Disaster Proofing the Grid??

Good Morning All,

Y'all know me, ever the idealist.

Just wanting to open a topic for conversation. It may provide me with some answers or (as is the case most of the time) provide me with more questions than I started with.

After the "fun and games" of recovering from Gustav, Ike, and Mid West flooding, I'm thinking we've each done what we can to prepare our homes and families to weather storms, terrorist attacks, etc. Now what do we do to prepare our community and infrastructure?

It seems a logical step in protecting one's home and family is to make sure the environment that surrounds our "fortresses" are as safe as possible.

What measures are feasible?

Is burying power lines so that they aren't knocked down every hurricane or ice storm a practical idea?

In the midwest, is changing building codes to allow partially buried earth-ship type homes to protect from tornadoes even worth considering.

If you had cart blanche, what would you do to "bullet proof" your community and thereby decrease the threat to your home and family?

Personally, burying power lines, and having above ground mass transit for my area (Baton Rouge) would be high on the list along with designated flood zones where the rivers are allowed to flood rather than cramming them into ever narrowing channels.

Here in California, shake shingle roofs were de riquer. Eventually enough wildfires in Southern California led to their ban in new construction or total replacement.
The shake shingle industry mobilised CONSIDERABLE lobbying efforts to stop this law, though eventualy defeated.

Before you can change one building method, you must first change the people.

NYC has "burried power lines" as LAW since the blizard of 1888. One of the big ones would be "sorry folks, no more building permits on barrier beaches -anywhere in the US". This would include places like Fire Island in NY, Galveston, etc

Burying power lines is becoming more common in my area in newer neighborhoods.

I don’t know, but I would make a guess that this would be a bad idea in earthquake areas.



As far as how to become disaster proof, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect any level of government to do this with any gusto, efficiency or even to do it right. It’s not a strong point of the governments to do things right, or timely and frugally.

What can we do to get the government to build things right? Realistically nothing. You can spend years trying to effect change and every time a new guy gets elected you have to start over. You can spend your whole life trying to get them to be proactive and it will not work. Government is not proactive (and this is the essence of survival preparedness, being able to be ready for what ifs that are coming at us) Government is reactive, they only fix things after a problem becomes a glaring failure (Can you say Katrina?)

Better to buy or build a Solar / wind system and get it running. This way, you are in charge of your power and not some bureaucrat that is looking out for his own rear end.


I think the best action for us and our families if to personally make our homes as disaster resistant as possible and not expect a government to do it. Government is notoriously deficient in doing so and it seem foolish and dangerous to expect them to suddenly get it right.

Even when they do something they don’t get it right. Look at the dikes after Katrina, they were government paid and built, they failed. Any time you have politicians, and bureaucrats involved and a contract for the lowest bidder you get poor results.

I think the problem is that elected officials look no further ahead than the next election. They don't look at the long term implications of their generally poor decisions.

+1

Whether we're talking physical infrastructure, our education system, Social Security, Medicare, etc., the time horizons we're talking about are too long to fit into our election cycles (and even our attention spans). Not so easy to take credit for a new levee system when the first shovel of dirt won't be turned until years after you've been booted out of office amid complaints that you spent too much money on a levee system that is still on the drawing boards! Very perverse.

The free market has a similar problem due to this quarterly earnings report mentality. Why spend $2 billion now on infrastructure now when the benefits won't appear until I have long left the company with a big fat bonus for keeping costs down under my watch?

However, if people actually voted for candidates that supported these kinds of projects, then that is a tangible here-and-now benefit to them and they would respond. Unfortunately, you don't see too many excited voters saying, "Yeah, X is my man, yessiree. He voted for that billion dollar sewer bond. This guy has vision!"

"They'd rather spend 3,000 to replace a downed pole here and there than pay 3,500 to put the cables underground. Power companies are notoriously infamous for taking the cheapest route."

The husband of a woman I used to know worked for a power company. He was a logical kind of guy, and the company drove him nuts. He said the reasoning above is NOT the cheapest route, it just APPEARS to be the cheapest route. In reality, it is based on job security and keeping your costs high enough to justify price increases to the consumer.

Sue

Well that certainly sucks. I wonder if I should let a few criminals slip away in the name of job security. Maybe I'll concentrate only on those who steal copper power lines. This will help to drive down the power companies' losses so they don't have justification to raise rates as often.

One thing to consider (that likely I'm the only one who will think of it) is how failed elements of the system can be fixed.

I have a friend who is researching improved ways to locate insulation breakdown sites in underground utility cables.

I like buried cables for many reasons. But one reason I don't like them is that they are very hard to locate problems on and even harder to repair. My in-laws lose power pretty frequently due to old buried cables getting shorted by heavy rains.

Digging up the easements every 30 years to replace failing cables sounds fine during Year 1 but is a scary thought at Year 29.

In the normal course of things the folks who advertised the benefits have retired before the long-term consequences come to pass.

I've heard the same concern from people in the know in my neck of the woods.

We are doing everything we can to 'protect' our home/living area and are essentially starting from scratch since we have to re-do so much.

More details will be posted once we get started on the process.

I definitely think underground power lines is a plus. Also a lot of us need to stay prepared for the normal disasters in our area (on top of the new ones). For instance, one of my friends has a dome house he built from (http://www.aidomes.com/) and that thing is been through heck and back, he had a tornado spinning on the roof for 30 minutes before it darted off and destroyed 3 homes near him, been through hurricanes,fire and minor flooding and it's still standing strong after 25 years. If it wasn't so dang ugly, I can't con the misses into building one, she would rather keep rebuilding after major hurricanes or what have you instead of a fortress like that. He has a 18KW generator vs the little 12.5KW we have here so we go to his place it all heck breaks loose. All of his water is distilled through a commercial grade distillery system (which I can't stand the taste with no minerals) but all of his water is from wells,rain and ocean. All he has to worry about is food and the dome house stays cool here in Fla without the AC most all year around. His typical electric bill is $30 a month, but I can't con him into solar.

I think the future needs more reinforced homes that exceed that of a dome house like the "EYE of the storm" dome house (on the news in Pensacola)which made it through storm surges on the beach with no problems. This and self sufficient energy and water production is a must.

I've lived in several neighborhoods with underground power cables and you still lose power. In fact, our current neighborhood loses power quite frequently.

The reason is that underground cables go above ground someplace and your vulnerable there. In our case, I can walk 1/2 mile and see where our neighborhood's cable emerges, goes up a pole, then through a wooded area for a mile to the substation. It's the trees and branches in the woods that kill our power.

So, you have to look at the whole system. The system will fail at the weakest point.

But, let me ask a silly question. Is the choice really only between underground and the present above ground installations? Is it not possible to "harden" the above ground wires, poles, connections etc. to a higher standard so that the system can stand up to the winds etc.? If IzzyJG99 can harden the roof of a house with some nails and liquid nail here and there, surely we can harden the wires hanging on the poles. . . can't we?

Yes, we could do that. The system in Japan is designed to withstand powerful earthquakes and typhoons and much of it is above ground. They don't use wooden power poles there. I guess they're steel reinforced concrete poles, from what I can tell. The average US electrical customer sees far more minutes of blackout than your average European or Japanese customer. (From a survey I read in the news a couple years ago--sorry, no reference for it).

Or even here in the US, from what I've read, the quality of electrical components in certain regions of the country, like the Southwest, are higher than in others. E.g. the kind of heat that causes transformers to blow up and transmission lines to melt down due to high demand in a New York heat wave don't bother the equipment in, say, Phoenix.

Of course, the real crux is money. Are we, as electrical customers, willing to pay more every single month for all this extra robustness? The popularity of discount big box stores like Walmart leads me to say, "No, I want cheap power". Plus, with privatization and the breaking up of power generation and distribution across separate companies makes the cost of such upgrades that much harder to bear by the smaller companies that actually own the equipment.

I can see the inability to get insurance as a de-facto implementation of this idea.

While i agree with most of what you have listed here is a problem mandating substantial retrofit upgrades for building codes. Friends of mine just received a quote to re-roof the 40+ year old house that they live in and it was $50K. Most of the cost was labor to rip off the existing 3/4 plank roof that is there now and upgrading the structure to current code. I have been in the attic of this house and it is a very well made roof, i would not think twice about staying under that roof during a storm. Now they are seriously considering having a "weekend" roof put on. As in no building permits at all, of course this would only save them $45K.

And i have seen this often back when i had a hardware store, when the local building enforcement establishment is expensive or difficult to deal with people cheat. And when people don't get permits and have work done the workers tend to skimp and not do a very good job because it's not going to be inspected. So by raising the bar have you truly made things safer?

Now having said all of this if i was building a house the roof would be laid with 3/4 water resistant subfloor ply using glue and the new evil looking roof deck nails. 30# felt on top of that with smooth shingles or a metal roof. I don't want to touch anything on the roof for at least twenty years.

What is a smooth shingle?

Putting power cables underground certainly helps, and IMHO should be done, especialy in places prone to storms or hurricanes. However it does not eliminate power cuts by any means, the high voltage grid lines that transmit power in bulk can not be readily or affordably put underground and remain vulnerable to storm damage. The risks can be reduced by reinforced construction, and duplicated routes.

Small grid transformers if mounted on or below ground level are vulnerable to flooding. They generally consist of a steel tank in which the transformer is immersed in oil.
Such transformers will continue to work just fine in a flood provided that the water does not reach the top of the tank, if this occurs it is liable to go bang, either because water got into the oil, or because the connections went under water.

Here in the UK transformers are much larger, and fewer in number, than in the USA. They are generally placed in small purpose built brick sheds, the top of the transformer is often about 5 feet above ground level and therefore only vulnerable to very deep floods. In areas that flood repeatedly the transformer and related switchgear is sometimes raised on a concrete plinth.

However in central London these transformers are often in basements, and a number of localised blackouts have been caused by floods, either from storms or from burst water mains.

It's all about the money. You can take many meassures to make the world more disasterproof. But are people willing to pay for it? The simple fact is that govermants and company's only have a limited budget for various importent issues and company's abviously want to make a profit. More funding for one issue, means less for another one.

I don't think a normal citizen can do much about the powerlines. It all depends on the intire infrastucture.

"...pay 3,500 to put the cables underground..."

I suspect that it would cost a tad more than that to put powerlines underground. Our stick house is on a well, we talked about hooking into "city" water a while back. We would have to pay the PUD over $3500 just to tie into the water main in the street, and another $5000 or so to have a contractor trench and install 'bout 250 ft of line to our house.

What I don't understand is why all new construction doesn't have underground power. It would be much easier, which equals cheaper, to do it before all of the paving and concrete work is in place...

doesn't even have to go that far, just some thought into placement would help. My old house the lines beside it were placed right through the center of the trees. So after the big ice storm of 2005 which knocked out power for most everyone they came by and completely butchered the tree. Well fast forward to 2008 the tree recovered and grew back around the lines and tore them down in a big wind. There is a big wide open field beside the trees that they could run the wires and not have to pay someone overtime to come trim the tree after a disaster and have to pay someone else overtime to replace the wires.

How abuot we decenterise the power system so the power does not have to be moved as far. This would reduce the need for power mains except for industry. I think for many homes a solar/wind system could provide much of the needed power and that would also help reduce the load on the gird system. Keeping the power line right of ways clear seems to help as far as damage to the lines. Iknow it has helped around here. Putting as much as possiable underground would help but it is harder to service and so if your power does go out it will be out longer. Just a thought.

Sorry i didn't explain that very well, not an architectural shingle just a plain three tab shingle.

Underground homes make excellent sense on many levels, from cost of materials to insulation to saving land space for greenery, to safety from hurricanes and tornados. The list goes on. Even the lowly rodent is smart enough to make its abode underground.

And man? Much to intelligent to do something like that. Man would rather fight with nature. Guess who wins?

Overall I would say Man is winning. There are 7-billion of us on the planet and the number is going up every day.

I think in some places this would be pretty dangerous... floods, earthquakes, etc?

I'd go for an underground house here we don't get many earthquakes and they are pretty small at that (Nor-CA) but it would need to be over engineered to make me happy.

And non-fire zone

SWEEET!

A lot of people are going the cheap route and putting in grid tied solar and wind systems. The problem with those is the local grids are not sized to handle it so those need upgraded as well.

Your are right and a grid tied system does you very little good in an emergency because as I understand it the inverter stops working if the grid power goes off to protect the utility workers.

Not just that, but since there is no storage in a grid tied you have all that capability to generate power but no way to utilize it.
But the local grid also needs upgraded since your now sharing power rather than just pulling down a bit for yourself.

I remember seeing something on TV about each home having a hydrogen generator that would provide power for the home and vehicles.

Wonderful! Now you just need to power the hydrogen generator...

It's been quite some time since I saw it but, if I recall correctly, a generator was powered by hydrogen and used to generate electricity for the home and vehicles. Maybe I shouldn't post immediately after waking up and maybe I am closer than I care to admit to being old and forgetful.

It isn't being framed in this manner but I think hydrogen needs to be thought of as a energy storage technology instead of an energy generation technology.

In every case so far it takes more energy to separate out the hydrogen than you get in energy from the hydrogen separated out. This allows you to store a good percentage of the energy, minus conversion costs, from a source in the form of hydrogen that could be used later as needed.

Too often I read breathless claims that somehow 'hydrogen' will solve all sort of problems. Most of these these reports are focused on the grand benefits of using hydrogen. But they are very light on explaining where you get the energy to extract the hydrogen from the water.

Plug Power , some nice folks in enchanting Latham, NY. A decade ago they were predicting imminent availability of a hydrogen fuel cell about the size of a Maytag washer, capable of powering a home. As others have commented, you gotta supply a whole bunch of hydrogen, which didn't work out too good for the Hindenberg.

Well, I suppose hydrogen can solve a lot of problems ... but it raises quite a few as well.

Generation is easy, and has an extensive history, but nobody talks about it. You heat coal, biomass, whatever, with water, in an oxygen-limited environment, and you get hydrogen plus carbon monoxide (and assorted impurities). There's your hydrogen source, and you can capture the carbon if you want to. (My guess: the hydrogen economy is through the electrical grid, via coal.)

Distritubiton, on the other hand, is a mean old bear with a sore tooth. The current pipeline grid cannot handle hydrogen. Because hydrogen is highly reactive (corrosive); it either eats the pipeline it's being carried in, or escapes through the physical structure of the plastic pipelines that contain methane with ease.

(Cool aside: all coal-fired power plants truck in hydrogen to serve as the cooling medium for the collosal alternators that keep our lights on. Hydrogen's properties provide the optimum cooling-vs-windage [resistance] properties for this application.)

So stay tuned. But IMHO don't wait for hydrogen distribution or storage.

I don’t see hydrogen home power happening any time soon. Solar power and wind power with batteries, inverters and lower power consuming appliances seems the best answer. And it’s available now.

That's the reason I've been given in the UK. Above ground they may be more likely to fail in a disaster, but they are quicker to repair, too. It's a trade-off.

I suspect it also depends on the type of disaster. It seems to me that over-head cables should be relatively resilient to earthquakes, even if the ground on either side of a cable shifts a few feet. An underground cable would likely get sheared.

Not that we get that kind of earthquake in the UK; we mostly just get a bit of shaking. We do get tornadoes, but they are very localised and it's easy to fix the local damage. We get floods, and above ground is good for that.

Well, after reading the posts and how complex this whole infrastructure issue is, looks like the wisest course of action is working towards getting off the grid as much as possible.

Oh, Samhain... wiser words were seldom spoken.

There is obviously little or no incentive to disasterproof the grid.

Apparently many of us ETS'ers in the Houston area still have $560+ leftover to pay for Rita... and then we can all bet that energy prices will go back down! (and lose that bet)

The article does not explain why I won't have to pay for Ike. Its practically an aside comment but to me its the most important line in the article. I'd be curious to know the reason and where the money is really coming from. But I don't have the time or the inclination to figure it out, I'm too busy finding alternative energy sources...

I think my DD2 and BF have already figured that is the future.

Their future "home dreams" include solar water heating and power generation. Electric cars with solar panels on the roof, at least for their "town car", and anything else that will make them self-sufficient as they live on the outskirts of town.

It is too my great relief that there are some growing up in reality and with their heads on straight, feet firmly on the ground.

I think your DW/DD2 are right. And it will, in the end, be a good thing. Learning to have a more modest energy footprint will go along with a change in out national consciousness. For to long we have failed to live within our means. Making up the difference through bullying and bluster when borrowing and printing money weren't enough.

Trimming back out our demands and expectations means we can be square with ourselves, see ourselves more realistically and being able to more accurately determine what is important, and the rest of the world.

If anyone is thinking of buying a house or land be aware that paying the real cost of energy means that people will be shifting into the cities. Most people fail to realize that on a median per person basis NYC is by far the most energy efficient place to live.

Look for rural properties and satellite communities to lose value as people find that a thirty mile commute no longer makes sense.

On the up side if you really want a rural retreat they might be going for cheap in a few years.

Its good to see that I'm not the only one that see's the electrical grid as a problem.

This is a brand new field of study, and there isn't much "theory" textbooks out there, but there are plenty of practical pamphlets for individuals and small businesses.

IzzyJG99 has the right view in that it is going to take more than one thing to get things done. A successful Emergency Preparedness program in your area will have a dual use for almost everything.

One thing no one mentioned: Community Involvement. We are a government "For the People, By the People". There should be community education programs EVERYWHERE that teach basic home preparation, BoB/72 hour kits, C.E.R.T., First Aid/CPR, Train-the-Trainer courses ( for those that want to help ), EMT, the list goes on. An educated community is a disaster resistant community.

That is what I ment by decenterisling the system. There is a condo development that I saw a piece on that has it's own wind generator that will meet most if not all of it's needs on site. The home engery people keep saying that the firast step is to reduce the amount of power you need. it is more most cost effective that trying to generate your all of your own power.