Time to move forward on all-Canadian power grid

The New York Times published a quite terrifying story on the U.S. electrical grid this week, pointing out that, with a few simple directed attacks on nine major U.S. substations, the entire U.S. power grid could be disabled.

And the power might remain off for as long as 18 months.

Why so long? Well, the power grid was built as a number of individual systems, all Frankensteined together into a sort of unplanned giant. The main problem? Parts of that grid depend on very old — and very hard to replace — transformers.

The average lead time to replace large transformers is 128 weeks, and can be as long as five years — and there’s a not-so-subtle irony that the U.S. would need to get transformers from countries such as China, Mexico and South Korea, all countries that have been on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff hit list.

In 2013, an attack on a California substation showed just how easy it was to disable a station with simple rifle fire. It involved at least two shooters specifically disabling transformers. The utility involved, Pacific Gas and Electric, was able to reroute power to avoid a blackout because it was an isolated attack, but it took a month to repair the substation. The attackers were never found.

Today, a set of similar, co-ordinated high-powered rifle attacks on an easily identified set of nine critical substations at crucial points of the grid could trigger a massive shutdown, as determined by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Coupled with the difficulty of obtaining, shipping and installing new transformers, a blackout would last long enough to become a nightmare.

The Times story goes on to detail what the U.S. Department of Energy said about a length power outage in its 2010 report, High-Impact, Low-Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System: “The supply of food, water and fuel would degrade within days. The facile communication of information to the general population would be greatly complicated by the loss of cellphones, internet access and television. The economy would virtually shut down as electronic transactions could no longer be processed. After several days, widespread social unrest and confusion would ensue.”

Solely a U.S. problem? Well, not exactly. Because we’re all interconnected.

Many have probably forgotten the Northeast Blackout of 2003, which was caused by trees striking transmission lines in Ohio. A cascading power failure left 50 million people without power across the northeastern U.S., and in Canada as well. Most of Ontario — including the cities of Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Sudbury, Kitchener, London and Windsor — were blacked out as the fault took more than 100 power generation plants offline.

The fault that allowed the power failure to become so large was corrected — but it illustrated how interconnected the North American electrical system is.

This might be the perfect point at which nation-building projects — escaping from being forced to do business with a trade-hostile United States, and protecting Canadians from risk — can come together.

Last November, the Manitoba government signed on to an Ontario-led national electricity grid memorandum of understanding, while calling for all provinces and territories across Canada to protect Canadian energy security and “to promote Manitoba’s clean hydroelectric power.”

In the province’s November press release, the Kinew government said that expanded and modernized interprovincial transmission lines, developed in partnership with other provinces and the federal government, would help secure power grids across the country and strengthen Canada’s energy security — essentially to protect the system from power disruptions down south.

“By joining this national call for a grid, we’re making sure Manitoba has the power it needs to grow, create good jobs, export more of our own clean energy east and west, and shield our economy from global uncertainty,” Premier Wab Kinew was quoted as saying. “This is about building a future where Manitobans can count on affordable, clean electricity and a resilient economy.”

Five months later, Prime Minister Mark Carney called for massive national energy and electricity grid improvements, with a specific focus on creating an integrated east-west power grid that can function independently within Canada. Not only would it strengthen the interprovincial tie-lines and share clean energy from coast to coast, it would also help reduce reliance on the U.S. grid.

Carney said at the recent announcement of a hydroelectric deal between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador that people should understand Canadians are in charge of our own house.

As part of that house, we should definitely have our own electrical panel. Just to make sure we can keep the lights on.

» Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun