March 15, 2019—Lessons from Venezuela

Cascading collapse of the Venezuelan electric grid on March 7, 2019, led to a loss of electricity in 22 of 23 Venezuelan states. Power restoration has been slow and blackout pockets persist—and will likely cause further stress on Venezuela’s economic, social, and political systems. There are lessons to be learned in considering the possible consequence of a major electric power grid loss in the United States.

A colleague and friend, Thomas Popik, is drafting an important assessment of the now well advertised disastrous events in Venezuela. It will be well worth your time to read and contemplate its implications. Click here for his current draft summary that illustrates major aspects that are already clear to me. As his study continues, he will be updating this summary as more is learned.

Tom is a bone fide expert on our electric power grid vulnerabilities to various threats — e.g., from physical, cyber and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack — and the dysfunctional nature of the federal government in addressing these vulnerabilities, in particular the regulatory regime.

From his current summary — that I urge you to read, a few implications are absolutely clear to me in extending lessons-learned to define implications for the U.S. electric power grid:

Most of Venezuela’s electric power is generated by hydroelectric power plants—the most resilient sources of electricity. Most U.S. power sources are less resilient.
Cascading failures of the grid supporting the transmission and distribution of electricity from those power plants apparently has been the primary reason that electricity has not been restored. We should expect a similar U.S. grid trend.
Apparently troublesome is the catastrophic failure of many generator turbines and high voltage transformers, which take many months to build and replace. Ditto for us.
Consequently, the population of Venezuela will likely be without electricity for months to come. As would we.
Needed outside humanitarian support for Venezuela is massive and will be needed for many months, along with difficult migration from Venezuela to neighboring countries and beyond. What outside help would we expect? Especially in case of a solar storm — a Coronal Mass Ejection leading to a major world-wide Geomagnetic Disturbance?
Just imagine what it would be like following a major EMP attack that shuts down the entire U.S. grid as has been the experience of Venezuela — without the kind of aid that America and/or others can give to Venezuela in spite of the political inhibitions that currently exist. Who would be helping us?

We should contemplate these serious implications and take immediate actions. So . . . when will the President’s Executive Order direct the Federal Government to wake up?

Stay tuned.

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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