The blackout of 2003 called, said it wants it's big honking warning signs back.

Or as one guy on slashdot put it, "I live in New York, and not long ago, the Black Gate of Armonk swung open. The lights went out, my skin crawled, and dogs began to howl. I asked my neighbor what it was and he said, "Those are the Nazgûl. Once they were human, now they are IBM's lawyers."

Enrico Fermi theorized that a nuclear detonation would cause an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which would cause problems with electrical systems.

http://www.futurescience.com/emp/EMP-history.html

During the first United States nuclear test in 1945, electronic equipment was shielded due to Enrico Fermi's expectation of an electromagnetic pulse from the detonation. The official technical history for that first nuclear test states, "We can understand the difficulty of transmitting signals during the explosion when we consider that the gamma rays from the reaction will ionize the air and other material within hundreds of yards. Fermi has calculated that the ensuing removal of the natural electrical potential gradient in the atmosphere will be equivalent to a large bolt of lightning striking that vicinity. . . . All signal lines were completely shielded, in many cases doubly shielded. In spite of this many records were lost because of spurious pickup at the time of the explosion that paralyzed the recording equipment."

In 1962 the US conducted a test called "Starfish Prime" over the Johnson Atoll in central Pacific. A 1.44 megaton device was detonated at 400 kilometers.

Starfish Prime also made EMP effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometers (898 miles) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link.

Whoops.

The EMP damage of the Starfish Prime test was quickly repaired because of the ruggedness (compared to today) of the electrical and electronic infrastructure of Hawaii in 1962. Realization of the potential impacts of high-altitude nuclear EMP became more apparent to some scientists and engineers during the 1970s as more sensitive solid-state electronics began to come into widespread use.

Oh.

Power infrastructure can be an appealing target for terrorism because the sites are poorly protected and the economic impact of a successful attack can be high--particularly in a city like New York.

Since nuclear plants are low-lying and often not visible from publicly accessible areas, there's a good chance that a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant wouldn't be captured on film -- and that would undermine a main goal of terrorist groups, which is to create propaganda.

He's talking about modern warfare vs. warrior cultures.

Read Victor David Hanson's The Western Way of War for an interesting discussion about the nature and evolution of war and strategy.

Western warfare seeks to impoverish its enemies by destroying a civilization's ability to feed and sustain itself; and, by extension, to wage war.

Warrior cultures are about symbols and symbolic victories. Fighting is done warrior-to-warrior. Targets of major attacks are symbolic ones; Capture the Flag writ large with violence.

Being recognized as a warrior in a warrior culture is paramount. In contrast, the Western warrior is anonymous - e.g., the role of a Greek hoplite was to be a link in a chain.

The current Muslim terrorism is born of warrior culture, a warrior culture frustrated by a modernity it cannot understand. It seeks to destroy the symbolic targets of its enemies. It pretends to understand modern warfare by attacking civilian targets to sow chaos and mayhem, foregoing attacking targets with actual economic value and instead choosing ones with symbolic value. Thus, pizza parlors and bus stops are preferred over power plants.

Compare American and German submarine warfare to Japanese submarine warfare in World War II. The Germans and Americans targeted mercantile tonnage in an effort to starve and impoverish their enemies, to weaken their ability to wage war. The Japanese, on the other hand, targeted mainly capital ships in an effort to show mastery over their enemy, warrior to warrior, letting American troopships and supply ships traverse the Pacific almost unmolested.

So little did the Japanese understand what the Americans were doing that they were late to develop the convoy system and even then employed it only sporadically.

Lots of places in the US (perhaps even most by geography) take infrastructure seriously. Yes they have localized power outages. But nothing major. The power infrastructure issues in the north east or west coast are ones made by politicians. Things fail big because the politicians demand it to be so. Those politicians were elected by the local voters. It is a choice people living there have made.

In a similar vein the roads in Louisiana are terrible. All the building and maintenance funds got stolen. It's been that way for at least 50 years. The near by states don't have this problem. So it is hard to have pity for the people living there. This is a choice they have made. It is what they want.

Localized power outages are a trivial problem. In every hurricane or big storm or tornado power gets knocked out and then gets fixed quickly. It seems, however, that the CA Paradise fire was caused by downed power lines--now that is a problem.

A big problem is starting to be caused by NIMBY: in NYC the power co said no more gas hookups due to lack of gas pipelines. That means no new construction. Last winter Boston had to import LNG for the same reason--from Russia!!!

Metcalf sniper attack

https://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack

"On April 16, 2013, a sophisticated assault was carried out on Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Metcalf Transmission Substation in Coyote, California, near the border of San Jose. The attack, in which gunmen fired on 17 electrical transformers, resulted in more than $15 million worth of equipment damage, but it had little impact on the station's electrical power supply.""

“Much of New York's power is still generated locally,”

Because transmission loss per mile is a major concern, it should be locally.

As to infrastructure, Obama gave a trillion plus $ to infrastructure, which got diverted to union retirement funds and teachers. Infrastructures won’t be fixed because it is too obvious a need and too easy and profitable to divert money from.

The emphasis on wind and solar energy makes the management of the grid much more difficult. Solar energy, for example, would seem to be a good match to air-conditioning loads...but on a hot day,, the need for air conditioning continues after the sun is low in the sky and even after it has set. The term "California Duck" has been used to describe the shape of the resulting generation vs load curve as seen in that state.

And very few journalists and other 'renewable' cheerleaders seem to comprehend just how difficult and expensive it is to store large quantities of electricity for any substantial period of time.

See my post Freezing in the Dark:

https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/59310.html

I don't know if you know this - but the size of the electrical grid already in service is often proportional to both stability and the ease with which new generators can be added to the grid. The bigger the demand, the easier it is to add a generator.

Each new generator added is very similar to adding pedalers on a bicycle made for many people. To avoid being a load, rather than a contributor to grid power, the oncoming generator is brought online spinning just a fraction faster than the grid frequency of 60.00Hz and with identical or slightly higher terminal voltage than the grid. The output circuit breaker, an exotic and enormous thing having nearly nothing in common with anything you've seen (sometimes containing sodium hexaflouride gas, get the idea?) will be closed to make the connection to the grid. The oncoming generator's primary mover, a steam turbine, gas turbine or diesel generator in rare cases, will be adjusted to provide real power (the prime mover will try to raise Hz above 60.00, but can't because it's far smaller than the total load and its regulator can tell how much power is delivered), and the generator's voltage regulator will be adjusted in a complicated dance designed to keep the generator's voltage regulator happy and in-band, to make sure it also remains a net contributor. This part isn't easy because the grid is more vulnerable to voltage issues - lightning doesn't have a frequency regulator.
For the bulk of electrical loads, frequency determines the speed at which motors run, and voltage provides the magnetic flux necessary to move motor parts, as well as the potential to energize resistive loads such as stovetops and incandescent bulbs.

Its interesting that the size of the grid should be of note - it's that big so regions with available capacity can sell it to others. People insist on living where it costs energy - like southern California. California is a net energy consumer, not producer, and its demand is one enormous reason the grid is vulnerable in the first place.