Over the past week, we all watched the chaos unfold
when Texas's electric grid threw the entire state into chaos.
It was basically the biggest blackout
since Brett Kavanaugh celebrated getting on the Supreme Court.
But Texas is far from the only state
to experience massive power outages.
And the question is, why does America's energy grid
have so many problems?
Well, let's find out why
in another installment of If You Don't Know, Now You Know.
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We all know how the electric system works, right?
You plug your phone in, you unplug it,
you plug it back in, because it's only at 11%,
and then you just stand by the wall all day
scrolling through Instagram.
But what's going on behind that wall might surprise you.
NARRATOR: In 1882, on Pearl Street in New York City,
Thomas Edison opened the world's first
commercial electric grid,
lighting up local homes and businesses
with cables connected to his power station.
WOMAN: The modern electric grid
connects to 7,300 major power plants
through nearly 160,000 miles
of high-voltage transmission lines
and millions of miles of low-voltage lines
to bring power to over 150 million customers.
MAN: There are only four distinct electrical grids
that service essentially all of North America.
You have the two big ones, Western and Eastern,
and the two electrical separatists,
Québec and Texas.
MAN 2: The electrical grid is the most massive machine
that humans have ever built.
In the United States, uh, we use
something like five or six times more energy per person
than anywhere else in the world.
Of course Americans consume that much energy.
Americans invented a bike that you have to plug in,
doesn't even go anywhere
and costs more than ten regular bicycles.
But yes, the electrical grid
is the most massive machine that man has ever built.
And it's amazing how it connects the entire continent.
I mean, just think.
While you're blending a smoothie in your kitchen,
Donald Trump is using the same electricity
to shred his tax returns.
It's actually beautiful when you think about it. Wow.
So, there's no doubt that this is an impressive system.
Unfortunately, much like a tweet from 2010,
it hasn't aged well.
NEWSWOMAN: The U.S. electric grid
loses power almost three times more often
than it did in 1984,
much more than any other industrialized nation.
Japan loses power an average of four minutes a year.
But in the northeast U.S., 214 minutes.
And it just keeps getting worse.
NEWSMAN: In 2010 alone,
disruptions in our inefficient power grid
cost our country in excess of $100 billion.
MAN: We actually lose about 60%
of the energy that we generate.
MAN 2: Most of the infrastructure
that we use today, um,
hasn't changed much since 30, 40, 50 years ago.
NEWSMAN 2: Some of the country's power systems
predate the 20th century.
Um, if Thomas Edison walked into a modern substation,
he'd feel very much at home.
Yeah, he would feel at home.
Especially if he saw Joe Biden on TV.
"Hey, my old pal Joe is president.
"Joe!
"Why are you so small?
Get out of that box, Joe."
But this is pretty worrisome.
America's living in 2021
with an electric grid that's barely been updated
in the past 50 years.
You have to update technology more often than that, people.
I mean, imagine trying to get through your life
with the first iPhone.
You couldn't even use the Maps app
because New York wasn't a state back then.
So, clearly the grid needs to be upgraded.
And we'd better do it soon,
because the problem is heating up.
WOMAN: The last half century,
there have been more and more power outages
because of weather,
and it'll only get worse because of our changing climate.
WOMAN 2: The grids are facing
more extreme conditions more often
and are susceptible to really, really major failures.
Our grid is no match for wildfires,
no match for hurricanes and flooding.
MAN: As weather patterns and temperatures
get more and more extreme,
the extremely hot and the extremely cold days
end up driving the most significant peaks
that utilities have to manage.
MAN 2: Air conditioners can account
for up to half of the electricity
being used in the country.
The first thing that happens when you have a hot day
is people use their air conditioners.
And the increase in, um,
the abundance of air conditioning,
uh, throughout the country,
um, certainly, uh, means that more people
can turn on air conditioning all at about the same time.
That's right. America is using way more air conditioning
than its grid can handle.
And I know that for a fact.
Offices in this country are so cold,
you could store corona vaccines in your desk.
And thanks to the extreme temperatures
that climate change creates,
this problem is only gonna get worse.
And maybe you're not worried. You know, maybe you're thinking,
"Oh, eventually, climate change is gonna get so bad
"that I'll be stuck between a wildfire and blizzard,
creating the perfect temperature."
But on the off chance that that doesn't happen,
America needs to find alternative methods
of climate control.
Like, I know I do that, you know?
When I'm cold, I just turn on Bridgerton.
You know, those accents. The decor.
Regé-Jean Page's smolder.
Ooh! (chuckles)
I'm hot already. Okay.
But it's not just nature
that's putting the electric grid at risk.
It's also technology.
NEWSMAN: Of all the critical components
of the U.S. infrastructure,
the power grid is one of the most vulnerable
to cyberattack.
NEWSWOMAN: Imagine if the critical infrastructure
we rely on every single day simply shut down.
Power plants, banking systems,
air traffic control, subways:
all are vulnerable.
NEWSMAN 2: Russian government hackers
are actively trying to penetrate the grid
to carry out potential attacks.
They are already in the grid.
The Russians are in. The Chinese are in.
The-the Iranians may be on the verge of getting in.
NEWSMAN 3: Ironically,
it's our less sophisticated electric providers
who may have an edge here.
Rural co-ops account for 42 million people.
None of these co-ops relies on the Internet
for the distribution of power.
That's right, people.
Sometimes the less fancy something is,
the more you can count on it.
Like Danny DeVito.
That's why when everyone is messing around
with their Spotify playlist on their iPhone 12s,
I'm jamming out to CDs
on my old, reliable Discman.
? It's been, it's been, it's been. ?
But those rural providers aside, America is in real trouble here.
If America's electricity is hacked,
that could mean hospitals lose power.
The banking system collapses.
Boeing planes fall out of the sky.
Even more than they already do.
And there are so many countries already in America's grid
that they're probably just arguing
over who will actually get to cause the blackout.
"What are you doing? Get out of here. We were here first."
"Get out of here, Russia. You already did an election.
Give us something, huh?"
In fact, you know what they need to do?
They need to update the Geneva conventions
for this new kind of warfare.
They got to be like, "Okay, look,
"we can bomb each other as much as we want,
"but can we agree no cutting power
"when there's a new WandaVision?
That's a war crime."
So this is a scary future that the world is facing.
But the good news is
the United States now has Space Force.
I mean, they won't be able to protect the power grid.
But if it does go down,
someone in space can look down on Earth
and be like, "Yep, it looks like the lights are out down there.
Everything's off."
And that, my friends, is huge.
Now, luckily, hackers haven't done any major damage
to America's power grid yet.
But wait till you hear what has.
NEWSWOMAN: One of the biggest threats to the U.S. power grid
isn't state actors or natural disasters.
It's that little gray mammal invading your birdfeeder.
In fact, it's difficult to know the severity
of our squirrel sabotage problem
because it happens so frequently.
Utility industry groups say
they are the most common cause of grid trouble.
They cause one of every five outages.
One ill-fated squirrel can knock out power
for thousands of customers
or trip up whole financial markets.
Squirrels have short-circuited Nasdaq not once but twice
from the same city in Connecticut.
Well, well, well.
Turns out squirrels have been sabotaging us.
And we shouldn't be surprised.
I mean, have you ever seen a squirrel?
They always look like they're plotting some shit.
And I guess it turns out
if squirrels were the real threat all along,
some of us need to start apologizing to our dogs.
Because it turns out they were good boys.
Very good boys.
So, yes, when you look at the state
of America's electric grid, it is not a pretty picture.
It's under threat from climate change,
from hackers, and even jumped-up rats.
Honestly, just thinking about how the entire country
could be shut down in an instant is starting to stress me out.
In fact, I'm getting so stressed,
I-I think I'm just gonna take a moment
to listen to some of my relaxing tunes.
-Aw... -(skipping): ? Sail away ?
-? Sail away, sail away ? -Yeah, yeah. Yeah.