I think we will see suitcase bombs go off in ten cities taking out a few city blocks but also taking out the electric substations. When those ten substations are destroyed it will cause the entire electric grid of the continental US to collapse.
A widespread, prolonged power outage would immediately halt the U.S. economy. Key impacts include manufacturing shutdowns, transportation failures, spoilage of food and medical supplies, and immediate freezes on digital transactions. The grid's high sensitivity means even short outages cause massive disruption, with costs growing non-linearly over time.
Immediate Economic Consequences
- Manufacturing Standstill: High-volume manufacturers lose over $5 million per hour of downtime, as production lines halt and equipment is damaged by surges upon restoration.
- Digital Economy Collapse: Data centers and cloud computing systems, which fuel modern business, can suffer losses exceeding $12 million from a single day of downtime.
- Supply Chain Disruption: Transportation, shipping, and logistics rely on electricity to manage inventory, leaving trucks stuck and retail inventories stranded.
- Retail and Transaction Failures: Retailers and supermarkets face immediate losses from spoilable food and an inability to process credit card transactions.
Longer-Term and Cascading Impacts
- Critical Infrastructure Failure: Extended outages cripple water and sewage treatment plants, fuel pumps, and communication systems (cell towers).
- Financial Market Disruption: Stock exchange trading can be halted, interrupting the flow of capital and commerce.
- Healthcare Crisis: Hospitals and care facilities are forced to rely on backup generators, which can fail under prolonged strain.
Frequency and Cost Trend
- Rising Risk: Major power outages have increased by 78% between 2011 and 2021 compared to the previous decade, often driven by extreme weather.
- Estimated Cost: Recent reports estimate power outages cost US electricity customers roughly $121 billion in 2024, with total economic losses often surpassing $150 billion per year.
- State-Level Impact: Texas and coastal states, such as Louisiana and California, often face the highest economic losses due to weather-driven disasters.
Estimates suggest that 90% of Americans would die in such a collapse of the electric power grid.
It can take 18 months to build and replace a substation. However, many of these are built in China, so if they plan the attack they could have the substations already built and ready to be installed six months later, and so, turn the power back on after most of the Americans have died and then take over the country.
nypost.com
www.reuters.com
