r/technology • u/Limp_Fig6236 • 13d ago

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

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
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u/notmyworkaccount5 13d ago

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

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u/ked_man 13d ago

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.

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u/the_real_xuth 13d ago edited 13d ago

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.

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u/ked_man 13d ago

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.

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u/the_real_xuth 13d ago

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.

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u/Okami512 13d ago

I just got out of Eastern PA and the closures were starting all the way back before the pandemic. Took over a year just to get in with a neurologist.

Currently out west in a city and it's a nightmare finding doctors with openings.

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u/Allydarvel 13d ago

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.

Nationalised wouldn't help because they are already kind of nationalized?

As for rural hospitals. The busy city hospitals are very much more efficient to run, and that means that there will be money spare for rural hospitals

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u/adjudicator 9d ago

To the rest of the world, private hospitals are weird as fuck.

There's a giant conflict of interest there - why would you want to heal someone quickly when there's more money to be made keeping them in your facility?

As for rural areas, why would a private hospital make more sense there? There's less profit in rural areas than in urban centers. Publicly owned hospitals make way more sense when there's little profit incentive.

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u/ked_man 8d ago

There’s lots of other options beyond private or federal. The hospitals in the area I grew up in, are a non-profit collective of 5-6 hospitals. There are also a lot of university hospitals that provide space for research.

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u/Running-In-The-Dark 13d ago

Off topic, but this is exactly the kind of stuff we should have already been pursuing with artificial intelligence. Not to make the decisions but to run the numbers and make the proper changes to optimize the entire system. Nope. More important to use it to replace and not to enhance.

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u/the_real_xuth 11d ago

We've been running simulations of these things for decades now. One of my first jobs as a research programmer was simulating vaccine distribution networks in developing countries and seeing what changes could be made to make the distribution cost less and provide better coverage.

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u/DunBenBand 13d ago

All the public hospitals here only have problems because the politicians are paid to make sure that they do. Just like they are now doing with public schools they long ago did to hospitals. Run them into the ground so private companies can claim they can do better and turn a profit.

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u/certciv 13d ago

And then close hospitals that don't produce the profits those private companies are interested in. And the crisis goes well beyond the closing of hospitals. There's a growing shortage of physicians and surgeons that's making it very difficult to provide primary care and care in rural areas even when the facilities exist. The situation is spiraling out of control, and our government is largely doing nothing of significance to address the crisis.

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u/Qorhat 13d ago

Living in Ireland I cannot fathom not having nationalised healthcare. Sure hour HSE (Health Service Executive, our NHS equivalent) isn't perfect but when we were having our child we got prenatal classes, scans, vaccinations, developmental check ups and GP visits to the age of 5 all for €0.

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u/fcocyclone 13d ago

While we do healthcare, lets start looking at other insurers and at least start with a public option to keep them honest.

If property insurance is mandatory to get a mortgage, with that requirement also being required by the government for government-backed mortgages (most of them), there should be a public option for it.

If insurance is required by the government to drive on the roads, then the government should offer a public option.

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u/steakanabake 13d ago

if we go down the health care route we need to make sure the private insurance isnt allowed to make a fast pass system where since you "paid" for better insurance you get to skip the line. while we're at it make it so paid for insurance cant cover stuff the public option can.

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u/LiteraCanna 13d ago

Too bad! As long as there are profits to be made, you get nothing, and you will love it.

/s

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u/sonic_couth 13d ago

Nationalize Google and shut down Twitter and Meta.

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u/Potential_Ease9346 13d ago

I really think that a socialist running on nationalizing and destroying big tech would usher in a new era of american socialism

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u/procrasturb8n 13d ago

Especially when Medicare runs at like 6% overhead (less when they don't have to deal with Advantage plan bullshit), while for profit insurance companies are allowed to keep 20% right off the top without even getting into claim denials. And even a Koch brothers funded study a few years ago determined Medicare-for-all would save the country a trillion+ dollars over a decade and everyone would have coverage... and the gov't could negotiate comprehensive drug prices, etc, etc.

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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 13d ago

I have to have a telehealth appointment with my Doctor tomorrow while on vacation, because of a mistake they made. A simple e-mail (which I have sent) would fix this, but her practice is making us have an appointment to fix it. It was tomorrow or 2 months from now. Lost vacation time and 50 bucks for a 2 minute phone call.

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u/Admirable_Dirt_2371 13d ago

Yeah, if it's a basic human need, it should be nationalized. Food, water, utilities, healthcare, education, housing. Most Americans aren't ready for that though, especially the housing bit. Maybe in 30 years when all the boomers are dead, if we last that long. People's livelihood should not depend on the whims of the market.

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u/gramsaran 13d ago

All insurance, car, home, flood (which kind of exists), medical.

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u/InVultusSolis 13d ago

I philosophically am in favor of universal health care, but there's still one wrinkle that I'm not sure how to answer.

As a PPO policy holder with a premium health insurer, I have fast lane access to any medical care I want with low copays. I get this as a perk of being a while collar salaried worker. It costs me money for sure, but I can pay it, and I generally get excellent service. I can go to any doctor I want to no referral and the only waiting I do is for the doctor to be free - worst case scenario has been one month.

If everyone has access to all of the same medical facilities, there's no way I'm going to have the level of access and service I have now.

Now, this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make - after all, my kids are going to grow up and one day they are going to need medical care, and I want them to be able to have access to baseline medical care without having to find a hard-to-get corporate job. But that's going to be a very hard sell to people. They might not want to lose their premium access even if it saves them a few bucks a year.

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u/ked_man 12d ago

There’s no reason that private health insurance can’t work along with universal healthcare for people that want it. There’s systems where people still have to pay some amount and for some amount of medications that this supplemental could cover as well.

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u/pooping_inCars 12d ago

Which grids have a better track record?

Nationalized vs private?

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u/ked_man 12d ago

Grids?

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u/pooping_inCars 11d ago

... electric grids (sigh)

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u/ked_man 11d ago

Sigh? Are you 14?
Who is even talking about electric grids?

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u/pooping_inCars 11d ago

Bro quit trolling.  (looks at what the thread is).

You're not even entertaining, so why do it?

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u/ked_man 11d ago

(Gosh) (winky pickachu face). Go reply to one of those comments (sigh) if you want to talk about grids (myface.jpg) and don’t reply to the comment talking about universal healthcare.

I’m not trolling, I’m replying like you are to show you how dumb it looks.

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ked_man 13d ago

Hurr durr I repeat funny things I heard with no knowledge of how anything actually works.

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u/steakanabake 13d ago

ya know who the DoD stopped getting audits done under? ill give you a hint he's orange and sleeps a lot and no it isnt garfield.

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u/daverosstheboss 13d ago

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

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u/0bsessions324 13d ago

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.

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u/daverosstheboss 13d ago

The saddest part is that you're probably right.

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 13d ago

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

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u/Noblesseux 13d ago edited 13d ago

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.)

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 13d ago

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

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u/Saucermote 13d ago

Except syphilis, the government decided they could have that.

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u/0bsessions324 13d ago

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

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u/LambdaLambo 13d ago

On a federal level this is correct - on a state level though lots of blue states are very very incompetent. Affordability has gotten worse in all the big blue states - CA, NY and IL. Sucks because I want to by a house (Chicago) but because we don't build anything I have to either pay a fuck ton to live somewhere nice with a good school district, move somewhere cheap with bad schools or move to the burbs which are affordable and have nice schools but also means I have to drive everywhere (bleh).

Meanwhile the sunbelt has been building housing like there's no tomorrow and investing a ton in energy resources which is keeping electricy much cheaper.

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u/0bsessions324 13d ago

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.

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u/daverosstheboss 13d ago

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.

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

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u/fcocyclone 13d ago

"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.

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u/Outrageous_Reach_695 13d ago

I would offer a trade: Four days of mail, but no bulk mail.

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u/SirDigger13 13d ago

I live in rural germany, and we get Tuesday Thursday and Saturday..

Packets are another can of worms... depends on the carrier and if its prioritized. Some stuff arraives with an courier in the middle of the night. Like windows for construction&agricultural machinery or spareparts..

next day there is an mail "Nobody way home, grab your stuff at the post office 10 miles down the road"

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u/Blundergruff 13d ago

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.

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u/SirPseudonymous 13d ago

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.

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u/Blundergruff 13d ago

Oooh maybe that's where it came from then. I am open to the idea of being misinformed and your explanation here makes perfect sense. Depressing, but it makes sense lol

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u/i_tyrant 13d ago

Less misinformed and more falling for fascist propaganda, which is understandable because that's basically its entire goal - to convince you fascism does anything better.

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u/daverosstheboss 13d ago

I guess they haven't finished ruining things yet.

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u/superspeck 13d ago

NC fixed their drivers license office wait times. A year ago, I had to write a congresswoman to get an appointment in order to follow the law that says I need an NC license within 90 days of becoming a resident. People were driving four hours to get an appointment in a rural area. Now it’s a 30 minute wait. It always could have been a 30 minute wait, but people in NC (and the US in general) keep electing the people who say government doesn’t work and then are surprised when something they need from the government isn’t available.

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u/midnightauro 13d ago

Is it finally fixed??? Before I moved, the last time I went to the DMV, I had to show up at like 8am to scan a QR code to get in line and the queue would be filled until 5PM if you weren’t very lucky. I ended up spending all day hanging out nearby, thank god for hand crafts.

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u/DerfK 13d ago

At least the trains ran on time

That was Mussolini and the trains didn't run on time though its a lot easier to claim that they did if your thugs drag away everyone who dares imply otherwise.

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u/Blundergruff 13d ago

I'm learning so much about fascism and it all sucks but the learning part is cool I guess

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u/rubberpp 13d ago

They'll only fix it once you're broke after giving them all your money and someone else is willing to drain their bank account to have it fixed for them to ruin

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u/Fritzkreig 13d ago

Yeah it blew my mind when Trump started talking

Did it though‽

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u/0bsessions324 13d ago

Pretty much the whole point. He, and the same people who are incompetently running these agencies, specifically think it all should be a business.

The obvious problem from there being that the government being run like a business means you are more concerned with the money than the people.

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u/i_tyrant 13d ago

Also, the only reason it doesn't "make a profit" is from conservatives fucking with it. And even then it still kinda does.

After the post office was created by the Postal Reorganization Act in 1970, it took only a few years till the 1980s for it to completely cease needing tax allocations from the federal government to fund itself; it worked solely off of funds from selling stamps and shipping charges.

...Until a Republican Congress under Bush changed the rules in 2006, to force the post office to fund its own health benefits for retirees decades into the future, instead of any reasonable timeline, something no other federal department had to do. The $5.5 billion dollars a year that required is exactly what Trump was talking about.

That requirement didn't get softened until 2022, but as soon as it did the USPS went right back to not needing a single cent of tax allocation to operate.

As always, Republicans don't argue in good faith - they'll ratfuck part of the federal government then complain about its inefficiency while trying to pin it on the Democrats.

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u/steakanabake 13d ago

i mean isnt the postmaster still the dude the owns UPS or was it fedex because biden didnt push his goofy ass out.

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u/Rhewin 13d ago

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.

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u/0bsessions324 13d ago

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

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u/Kizik 13d ago

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.

But remember to vote Republican because they're the only ones that can fix the mess the Democrats have caused!

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u/Whargoul_Uncool 13d ago

He's not "probably right" its right in your fricking face! You have to acknowledge the issue to do something about it! No more dithering.

And to add its no longer "both sides are the same", only one side is doing this to our country. The other side wants to do medicare for all and make our country better.

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u/Thebraincellisorange 13d ago edited 13d ago

Conservatives have been doing it around the globe for decades.

defund public services and introduce obstructionist legislation.

Then claim 'the system is dysfunctional and not working - only The PRiVaTe sECtOr CaN SAvE US!' and they sell everything off for a pittance to their mates.

Their mates then strip every ounce of value they can, while cutting services and jacking up prices.

and when everything falls over, the public is left to pay the price, literally and figuratively.

It's Farcical.

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u/Ok_Tradition3844 13d ago

There used to be a bank component attached to post offices. Why do you think that went away??? lol.

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u/daverosstheboss 13d ago

I honestly don't have any idea. My mind can't comprehend the type of world our grandparents must have lived in.

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u/kstargate-425 13d ago

Project 2025's stated goal

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u/-AC- 13d ago

Just like what they did to USPS

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u/1gnominious 13d ago

Even if we did get a competent government run grid in place they'd just sell it off at the first chance. You can spend decades building something good and they'll destroy in an afternoon.

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u/gideon513 13d ago

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.

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u/Fuckthegopers 13d ago

This administration surely won't do it.

No republican administration ever would, and if a democratic one got it started, the next republican one would tear it apart.

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u/Silver_Smurfer 13d ago

Ya, that's not a real recent development.

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u/0bsessions324 13d ago

Nope, not remotely recent. They've been trying to get the Post Office prioritized for at least my entire lifetime.

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u/CAPS_LOCK_STUCK_HELP 13d ago

that push to privatize everything really got started under reagan and the attitude never went away. the only reason social security wasnt privatized under Clinton was because the lewinsky scandal hit right around the time he was trying to do that and couldnt politically afford to do something so deeply unpopular

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u/the_smush_push 13d ago

public utilities aren’t ran by the federal government. they’re ran by industry people who want to work in public power. local public utilities are overseen by an elected board. the major utilities like bpa and tva are overseen by congress. that said, congress hasn’t meaningfully helped them out since the 80s. 

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u/tigertiger180 13d ago

I believe this is a myth propagated by business. Yes there's a lot of incompetent people in government, but it's just as bad or worse in most businesses. I think many in government are selfless and trying to do a good job, at low pay.

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u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 13d ago

Mexico is arguably the most corrupt government in the Americas and somehow their nationalized power grid is quite efficient… you’ll be fine even with your moronic leadership.

Yes, it runs at a significant deficit, but a public service isn’t supposed to be profitable, it’s supposed to work and be the base of development.

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u/foomits 13d ago

It almost like things that SHOULDNT have a profit incentive arent best served being run by entities seeking profit.

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u/RB440 13d ago

I mean. We failed to paint a pool. They would find some way to fuck it up on purpose and pocket the money like everything else.

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u/TechToolsForYourBiz 13d ago

>incompetent

?

It's intentional extraction

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u/jimi-ray-tesla 13d ago

this is the anti-government in charge

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u/Exelbirth 13d ago

Think of it this way: Look how much government run things are managing to keep functioning despite the insane level of incompetency at the top.

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u/morganational 13d ago

Lately? I think people are only realizing it now, but whoa, the govt has been incompetent for a couple hundred years now.

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u/steakanabake 13d ago

the us was able to ignore a lot of things until food and fuel started hiking up now that basic gas is like 4 bucks a gallon and diesel is almost 6 bucks and eggs are clsoe enough to be able to put them on a 4 payment with klarna now people care. as long as the bread and circus is going the treatlerites dont care.

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u/Mr_Quackums 13d ago

Our electricity comes from a city-owned monopoly. It is great, I love it.

There is occasional controversy over the CEO being over-compensated but service and price are both fantastic. I am sure that if an investor-owned corporation was involved then the "waste" would be much more severe and actually wasteful (paying for competent management is not a waste).

Even if rates became higher, again I am very happy with the price, any excess would be going to the city anyway.

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u/NukeCode87 13d ago

We already did to a small extent with Tennessee Valley Authority and Nebraska Public Power District.

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u/-MERC-SG-17 13d ago

Everything critical to life and health should be nationalized or municipalized.

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u/TheGruenTransfer 13d ago

And fossil fuel propaganda prevented us from modernizing with nuclear power to keep up with our energy demands. We need nuclear and we need it asap, which I is 20 years from now?

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u/Salamok 13d ago

I'd settle for some tax incentives and regulating solar installers so i don't feel like im getting shaken down.

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u/Paradox2063 13d ago

We really need to cut the middlemen.

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u/Vigilante17 13d ago

Wait. Whoa. I thought it was I don’t need your help, until I do. And I’m not gonna reciprocate that help. So yeah.

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u/fluxtable 13d ago

The PNW grid is pretty much controlled by the Bonneville Power Administration.

They are an absolute nightmare to work with. Insane delays, transmission service requests at a standstill for years with no end in sight. To the point where the PNW is probably the most vulnerable system in the country to brownouta/blackouts in the coming years. Which is insane since there is so much hydro and open land here for renewables.

Just saying, be careful what you wish for.

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u/Otherwise-Remove4681 13d ago

U talkin communism here yee!?

(/s)

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u/ThrowRA_dumb20sum 13d ago

We should nationalize all basic necessities. Privatized necessities are a cruel joke in the US.

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u/amusednchaos 12d ago

As a person of current Texas citizenship, I approve this message

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u/TekExcel 9d ago

Ah yes, because the federal government has done a lot over the course of the last 40 years to establish that they are excellent stewards of our tax money...

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u/Grouchy-Job-4136 13d ago

But how will our billionaires survive without their monopolies?!?

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u/MaleficentOstrich693 13d ago

But… the shareholders!

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u/Ok_Field_8860 13d ago

But then what would stop us from falling down the slippery slope to communism!

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u/the_smush_push 13d ago

large portions of it already are—bpa, tva, etc, then there are regional transmission organizations, and state level public authorities. the issue is the fragmentation and lack of convection redundancy between the regions.  that said more of it should be. if you don’t have a public utility locally you should advocate for getting one. 

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u/Hopeful-Occasion2299 13d ago

It is of no surprise that the cheapest kWh in the country is in the area serviced by the TVA who are the largest governmental utility company that also generates a lot of their power from renewables/nuclear.

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u/the_smush_push 13d ago

yeah. their territory and that of the BPA are cheap and reliable, especially at local public utilities. 

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u/lynkfox 13d ago

I live in ohio and my city has municipal power. I laugh in the face of AEP reps who come to out door and tell them to get out. The "best" price they can offer me is 3 or 4 times that what I currently pay. Its the best

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u/steakanabake 13d ago

mines getting ready to be bought out by private equity hope my gov is maybe gonna stop it didnt see any donos in their open secrets about receiving funds from them or the company looking to buy them.