this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
248 points (98.1% liked)
Technology
59534 readers
3195 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I worked for an electric utility for nearly 2 decades and now am a consultant helping power companies with grid modernization. This is the part that terrifies me, we are WOEFULLY unprepared for an event like this. A number of times over the years a strategic transformer reserve has been floated to congress with no movement. Even things like a large scale, coordinated attack against a bunch of substations at once could cripple the US power grid for months or even years. Transformer lead-times can be as long at 70 weeks last I knew. Obviously, in the event of a large-scale event the government could step in and throw resources to speed that up but it would be FAR better to have a ready-to-go supply we could draw from.
what i wonder is this something that can be solved without government long range wisdom? like could you start a business stockpiling these things and being the only game in town when theres a disaster? or are the disasters so rare and the price gouging so limited that it would be a bad business move to sit on a square mile of these somewhere inexpensive and safe?
Great question, and I should have probably clarified my response. There are transformers, the "cans" you see on utility poles. Then there are transformers, the "big boys" in substations. This is one of the better pics I can find on Google, oddly enough it links to an article about how easy it is to disable a substation by shooting out the transformer: https://stopfossilfuels.org/electric-grid/shooting-transformers-disables-substations/buckskin-substation-transformer-shooting.jpg
The cans you see on poles are relatively ubiquitous and fairly easy to source. The big boys in the substations are the ones with the huge lead times and large cost. Stockpiling them as a business would be a loosing venture. It would be unlikely you would have a customer locally and transporting them is expensive owing to the weight/size.
As someone who works for a large utility company on the distribution side, the small ones on poles or in underground neighborhoods are still tough to get with backorders causing delays in projects. It’s gotten a lot better, but it’s still slow on them.