08/24/2026
From the Sunday, August 23, 2026, New York Times:
What if America Went Completely Dark? [headline]
"The power grid relies on thousands of aging, hand-built transformers. If enough fail, the blackout could last years."
By Christopher Cox
Christopher Cox traveled to California and Nevada and interviewed more than two dozen experts in grid technologies and grid reliability.
"The snipers had been shooting for nearly 10 minutes before someone called 911. A man driving down the highway told the police he thought he heard fireworks as he passed Pacific Gas and Electric’s Metcalf electrical substation, 15 miles southeast of San Jose. An engineer at a nearby power plant said he thought it was gunfire. Maybe more calls would have come in, but the communication link between the substation and PG&E, along with several phone and internet cables, had been severed. It was April 16, 2013."
"The shooters — two, maybe more — took up positions 30 to 40 yards outside the substation fence, in the dry scrubland near Coyote Creek. At 1:31 a.m., after a security camera recorded what looked like a signal from a flashlight, they began firing high-powered rifles into the facility."
"After some 120 shots, 17 of Metcalf’s transformers had been disabled. The attackers knew to aim for the units’ cooling systems, oil-filled fins similar to those on a radiator, which draw heat away from the electrified core. That allowed the oil, 52,000 gallons of it, to drain out slowly so that the transformers wouldn’t fail right away, which would have triggered an alarm. The gunmen could take their time."
"The president of PG&E called in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is responsible for ensuring the reliability of the bulk power system — that is, the grid. Though the company had avoided a blackout because power was rerouted quickly, the attack seemed intended to put large portions of the Bay Area in the dark."
"The grid is perhaps the most complex machine ever built, but it was created without a master plan and made subject to the distortions of greed and local orneriness like every other big project in the United States. As a result, we have not one grid but three: the Western, Eastern and Texas Interconnections. Within each area, thousands of utilities generate and distribute power, and the flow is managed by one of 101 regional balancing authorities across the United States."
"No arrests were made after the Metcalf shooting, and the crime is still unsolved. It took PG&E 27 days to bring the substation back online, using a group of “troublemen” — experts in grid repairs — to replace the cooling systems on the broken transformers. That’s the timeline for one substation, with the power still on. In the midst of the chaos of a nationwide blackout, with many more than 17 units disabled, recovery would take far longer than a month."
"It was hard to replace transformers quickly back then; it’s nearly impossible now. Since 2021, the average wait time for a large power transformer — the kind you’d find at a major substation, capable of handling tens or hundreds of thousands of volts — has climbed from less than a year to 128 weeks, with some lead times growing as long as five years. “The transformer shortage is bad,” Ajey Pandey, an energy analyst and a former municipal resource planner, told ChinaTalk, a tech-focused media outlet. “It’s like hair-on-fire, biting-my-nails, losing-sleep levels of bad.” [And many transformers are produced by Siemens Corporation which has factories in Ukraine, one of which has been destroyed by the Russians.]
"One more thing: Huge numbers of the transformers already installed on the grid need to be replaced. According to one manufacturer, some 75 percent of distribution transformers — the smaller units on street corners and atop telephone poles — are past the end of their expected service life, which maxes out at around 50 years. Twelve years ago, the average age of the country’s large power transformers, which often have a shorter lifetime, was estimated to be 38 to 40 years."
***
And what is the Trump regime doing to protect our electric power grids and these vital transformers? NOTHING. Any federal government support to ramp up the manufacture of transformers? NO. Any federal government support to provide more security at the critical segments of the grid? NO. Any investigations of white domestic terrorist groups who may be attacking our electric power grids? NO.
No, Trump is fighting his stupid war with Iran, damaging our economy with his stupid tariffs and trade wars with Canada, Mexico, the European nations, and China, and attacking well-documented immigrants and American citizens with his Gestapo ICE agents.
Please contact your Senators and Representatives today demand immediate action by Congress to protect our electric power grid.
