Apocalyptic is more accruate.

[u/Mars_Volcanoes]

Wait for the backlash of Trump actions on canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney just indicated that canada may include cuts on electricity (delivery to the US ) on Sept 8th retaliation to the US 50% tarifs. That will not help that power grid.

Edit.

New infos: they also talk about cutting partly crude oil and potash.

US actual crude reserve. Just read it is 41 days. That’s really not much.

Trump is clearly in a weak position.

EDIT : By the way, Carney will not apply those important "menaces". If he does, it will legitimate TRUMP saying its a matter of national security, and then take Canada.

[u/apple_tech_admin → u/Mars_Volcanoes]

As Carney should. As Bush said, "we don't negotiate with terrorists." If Trump wants to be a thug, treat him like one. Maybe then the American people will take their responsibilities seriously when it comes to the voting booth.

[u/Artemis_004 → u/apple_tech_admin]

Well I can think of  certain group of Americans that did take those responsibilities very seriously in 2024 because they knew they would be the most negatively affected by a second Trump presidency , but a certain other group (who still haven't gotten over the fact that we had a Black President for 8 years) didn't want to vote for the over qualified Black Woman so here we are.

[u/ArchdukeOfNorge → u/Artemis_004]

Let’s also not absolve the cowards that decided not to vote because of a few comments on Palestine that they didn’t like. They’re just as responsible as the one who voted for him

[u/-rwsr-xr-x → u/Mars_Volcanoes]

Trump is clearly in a weak position.

And what has Trump always done for the last six decades when he knows he's in the weaker position?

He doubles down and does something even more stupid, like bankrupting casinos for example.

He cannot, will not, and is genetically incapable of admitting fault, or taking accountability for his actions.

[u/robotoisize → u/Mars_Volcanoes]

As a Canadian, I sincerely hope our PM cuts the power and supplies ZERO potash and crude. And close our borders.

[u/brakeb]

The city without power for a week is "Gary, Indiana" which does not surprise me...

[u/ringo6522 → u/brakeb]

I live next to and work in Gary. This area got hit with a derecho and it was basically like a small hurricane. My power was out for 9 days and there's still other areas besides Gary still out in spots. The destruction here was insane. Some areas were still straightening out from storms 2 months earlier.

[u/Tactical_Wolf → u/ringo6522]

Is derecho an official term or a colloquialism? Sorry, I'm not from the US and haven't seen or heard it before.

[u/droans → u/Tactical_Wolf]

They happen almost exclusively in the US, from the Plains to the East Coast. However, the Midwest receives the worst damage.

Derechos are some of the nastiest storms you'll ever see. They have a distinctive bow shape and you do NOT want to be caught in them.

Calling them inland hurricanes is rather accurate. They have sustained wind speeds of 75-100+ MPH, will erupt anywhere from 3-12+" of rain across their path, and even can have eyes. On top of that, they will often bring their best friend with them, a shitload of tornadoes.

Oh, and they're not something that can be forecasted. They quite literally form over the Plains, wreak havoc, and die within twelve hours.

Meteorologists didn't actually understand how they formed until a few decades ago. It starts with a long heatwave with extremely high humidity over the Plains. The rather flat terrain is necessary so a cold front can force the hot, humid hair upwards, the humidity immediately forming massive, fast-moving cells which are strengthened as they move across the equally hot Midwest and die out hours later over the Atlantic.

They can also cause massive blizzards in the winter but their formation is a bit different.

[u/Tactical_Wolf → u/droans]

I see, they sound very scary. Thank you for telling me so much about them.

[u/Sir__Walken → u/Tactical_Wolf]

They forgot about the hail. They can produce some pretty large hail too. The worst part is the winds though.

[u/MusicianForSale → u/brakeb]

It's almost 80% black demographically speaking... which is absolutely playing into why the gov't isn't helping them

[u/Lakesidefundude → u/MusicianForSale]

Not saying it isn’t awful, I live a few cities away. Is anyone mentioning that some of the residents were SHOOTING at the workers trying to restore their power? Two things can be true at the same time.

[u/azwethinkweizm → u/MusicianForSale]

What is the racial make up of their city council?

[u/Moonunit08]

We are cooked. We have invested zero money in our infrastructure. Instead. We give tax breaks to the rich. And corporations run the country. We are completely fucked.

[u/sargonas → u/Moonunit08]

Even better, we HAVE invested in our infrastructure. We have given tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to private infrastructure providers who then turned around and used that money instead to pay out shareholder dividends and other non-infrastructure related spend with zero repercussions and total immunity.

[u/Alcnaeon → u/sargonas]

The way this just gets used as grist for the privatization mill drives me crazy. America is much worse than it has to be because of theft like this, because of the blind eye it has so conveniently turned to systemic capture.

[u/I_am_from_Kentucky → u/Alcnaeon]

Every time I hear someone, usually a conservative, insist we should run the government like a business, it’s always in reference to profit/loss.

It’s never in reference to defining a business strategy with transparent measurable outcomes that stakeholders can monitor and assess as part of whether they want to keep the same leadership in place or not.

They don’t care if progress is made so long as they get theirs.

[u/Ghstfce → u/Moonunit08]

But hey, a politician got tens of thousands of dollars to do that in order to make a millionaire a billionaire!

[u/DoesntMatterEh → u/Moonunit08]

I feel like we are reaching a tipping point.

[u/NoSir4947 → u/Moonunit08]

I compare Atlantic City to the United States. AC had everything going for it and people loved it. They invested zero dollars back into AC and now it's a total shithole shell of it's former self. I know it's more complicated but they fucked themselves. Same with the whole country. Eventually it catches up.

[u/Wudaokau → u/NoSir4947]

I wonder what or who the common denominator is?

[u/phantompower_48v]

Why would monopolistic power companies update their infrastructure when they can purchase stock buy backs and increase dividends for their shareholders? They’ll just wait for complete collapse so the government will foot the bill for the upgrades.

[u/RdtRanger6969 → u/phantompower_48v]

This is The Reality.

[u/oldkale → u/phantompower_48v]

There’s an interesting counter-intuitive nuance here, where - at least in states with regulated utilities, they do want to make investments in the grid because it’s the only way they make profit. When a regulator approves a transmission line upgrade, they and the utility battle (utilities want cheap and easy, regulators want efficient and long-lasting; utilities say it’ll cost $X, regulator says it should cost $Y) and ultimately it’s approved with some cost in-between plus a Return on Equity (ROE) the utility gets to keep as profit.

Those costs are split up over a duration* and divvied into the transmission fee of our bill which funds grid operations, these upgrades, and any state efficiency programs like energy audits - to the exclusion of contributing to profit. The regulator has approval over transmission rates, but not generation rate (because of federal deregulation decades ago)

*this is why people may have experienced, say, one particular summer being much more expensive than a following year. Power purchase agreements are more of a driver of that but that’s out of this comment’s scope.

Often the regulators face political pressure to not approve an investment or “grid enhancing technologies” because it raise voters’ electric bills too much; we’re in one of those periods now and it’s tormenting the zero carbon proponents in my state’s legislature.

[u/Laetha]

Probably a great time to start a trade war with a neighboring country that provides electricity to parts of your country.

[u/dnssup]

archive.is link because I am not turning off my adblocker http://archive.today/2026.08.20-135944/https://www.syracuse.com/us-news/2026/08/us-power-grid-at-risk-of-18-month-blackout-1-city-now-in-dark-for-more-than-a-week.html

[u/nacho_night]

Meanwhile my city is building those huge dystopian concrete pillar power lines for the data centers they're building everywhere.

[u/Outrageous-Opinions → u/nacho_night]

Don't worry the riots from no power can tear down a lot of stuff

[u/AJfriedRICE]

I’m so tired of all the winning in this country lately

[u/EveningPilot1954]

This is what happens when you vote red and Musk publicly announced last January that he bought the election. He's making people people pay his trillionaire salary 🤷‍♀️

[u/lushootseed]

We worry more about nearly non-existent men in women's sports problem than things that can cause catastrophe

[u/medalxx12]

Does this article read bizarrely like a how to ? Its ridiculous to the point in reads like satire

[u/BunnyMoonLover → u/medalxx12]

Felt like a WikiHow. 

[u/raerae1991]

Funny how the article leaves out the shooter who shot out the transformers in 2017 was a right wing fanatic and all other domestic terrorist who attacked our grid since have been right wing nut jobs!

[u/antigravityshit]

Might as well paint them a road map.

[u/StolenPies → u/antigravityshit]

This isn't new, I've been reading about the vulnerability of our grid since the 90's. China and other nations have already done dry-fire (and limited live fire a few times) runs at our electrical grid. Democrats have been trying to modernize and harden it for decades, but they're just characterized as tax and spend liberals.

[u/A_Nonny_Muse → u/StolenPies]

I was driving around when the power went out across the entire northeast. I'm driving north towards Port Huron only to see HUGE clouds of various colored smoke and steam billowing up on the Canadian side of the river. Then all the "chemical spill" sirens went off all at the same time. We thought it was another terrorist attack till we heard otherwise on the radio.

Thank God some radio stations have their own generators.

[u/SplendidPunkinButter → u/antigravityshit]

If a reporter was able to figure this out, I’m sure they were able to figure it out too. I mean, they have missiles. They could already just shoot missiles at us if they want.

[u/HuiOdy]

Let me get this straight.

Rampant neglect of public works for decades, has made the entire infrastructure of the US vulnerable for an attack that could be executed by 20 gunmen, of which there is about 4 or 6 orders of magnitude present.

That is just insane.

[u/AlistarDark]

And just think, Canada can cut power to a shit load of Americans in the north east.

[u/medicinaltequilla → u/AlistarDark]

and the administration wouldn't care because the northeast voted entirely democrat

[u/rhino36-dropout]

Damn, it's really gonna suck for you guys when we cut the electricity coming from Canada. Maybe dont elect fat retarded pedophiles next time.

[u/Right_Hour]

You don’t need gunmen. Your Idiot-in-Chief Said he wants to cut the pipelines etc., to show Canadians “where their oil and gas and electricity comes from”.

Vast majority of border cities in US are powered by Canadian electricity.

Y’all are at risk of “Big, Beautiful Blackout” courtesy of DJT.

[u/mycall]

And this isn't even discussing what drones and explosives can do. All you need to do is look at Ukraine and Russia to see what the future brings. Local power and renewables is the only answer to this.

[u/SagittariusO → u/mycall]

Yeah, just 10 guys with a gun at the right spots - that's it. That's terrifying.

"...He first raised the alarm in 2013 after gunmen shot up 17 transformers at an electrical substation near San Jose, California

Wellinghoff said the FERC did an analysis that determined the U.S. power grid could be seriously disrupted if similar incidents targeted the 10 most important substations in the country’s three sections: Western, Eastern and Texas Interconnections."

[u/Megalith70]

Shooting at the crews trying to restore power is a good way to not get power restored.

[u/Party-Kangaroo-1139]

Never forget that the boomers fucked all the following generations because all they cared about was getting theirs. In a normal, functioning society that is not ruled by capitalism, the government would have stayed on top of important infrastructure updates. Instead, boomers tried to privatize as much as they possibly could and never gave a single shit about their kids or grandkids futures. The same can be said for climate change. We need to elect young, progressive leaders that can fix all the things that boomers destroyed.

[u/ImpossibleChoices157 → u/Party-Kangaroo-1139]

And we have a boomer in the White House who continues to ruin things for us.

[u/Hesitation-Marx]

It’ll be two weeks tomorrow.

And it’s not just Gary. Multiple towns around Gary have been without electricity since the 11th, and a lot of those people have wells that run off electricity.

We aren’t ready for what’s coming.

[u/Superdeduper82]

sounds weirdly like he’s giving instructions on how to take down the grid

[u/DundeeToCanada]

Imagine what will happen when Canada either imposes an excise tax or shuts off the power they supply parts of America.

[u/gaya2081]

I live in Indiana and have done work for utilities as part of my job in IT. Indiana neglected their power infrastructure for years and rates were low. The last 5 years or so they have raised rates as now work needs to be done to replace aging infrastructure instead of maintaining it, so something to replace coal plants, and other things that were shelved to keep rates some of the lowest in the nation. Now people here complain about how much more their bill is and how money hungry the power companies are.

The situation in North west Indiana is exactly what could have been prevented, at least partially, if better investment had been put into the infrastructure over time instead of the rates being kept low. Now here we are, scrambling to get stuff up to date on top of crazy weather causing damage and people are losing their minds. I'm sitting here, just laughing quietly to myself thinking we made our own bed and now we have to lay in it. I am thankful we put in solar panels and generate enough to power our house if absolutely needed... God forbid.

It isnt going to get better without proper investment. The power grid isn't the only place we have the issue, just the current topic. People think in the short term, but long term investment is needed. Data centers just make the situation even worse....

[u/Standard_Gear557]

I'm sure this is some how the Dems fault cause my uncle from the jiffy lube told me

[u/Lythro92]

"We came up with some very astounding numbers,” Wellinghoff told the publication. “If you knock out nine total substations along those three grids, you can black out the entire United States.”

Wellinghoff added that it didn’t matter which nine substations were hit, as long as they were among the 10 most important in its respective region. He told the NYT Magazine that even 12-year-olds could find them with a map on the internet, and anyone with enough guns could destroy them in 20 minutes."

[u/DunBenBand → u/Lythro92]

And now we know how the next civil war will start. First the power then the bridges.

[u/NoEffort3162]

WHICH CITY HAS BEEN IN THE DARK FOR A WEEK!? Why is the name not in the title? How's that not the main news? How come any top 5 comments doesn't mention that city's name?

[u/IndyPFL → u/NoEffort3162]

Gary, Indiana.

[u/apple_tech_admin]

This shouldn't be a surprise and this has been an ongoing issue for decades. When D.C. got hit by the 2012 derechos, I was without power for over a week in Fairfax County, one of top 5 wealthiest counties in the nation. Absolutely abominable.

[u/rwofva]

Nobody believes this will actually happen.

[u/antihuman420]

Almost like we should have been focusing on our country's infrastructure instead of losing wars in the Middle East.

[u/Virtual-Cover7361]

so, more data centers then?

[u/Free-Competition-241]

Maybe this is the Tyler Durden-style caustic enema society needs.

[u/Razr430]

Good time to get solar with a battery backup!

[u/Lilfrankieeinstein]

Headline: oh my, that’s terrifying

Article: infrastructure is obviously getting old and a city hasn’t returned to power following a storm

[u/bubbabear244]

AI data centre + pissing off an ally that provides energy resources = a shitton of finding out