[hparadiz]

From my understanding it mostly effects large pieces of metal like copper lines but would be unlikely to create a significant charge in small electronics and wouldn't destroy solar panels or the vast majority of components. Any transformer pieces that are in a disassembled state prior to the event would be easy to put together and bootstrap any such event. Some locations like inside concrete buildings or under ground would remain insulated from the event as well. Also it's likely that at the equator no effect will be felt.

[Turskarama]

The thing is there are very few transformers in a disassembled state ready to go. Solar panels would be fine, but they're effectively useless without the ability to deliver power.

Covid was enough to create an international backlog of transformers, and that was with a normal rate of attrition.

[FrustratedMonky]

Exactly this.

Lets say there were a few transformers that did survive.

The parts to make new transformers are manufactured all over the place.

So you would need to transport the 'working' transformers where they are needed to get power back to each plant that manufactures some singular component that goes into a new transformer. AND Transport them, when gas stations in-between are all also without power.

The global supply chain is complicated and spread out. There are many places with single failure points.

-> Don't have link, but isn't there an article titles something like "nobody can make a pencil anymore". Which traces out like a dozen connections for even such a simple thing.

And, don't forget, a lot of power plants need power to be re-started. They don't all have backup gas turbines to get going again.

[LeonB]

The essay is “I, Pencil”

It’s a rollicking good read. Here it is in pdf form:

https://fee.org/media/14940/read-i-pencil.pdf

[peddling-brink]

Fascinating way to lobby for the dissolution of the USPS.

I rather wasn’t expecting that.

[geocrasher]

     And, don't forget, a lot of power plants need power to be re-started. They don't all have backup gas turbines to get going again.

That made me think of this Everyday Engineering video "What Is A Black Start Of The Power Grid?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSnQM1Zu4w

[pixl97]

Heh, when you start thinking about how much fuel is needed to make fuel it turns into a gnawing concern in your mind.

Then add in how little food most people have available and you see how modern civilization will end.

[kwhitefoot]

> Solar panels would be fine, but they're effectively useless without the ability to deliver power.

Perhaps this is an argument for making rooftop solar with storage compulsory then at least we would be able to keep the lights on. Assuming that the building could be automatically isolated quickly enough of course.

[dan_mctree]

There's not nearly enough transformers in reserve to properly rebuild the grid and you can't always just drop in and replace either. New transformers are also not currently able to be produced fast, and having society collapse around you probably wouldn't help while trying to increase their production rate. If we'd lose most transformers, it could be many months or years before large regions could see their power back, enough time to cause vast damage directly and indirectly.

[toss1]

THIS!!

It would be relatively cheap (I've reak ~$500million) to build and store a mostly complete replacement set of transformers.

The difference it would make in a Carrington+ event (or a EMP nuclear attack) is insane. Without them, likely the grid collapses for years, along with distribution, food, etc. Millions die in the years-decades it takes to recover.

With the transformer standby inventory, critical parts of the grid could be restored in hours-days, and full recovery in a few months. The one country that prepared itself with a backup inventory would instantly be the world's superpower for years, likely generations.

Yet, because there is no immediate benefit, only stochastic, there is no political will to even start to get it done. Even a 10% inventory would make a huge difference, but...

[pixl97]

Honestly this is one of those events where billions could possibly die.

Green revolution. The level of food we need requires nitrogen. This is broken down by natural gas into fertilizer and requires immense amount of energy and transportation. When the grid gets knocked out, you're on a countdown till you run out of gas/petrol. If you don't get enough power back up before this happens you're running into a game over situation. Once fuel runs low and food runs out, people will start killing each other in massive amounts to deal with the resource constrained world they live in. Once enough electrical engineers die then the system doesn't come back up.

[toss1]

Yup, it could really go down that way.

When animal populations overbreed and/or their feed under-grows, a 10% overpopulation often results in not a 10% shaving of population, but a 90% population crash, because almost every animal goes under the survival budget.

It would very much the same here.

Excellent point about the EEs (and other high-capability engineers, mechanics, technicians required to keep it all running) being in the dying population. Absolutely right - if the critical mass of available experts fails, the system never recovers. Only after society stabilizes, regrows, and re-creates the knowledge; by then, it would be about rebuilding from scratch.

[xenadu02]

In such a scenario we would just start cobbling together makeshift transformers using available materials. You just need some spools of wire, a hunk of iron, then wrap the wires around. It won't be pretty, last for 50 years, etc. But it would be enough to get electricity back on in all major and medium cities to at least some degree.

If it's really bad people will tear apart motors from clothes dryers to steal wire if needed... a jank transformer like that would be hung off the primary wires for each individual house and you wouldn't be able to run high power appliances but in a true "grid crippled" emergency people would do whatever they must.

In the immediate term those of us with solar and battery would be able to help our neighbors charge cell phones and the like. We'd also be able to charge EVs for short trips to gather supplies.

If needed people would disassemble machines for making wire and transformers then move them my horse cart or hand-pulled sled to factory buildings with electric power (or enough solar panels) to restart production.

Don't get me wrong - it would be a bad scenario - but it wouldn't destroy civilization.

[hparadiz]

Exactly this. We're in the best possible time to deal with it since everyone has a power pack with an attached solar panel and so many homes have solar now. Generators would work just fine as well. We'd be back up in a week tops.

[Turskarama]

Lmao ok mate, whatever you reckon. Keep in mind you'll need to do this without the internet to help and people not being super cooperative as they do whatever they can to get food.

[xenadu02]

Like I said: it wouldn't be a pretty situation but people aren't just going to sit back and accept the destruction of civilization and/or death. People will dig out old textbooks on electricity and figure it out.

Transformers are simple devices. The first electrical gear was a janky DIY affair by modern standards. We wouldn't wait 10 years to manufacture modern switchgear... we'd cobble together literally anything to bootstrap electrical power. It would start off as isolated islands with nearby generating capacity and where enough gear was still operating then spread from there. Major cities would be back online first, followed relatively quickly by medium cities. That might mean that only certain parts of those cities have power initially with neighbors having to share fridges as only every other block is repaired.

Small cities, towns, and rural areas would be proper fucked for a while... possibly a year or more. But before a year was up enough power would be restored to manufacturing that many of those people would install solar grid-forming and/or battery systems.

For whatever it is worth we are better positioned now than in the past. More and more people have distributed generating capacity with solar PV and grid-forming systems like Enphase IQ8 can form a microgrid just from solar energy without a battery (at reduced capacity depending on sunlight conditions). Even 10-15 years ago solar was useless without a grid to tie into so a full grid outage would be close to a 100% outage. 10% remaining may not be a large amount but its a lot more than 0 and enough to move your neighbor's fridge/freezer into your garage and keep food cold for the whole neighborhood.

(Disaster resilience is a feature of distributed solar PV, especially with batteries, that is almost never talked about)

[kwhitefoot]

There has been an oversupply of transformer manufacturing plants in the world for decades. No one needs the Internet to start building more. The designs already exist and most of the small manufacturers are still using manual or at most semi-automatic winding machines. For large transformers this is true even in the big manufacturers like ABB and Hitachi. Stacking the cores can easily be done by hand.

The bottleneck would most likely be the supply of core steel. Increasing demands for efficiency have pushed core steel manufacturing into a few high tech manufacturers.

[Turskarama]

Other things you haven't considered:

Fuel pumps run on electricity, so you need to get them working before you can get any materials, everywhere, or you won't be able to fuel all the ships and trucks necessary to move anything.

Phone lines (and the internet) runs on electricity so you need to get them back up to coordinate everything.

While you are trying to rebuild your transformers most of the food we have in storage will rot. Think you can fix the grid fast enough to prevent all your factory workers leaving to forage?

It's incredibly naive to imagine that this is an easy problem to solve. The amount of stuff that you have subconsciously assumed to make this scenario work is staggering.

[xenadu02]

Yes... so priority will be to find diesel generators to get refineries back online. Individual pump stations will, if needed, scavenge solar panels or generators to get their own pumps up and running.

Governments will prioritize food and electrical infrastructure, likely banning transport of anything not critical to these two categories. Trucks traveling to transformer plants (and plants converted into switchgear plants) will carry food to the plant if necessary.

I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture... that everything will be OK everywhere. Some areas will manage better than others. Some areas may well turn into riot zones as people fight each other for food. Recovery will initially be spotty and uneven.

But I'm 100% confident it will not be a semi-permanent collapse of civilization. I'm also 100% confident some metro areas (and the farming areas nearest to them) will be back up and operational within 1-2 weeks up to 1-2 months depending on local circumstances.

[bsder]

We are probably close enough to be able to deploy solar with storage in sufficient quantity that isolated islands would be viable to re-bootstrap.

This also has the advantage that it helps your economics during normal operation rather than just during a crisis.

[dwighttk]

are uninstalled transformers even safe?

[LeonB]

Provided they’re not connected to lengths of conducting material, they ought to be ok.

Hard to be certain though, as transformers are more than meets the eye.

[kwhitefoot]

> transformers are more than meets the eye.

Really?

Transformers are very simple electrical machines. The design process is complex but the object itself is made of mild steel for the tank and supporting frameworks, special steel for the core, copper or aluminium for the windings, paper and resin for insulation, and oil for insulation and cooling.

There are a few ancillary components to do with detecting faults and switching taps and sometimes pumps to circulate the oil through radiators.

Apart from the pumps, circulating oil, and tap changer, there are no moving parts.

There are no compulsory electronic components in even the biggest transformers. Apart from improvements in material quality and the design process a power or distribution transformer built now is really not very different from those built a hundred years ago. In fact there are many transformers that were built fifty years ago that are still in service. Occasionally such transformers are repaired rather than replaced when they fail, quite often the original drawings are still available.

[LeonB]

That’s a really clear response. I like the details and context you include.

When I was a little kid the original tv series of “the transformers” was one of the most popular children’s shows. The theme song sang, in a sort of robotic chorus: “Transformers: more than meets the eye”. I was trying to make a subtle reference to this, as an inside joke to people the exact same age as me (or people who know the Shia LaBeouf movies, if they even use that same lyric?)

[kwhitefoot]

Thanks. Working in the industry for over thirty years has paid off :-)

I'm much too old for the Transformers TV series, that flew straight past me I'm afraid. I was eight when the original Dr Who series started!

[dwighttk]

(It was a reference to the children’s cartoon)

[sulam]

Right, you have to avoid the Decepticons.

[Tangurena2]

After a couple incidents where snipers shot at substations or hackers turned stuff off, there was a burst of worry about the fragility of our electrical grid. Of the large transformers that make up substations, almost all of them are unique. There is no inventory of spare transformers. Each one is custom made and takes months. The small transformers you see on poles are made by the thousand, and stocked at every utility. The small ones are not the problem. The big ones - that are the size of SUVs and houses - are the ones that the grid depends on.

[maxerickson]

There's a difference between made to order and bespoke.

Of course, most of the discourse is hand wavy speculation, vs characterization of the existing stock of transformers, like what standards they are built to and the magnitude of an event that would certainly damage them.

[kwhitefoot]

Most large transformers are actually unique but this has little to do with the characteristics of the transformer. It is mostly to do with optimizing the design to minimize the total lifetime cost. This requires a new design for each transformer because the relative prices of core steel and copper or aluminium varies over time. When copper is cheap the total cost will be lower if you use more copper and less core steel for instance while the opposite will be true if the copper price is high.

If cost is not as important as prompt delivery the manufacturer can often just take an existing design and repeat it.

[dgroshev]

I doubt that it's strictly true seeing how quickly Ukraine was replacing their transformers after Russia deliberately targeted them. As far as I can tell it was a strain on the global supply, but evidently not insurmountable.