[SmartCat]

I think we are going all electric without fully considering the risks of doing so -

- Currently, 75% to 90% of train tracks in our country are electrified. Within a year or two, our tracks will be 100% electrified.
- Metro trains in our cities are obviously electric.
- All major cities are planning to add electric buses to their fleet. A few years down the line, it is very likely that many cities will have all electric fleet.
- In the future, ola/uber taxis/autorickshaws and last mile delivery commercial vehicles could go all electric too. Intercity trucks/buses too might go all electric.
- Some households already have only EVs (eg: electric car and electric scooter). In the future, as EV technology matures, we will see longer range and lower costs. All EV households are likely to increase slowly over time.

No, this article will NOT be about how we are using coal powered plants or about technology imports from China or all the battery pollution we might cause. This is about the risk of a single point of failure - that is, if the electric grid goes down for an extended period of time, it also takes down transport with it. And in the future, if commercial vehicles go all electric, groceries and vegetable shops will be empty if the grid goes down. Basically, our entire country will grind to a halt.

THE BLACK SWAN RISK:

The problem is we are all used to 1 or 2 hour power cuts, that too, in small localized areas. If an entire city loses power even for 6 or 8 hours, it makes it to headlines. If a country loses power for 24 hours (like what happened to Pakistan this year), it makes international headlines.

But what will happen if we lose power for 3 days? Or a week? Or even more? The most obvious answer to that is -> it will never happen. Technicians will fix the problem, come what may. After all, we are so used to seeing this happen all over the world. The reasoning is that such an acocalytic scenario will not happen.

Now we all know that all Swans are white:



But just because we have not seen a black colored swan, it does not mean that they do not exist. It's just that we have not seen them in our lives.
Similarly, just because we have never had an extended power failure, it does not mean we will not have such a scenario in the future.

That is the basis of Black Swan Theory of managing risks.

[SmartCat]

Risk of extended power failure is not such a crazy thought either. Here is the list of major power failures in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._power_outages

- Brazil had major blackouts and power issues for 3 months at a stretch in 1999
- Paraguay had similar issues for 10 days in 2009
- Entire Pakistan had power outage for 24 hours in 2023

And no, this is not a 'developing country' problem. Some areas in Texas lost power for 3 days!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

INDIA SPECIFIC EXTENDED POWER OUTAGE RISKS:

Along with weather & technical issues we might face in the future, our country faces the risk of extended blackout because of enemy action (China, not Pakistan).

1) Management of power infrastructure is driven by software connected to the internet. However, the entire system can be hacked into and controlled via Malware. The power outage that happened in Mumbai during the Galwan crisis is suspected to be a cyber attack from China. NYTimes article:

China Appears to Warn India: Push Too Hard and the Lights Could Go Out
As border skirmishing increased last year, malware began to flow into the Indian electric grid, a new study shows, and a blackout hit Mumbai. It now looks like a warning.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/28/u...ectricity.html

The study shows that as the standoff continued in the Himalayas, taking at least two dozen lives, Chinese malware was flowing into the control systems that manage electric supply across India, along with a high-voltage transmission substation and a coal-fired power plant.

Stuart Solomon, Recorded Future’s chief operating officer, said that the Chinese state-sponsored group, which the firm named Red Echo, “has been seen to systematically utilize advanced cyberintrusion techniques to quietly gain a foothold in nearly a dozen critical nodes across the Indian power generation and transmission infrastructure.”

2) India also faces the risk of cruise/ballistic missile attack on power infrastructure. Like how Russia tried to take out Ukraine's power infrastructure with missiles in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war. When it comes to missiles, China has 10x larger inventory and manufacturing capability than Russia. It is the only country in the world to have a separate division for missiles called PLA Rocket Force. Meaning, while everybody has Army/Navy/AirForce, Chinese have Army/Navy/Air Force/Missile Force



Sure, India is much more massive than Ukraine. And India's power plants are spread all over the country. But still, power distribution network is interconnected (this helps in sending power from surplus to deficit states). Persistent blows to certain previously identified important targets (eg: major grid electric sub-station) could take out power over a large area (this is called cascading failure)

[SKC-auto]

In a scenario where there will be 3 days of power cut, where will we get petrol and diesel? 3 days of power cut will be a total disaster even with EVs or ICE.

Oil refineries are an easy target than targeting solar panels and wind mills, it will be a crazy idea if PLA wants to bomb solar panels in a desert than targeting 28(IIRC) oil refinery infrastructure. The reason every country builds strategic oil reserves, one was said to be built by digging a huge mountain cavern near our home and near to Eastern naval command HQ in Vizag, this place also has a huge HPCL refinery.

I have childhood memories of running for life when this HPCL refinery plant blasted multiple times during an accident, there was acidic rain, people with infants too got drenched in this rain, running for life.

Future EV developments(already Tesla has latest update) will allow me to directly charge the car from solar panel, let the PLA bomb every house, similarly with V2L and V2G EVs will support people in such outages. We have already seen EVs helping people in Texas cold.

Let's build more solar and Wind and see what PLA can do. Saudi Arabia and Aramco were easy targets even for small time rebels, the real swan is ICE infra.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

In a scenario where there will be 3 days of power cut, where will we get petrol and diesel? 3 days of power cut will be a total disaster even with EVs or ICE.

Power outage does not harm fuel supplies (as we have seen in Ukraine). Actually, these fuel supplies can be used to generate electricity (portable generators, apartment/hospital generators etc).

Also, petrol/diesel can be imported. Many countries don't even have any refineries or have very limited refinery infra. That's why India is one of the largest exporter of petrol/diesel/aviation fuel.

Let's build more solar and Wind and see what PLA can do.

All connected to the grid, so it does not matter. Russia primarily attacked the power distribution network. Also, more solar or wind power does not solve the hacking/malware problem - because it is again attacking the distribution network, not the power generation. Also, enemy action is just one of the extra things that could go wrong with Indian power network - we can still have unexpected technical/weather issues.

Future EV developments(already Tesla has latest update) will allow me to directly charge the car from solar panel

I thought such solutions exist already. Living off the grid using Tesla solar panels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJeSWbR6W04

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

Power outage does not harm fuel supplies (as we have seen in Ukraine). Actually, these fuel supplies can be used to generate electricity (portable generators, apartment/hospital generators etc).

All connected to the grid, so it does not matter. Russia did not attack power plants. They attacked the power distribution network.

Ukraine has a small population, I believe it is next to impossible to ship oil from other countries for all of Indian population, as surely there will be naval blockade. Unlike Ukraine, no neighbour of India will help us, most Europeans are helping Ukraine and determined to defeat Russia, our neighbours will help China in such naval blockade. We are doomed if we depend on ICE infra.

The first thing the govt of India does when such an attack happens is ask all citizens to stop using oil, as this is required by military.

As I said no need to grid connect all solar panels, roof top solar can be used to charge EVs and electricity needs.

China only targeted Indian grid, they can create chaos by hacking into petroleum refining infrastructure. No system is hack proof, what happens if they hack into control panels in the refinery.

The black swan, is after all what we are living with always, any system has its own risks.

[SmartCat]

One risk mitigation move we have already done is stop imports of power/telecom equipment from China. This was decided around the Galwan crisis time, and I suspect the alleged hack/malware attack might have something to do with the decision.

Hopefully, there is some kind of plan to replace existing equipment.

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

The black swan, is after all what we are living with always, any system has its own risks.

Good point there. All our wealth is in "numbers" on a bank's web page. I wonder what kind of system-wide risks they face (Eg: "Fire Sale" cyberattack as shown in Die Hard 4 )

[nandrive]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

The problem is we are all used to 1 or 2 hour power cuts, that too, in small localized areas. If an entire city loses power even for 6 or 8 hours, it makes it to headlines. If a country loses power for 24 hours (like what happened to Pakistan this year), it makes international headlines.

But what will happen if we lose power for 3 days? Or a week? Or even more? The most obvious answer to that is -> it will never happen. Technicians will fix the problem, come what may. After all, we are so used to seeing this happen all over the world. The reasoning is that such an acocalytic scenario will not happen.

Losing power for a week may not happen in metro, tier 1,2 or 3 cities, but its very common at least in the villages of western ghats. My village is situated in the western ghats of Karnataka, during rainy season, if transformers go bad or electric poles get uprooted we lose power for minimum 7 to 15 days. This summer, pre monsoon showers uprooted few electric poles and we lost power for 4 days. We have solar for our lighting needs but solar does not generate enough during the rainy season (Most people do not even know how the rainy season feels like in the Chirapunji of south). I have witnessed Australian bushfire season as well, even there solar was almost useless. During natural disasters (Earthquake, flood, bushfire...) its foolish to rely on grid or solar.

[speedmiester]

From a personal standpoint, I am all for 100% electrification. But on national level, we are too far from moving to an all electric mode of transportation.
Having said that, this may happen sooner than later, given that there are advancement in battery technology and faster charging infrastructure happening at a rapid pace.

[fhdowntheline]

The Don Quixotes of the world should be better advised to stop marching up to the windmills. 'Ideal' is not sustainable, how much ever romanticized it may be. Most major nations do know this I think, especially the US. But as has happened in the past, they will sell utopian dreams to the global south, some of whose leaders will lap them up without a thought for examining the relevance to their country's socio economic context.

Forget the means of energy for transportation, there are certain places like Himachal Pradesh and perhaps others where there is now a need to rethink how much tourism should be allowed in the first place. It is obvious that rapacious growth of infrastructure is destroying the local ecology.

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

No, this article will NOT be about how we are using coal powered plants or about technology imports from China or all the battery pollution we might cause. This is about the risk of a single point of failure - that is, if the electric grid goes down for an extended period of time, it also takes down transport with it. And in the future, if commercial vehicles go all electric, groceries and vegetable shops will be empty if the grid goes down. Basically, our entire country will grind to a halt.

Why is this a concern when everything is being electrified?? When all trains moved from steam to fossil fuel or all cars moved from steam/hand drawn/animal drawn to fossil fuel or building heating moved from wood fire based heating to gas based heating or when all communication went from landline to mobile phones or many more such examples, this was never a concern.

The inevitability of a black swan event is in every scenario. Example - War in Ukraine broke out the whole of Europe was under gas shortage due to Russian supply issue, many wars have caused oil prices to sky rocket. A riot situation in a state blocks all internet resulting in a complete failure of all digital implementation, a ship runs aground in a canal blocks majority of the world trade, a country gets less rainfall and it cannot fill the canal impacting world trade.

How is all of the above any different from everything being electrified? In the end, necessity is the mother of all inventions. We as humans always adapt to the challenges thrown at us. Who says the world will stop at electrification and not think about grid redundancy or other alternatives which are equally green or carbon neutral

In IT industry, when we do fringe or edge testing of critical code but does it make the failure proof - NO. Example - Boeing implemented a software on 737 max which tested and approved for commercial use. But a condition in the code/flight scenario led to a loss of lives and grounding of fleet for more than a year.

And if all the implemented safeguards fail then be it electricity, fuel supply chain, food supply chain, pharmaceutical supply chain or anything else. The impact is going to be the same.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

And if all the implemented safeguards fail then be it electricity, fuel supply chain, food supply chain, pharmaceutical supply chain or anything else. The impact is going to be the same.

Just to clarify, none of the examples cited meet the criteria for comparison:

- Single point of failure AND
- Nationwide effect AND
- Can bring all activities in the entire country to a standstill

So 'AND' is the key operative here.

For eg:

- Boeing software on 737 had a very localised effect (affected just Boeing & airline cos)
- Natural Gas from Russia to Europe example is close, but other than Germany, most countries had reasonable diversification. Also, natural gas can be imported as LNG.
- Fuel/food/pharma supply chains and sources are diversified for most countries including India. Does not meet the criteria for single point of failure.

Communication/internet outage comes close for comparison, but there are alternatives like landline/satellite connectivity (eg: starlink usage in Ukraine). It will be chaotic but there will still be groceries/fruits/vegetables on the shelves.

[Night Raven]

Not long back I actually went through this scenario. On a friday evening, our power supply lines got disrupted due to heavy rain and wind. I called frantically to the KSEB customer care knowing well if it isn't done the same day it won't be done until Monday. All they told me was they have a lot of similar complaints and they are working as much as they can. Our inverter battery ran out by Saturday morning. I shifted the kids and wife to the accommodation provided by my hospital and parents stayed back home saying they will somehow manage. Eventually KSEB could repair the lines only by Monday. Within another month I installed an off grid solar system sufficient to run the house with grid support required only for geysers and similar heavy equipment.
I am not someone who always thinks about apocalyptic situations, but I would prefer to have a back up plan when it comes to transportation also. If I can afford to own two cars, I would definitely keep one of them ICE and the other could be an electric. I wouldn't want to waste 30 min to charge my car when I am evacuating from a tsunami.

[Thilak29]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

I think we are going all electric...

Energy transition is a serious topic involving many academics, policy makers and core industry players. This is not the lift - shift approach that you are painting it with where we will continue to operate on existing monolithic infrastructure model end to end (generation to consumption). The current model in many countries (including ours) is changing from centralized to decentralized mechanism, limiting choking points. This change is slow, thanks to the nature of the problem, historical lethargy (decision makers) and capex involved.

I invite you to read more about the concept of micro grids (links below). Many companies, including my employer, have been working on this for many years and I am hopeful that the black swan scenario is very unlikely if the microgrid concept is adapted worldwide.

An example to quote, Indian Railways was producing close to 125 MW of power from their solar infra across India as of Jan 2022, numbers would have trended upwards there on. There was a study which indicated, with full electrification and solar implementation presently approx. Twenty-five percent of IR fleet can run can be run with Solar - that's huge for the scale it brings.

BTW, grids will see failures even in future for physical malfunction or some cyber/digital failures - however mission critical systems are not designed/engineered with "all eggs in one basket" thinking.

Further reading:

https://new.abb.com/about/our-busine...rid/microgrids
https://www.hitachi.com/rev/archive/...bal/index.html
https://www.siemens.com/global/en/pr...microgrid.html

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by Thilak29

Energy transition is a serious topic involving many academics, policy makers and core industry players. This is not the lift - shift approach that you are painting it with where we will continue to operate on existing monolithic infrastructure model end to end (generation to consumption).

Many European countries did not fully think it through when they decided to shut down coal plants (to reduce carbon emissions) and nuclear power plants (after Fukushima disaster). They went "all-in" on imported natural gas for both heating and power, thereby given Russia enormous geopolitical leverage in Europe. The idea was to shift to natural gas, while they build up their solar/wind power generation infrastructure. Carbon emission targets and pandering to environmentally conscious voters/influencers/talking heads can result in countries taking decisions that harm their self-interests.

So we cannot simply assume that enough thought will be put into energy transition. Also, my question is mostly hypothetical. I'm aware of the likely glacial nature of India's transition from polluting to clean energy.

The current model in many countries (including ours) is changing from centralized to decentralized mechanism, limiting choking points. This change is slow, thanks to the nature of the problem, historical lethargy (decision makers) and capex involved.

I invite you to read more about the concept of micro grids (links below). Many companies, including my employer, have been working on this for many years and I am hopeful that the black swan scenario is very unlikely if the microgrid concept is adapted worldwide.

This is what I was looking for!

Just to clarify, I'm not an anti-electrification guy. Poll question no. 1 refers to maintaining a balance between electrification/fossil fuels while poll question No. 2 is about continuing with 100% electrification but after solutions for mitigating widespread outage risks are developed.

An example to quote, Indian Railways was producing close to 125 MW of power from their solar infra across India as of Jan 2022, numbers would have trended upwards there on. There was a study which indicated, with full electrification and solar implementation presently approx. Twenty-five percent of IR fleet can run can be run with Solar - that's huge for the scale it brings.

It is unlikely that the trains will run off the grid though. Indian Railway power production via solar is to get close to net zero carbon emission and also to reduce the cost of operations (via electricity generation).

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

Just to clarify, I'm not an anti-electrification guy. Poll question no. 1 refers to maintaining a balance between electrification/fossil fuels while poll question

Many on our forum and in our country are thinking that EVs are fanciful new tech, we have options to either change to EVs or stick with ICE cars. Some even think that we are changing to EVs to impress Musk and Greta Thunberg.

Sadly, the truth is we have no option, if we do not reduce our emissions we are into huge disaster. See the floods in Pakistan, India and China, wild fires in Australia, California etc. ICE sheets melting to its lowest points.

I have seen many Europeans taking extended leaves just because they are unable to bear the heat in summer.

Western countries are changing to heat pumps, induction cooking which means we are moving towards 100% electricity dependence which is 100% generated from solar + wind + water + storage.

With due respect to you, these polls are pointless on a largely ICE enthusiastic forum, I know the outcome even before anyone voted.