December 18, 2018—Address EMP Vulnerabilities from the Bottom-up!

Washington has been dysfunctional in at best limited efforts to protect the American people from existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and even terrorists that somehow obtain a nuclear weapon, launch it from a vessel off our coast and detonate it at high altitude over the United States.

Thus, several years ago I concluded that we must address this serious threat from the bottom-up, beginning with the American people themselves; and I determined to initiate such an effort in my home state, South Carolina, to which I am returning after a lifetime elsewhere.

For detailed background discussion, click here for my May 4, 2017 written testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, here for the full 2-hour hearing (beginning between 28 and 29 minutes in) that also included important testimony by former Speaker Newt Gingrich and here for my May 9, 2017 High Frontier message discussing related implications of that important hearing.

I met with the Chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and others of my alma mater Clemson University to identify graduates and others at Duke Energy — one of the nation’s largest energy companies — especially in its corporate headquarters in Charlotte, NC.

To make a long story short, several Duke engineers and I agreed several years ago to conduct a pilot study involving three Duke power plants on Lake Wylie, which is on the Catawba River that flows from North to South Carolina. I then approached Clemson graduates in York County, beginning with the sheriff, who is elected to protect the people — and he helped me find numerous willing partners.

See the above figure, and click here, here and here for previous messages that relate to the Lake Wylie Pilot Study.

From my perspective, the top priority of our efforts across the nation is to assure our nuclear power plants are viable in the case of a major electric grid blackout. As illustrated on the left below, the winds could expose the entire nation to any radiation release from these ~100 nuclear plants, most of which are in the Eastern Interconnection of the grid.

Thus, the first priority is to keep these nuclear plants safe, and next to restore them as quickly as possible to provide electricity to all our citizens. The nuclear plants provide about 20-percent of the nation’s electricity — and over half of the electricity to the citizens of South Carolina.

In case of a major blackout, these power plants shut down to prevent damage to runaway generation turbines; and the reactors and their spent fuel in nearby pools must be cooled, at least initially by diesel generators as long as there is fuel to power them. When safe, we will want to see these important plants restarted.

In our Lake Wylie Pilot Study, Duke’s Wylie Hydroelectric Power Plant can provide the needed power to Duke’s Catawba Nuclear Power Plant — via a hardened portion of grid connecting the two appropriately hardened power plants. Duke assigns a top priority to assuring this connection via its own hardened power plants and transmission/distribution infrastructure.

Once a sufficient portion of the surrounding grid can provide the needed loading conditions for operations, the Wylie hydroelectric plant also can provide sufficient power to restart the Catawba nuclear plant to provide electricity to that viable “island” in the grid.

However, this essential step does not assure electricity will be provided to others not served by Duke grid infrastructure, e.g., those living in Rock Hill — one of the largest SC cities (and a suburb of Charlotte, home of Duke Energy’s corporate headquarters) or others in most of the rest of York County. Rock Hill is served by the Rock Hill Utility Company and the rest of York County by the York County Cooperative (co-op) Company.

We focused our “bottom-up” strategy initially with Rock Hill. Assistant City Manager Jimmy Bagley, a Clemson Electrical Engineering Graduate, introduced us to other key managers of the grid infrastructure supporting in Rock Hill — including the Electric Utility Director and the lead Engineer for the hospital that serves Rock Hill, the rest of York County and others nearby.

Paul Basha, another Clemson man, leads the York County co-op; he and and his staff also have supported our effort to understand the electric grid operations for the entire county and to assess the needed grid hardening and likely associated costs — including infrastructure provided by the New Horizons Electric co-op..

Based on their cooperation, Dr. George Baker (one of the nation’s top EMP experts) is providing cost estimates for hardening the top priority Rock Hill and York County infrastructure — and providing to Duke engineers information to assure its transmission infrastructure is properly linked to the Rock Hill and York County co-op distribution infrastructure. His work is being done in co-operation with The Foundation for Resilient Societies and their related cost estimates being prepared for hardening the bulk infrastructure of nation’s entire grid other than the “distribution” infrastructure, mostly provided by over a thousand municipal utility companies and co-ops.

As noted in the above figure, we are working with Rock Hill and other York County leaders who are already actively involved with other municipal utility and co-op companies throughout South Carolina — so they can help us share our lessons learned throughout all of South Carolina. And of course they interact professionally with their professional colleagues beyond SC.

York County is the highlighted SC county in the above map. The right hand highlighted NC county is Gaston County, where, like Rock Hill, Gastonia customers are supported by a municipal utility company: and the rest of the Gaston county is served by co-op electricity. Thus, we should be able to share easily with them our Rock Hill/York County lessons learned. And Duke Energy’s Allen Coal Plant in Gaston County will be integrated into those considerations.

Then we plan to move to Mecklenburg County, which includes several Duke power plants and over half of the population of the “Core Counties” around Charlotte, the home of Duke Energy’s corporate headquarters. Almost 80 percent of electricity for these “Core Counties” is produced by Duke nuclear plants.

Once these activities are completed, we intend to next include all ten counties of the Charlotte Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), where Duke power companies produce almost all of the electricity supplied to citizens through a combination of Duke, Utility and Co-Op electric companies. Then our plan is to take the lessons learned to other areas of the United States.

So, this overall plan is the perspective with which we enter our important next steps, first in South Carolina and then in North Carolina. In both states, there is a “quilt” of areas served by various electricity generation companies (mostly Duke Energy), metropolitan utility companies and co-op companies as illustrated below. Once this analysis — including hardening cost estimates — is completed, it can be extended in a logical way to consider the rest of the nation.

Bottom Lines.

The Lake Wylie Pilot Study promises to produce a plan and associated costs to assure from the bottom-up a viable electric power grid for South and North Carolina, which can be extended to the rest of the nation.

It should compose an appropriate model to be included in the response to President Trump’s anticipated Executive Order directing the executive branch “powers that be” to protect the nation’s electric power grid.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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