[Skybird]

I am warning of frequency instabilities in the continental powergrid since years. As I just read, on January 8th this year there has been a major and very serious incident that brought Europe close to the brink of a total blackout. Frenquency instabilities in the south-east (Romania, Greece, Balkan, Turkey) had led to self-reinforcing fluctuating spikes that resulted in a huge - physically sufficiently huge - differences in should-be frequences of the powergrids in these areas (in Europoe it shoukd be 50 Hz), and the rest of Europe. In Austria in the main, but also in some other countries, emergency powernetworks and even generators in institutions sprang to life, supplying hospitals in the Vienna region and the airport of Vienna. The power supply fragmentised across several nations. The result could have turned into a total blackout. Desperate work as well as a good dose of luck allowed us to escape once again.



Hospitals store Diesle reserves for up to a low number sof days only, so do some powerplanbts,w but by far not all.

It has not been the first event of this kind in the past ten years, but often the centre of origin is located in germany with its great energy revolution thing, not the periphery. The frequences of such events per year is rising since over a decade.

Its not just about keeping Volts and Amperes constant, people forget that electricity gets defined by a third variable as well': Hertz. And that is the one giving us the most troubles, due to the ammoutns of powre being send back and forth across the kjntegrated powergrid across all of Europe (the biggest of this kind worldwide).


Its a stupid design, I think since years. Modular and regional autarky is better.


The growing risk of a continental blackout is the main reason why I started to prep already some years ago.

Not war, not meteors, not pandemics were my main concerns, but a major power blackouts.

And the danger becomes bigger every year.

A separation of the continetal powergrid like happened some days ago, happened the first time in 2006. 10 million households had to be shut down in emergency to prevent continental failure of the powergrid in November 2006 due to different electricty frequency in various parts of the net.

If the grid goes offline for too long, after some hours or up to two days it cannot be just relaunched by a pressing of a button anymore. Powerblocks cool down, need external energy then to get warmed up again, need external energy to fire up the powerblock when it was down for too long. Powercells like islands border eahc other and need to feed each other for relaunch, of these in german y there are over 400 such power islands. If you have no cold-and-black-launch-capable powerplants, you need xternal energy resosduces first making it to a givne plantÄ'S locaiton b y switching lal such islands on again from there to here. Andn thats last 6-18 hours per such "island". Now you may get an idea why a lasting blackpout that cools down the whol powergrid would need days and weeks to switch on again.

And sweet water supply, toilet flushing and all that, could be offline evenb after 2-3 weeks after power was restroed if the powergrid was down for 1 week or so. The pipes were dried, are infested with germs, need to be cleaned before drinkable water can be transported by them again. Lac of electriocity always means lack of water supply as well.


Its a major desaster scenario, as bad as war.