Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares a National Emergency to Secure America’s Bulk-Power System

[u/tetaniclemur]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-a-national-emergency-to-secure-americas-bulk-power-system/

[u/slight_grumble]

You know that years long power grid blackout that people have been warning about? Yeah it's definitely happening soon.

Typical trunk to unilaterally make a major move with zero comprehension of the knock on effects. This makes a major power failure WAY more likely as necessary equipment for bulk power takes years of planning. Freezing the supply chain means expansion projects for things like datacentres will pause indefinitely and planned repairs and replacements will have to be put off until entirely new supply chains are in place. All it takes is A half dozen failures at critical points and the whole US grid goes down (except Texas iirc).

Note: i posted this comment on the other, more inflammatory titled post about this and a mod deleted it. For addressing the actual substance of the declaration rather than the headline?

[u/gcnplover23 → u/slight_grumble]

You mean Iran could do real damage if they hack a couple of big utilities? Who woulda thunk?

[u/Only-Friend-8483 → u/slight_grumble]

The US has 9 separate regional power grids (including Texas), so there’s no way for the entire US power grid to go down, except for a global scale event like the Carrington Event. 

[u/germanmojo → u/Only-Friend-8483]

Interconnections going down would disrupt enough of a single grid that they would likely need to do a hard shutdown to limit damage due to over/under production.

When Texas had the winter storm they had to disconnect large portions of the grid to limit damage.

There is some research where only about 10 critical substations would need to be hit across the country to cause country-wide power disruptions.

Jon Wellinghoff, former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), told The New York Times Magazine that America’s aging infrastructure is badly outdated and potentially vulnerable to a coordinated attack.

Wellinghoff said the FERC did an analysis that determined the U.S. power grid could be seriously disrupted if similar incidents targeted the 10 most important substations in the country’s three sections: Western, Eastern and Texas Interconnections.

“We came up with some very astounding numbers,” Wellinghoff told the publication. “If you knock out nine total substations along those three grids, you can black out the entire United States.”

[u/SOURSKOOMA → u/germanmojo]

Yes, 60 Minutes did a segment on our vulnerable power grid a while back and it was honestly a bit frightening to hear just how easily it could be knocked out.

Apparently we have known about it for a long time and haven't done much about it.

It's much worse though. The infrastructure as a whole in the US is in serious disrepair to the point at which engineers have noticed that many elements of the infrastructure, such as bridges, are not safe.

Here's that 60 Minutes segment:

https://youtu.be/65siHaUPsRM

[u/Only-Friend-8483 → u/SOURSKOOMA]

The more you know …

Thank you.