Using the Power Grid as a weapon ?

Can the power grid be used as a weapon ?
Reading through this article this seems quite possible.
My knowledge of electricity and electric systems is very low so maybe some people who know more about the subject like to have a look into this.
It is anyway an interesting scenario.

What i get from it is that one could create changes in frequencies in specific parts of the electric power grid and there for overload large generators or possibly even nuclear reactors.
This could create large explosions in these generators.
Nuclear explosions ?
Also by changing the frequencies on the grid that every one taps into, one could disable most electric equipment like computers, washing machines, TV's, air conditioners etc. etc.

My question is, could this be done ?

A recent AP report states that there is a proposal in place to change the frequency various parts of the national electrical grid run at. The frequency differences will be minor, but will force an end to the national grid as we know it. The only way frequencies can be different at all in separate locations around the nation is to not have a grid at all.

They are attempting to childishly play this down as something that will mess up clocks. But what it really means is that they are going to dismantle the national power grid entirely.

(snip)

Here they say they will allow "more frequency variation". Well, that means that after most of a century of having zero frequency variation, that there will now be frequency variation. America's power grid has been perfectly synchronized since 1930 and has never varied by more than 1/10th of a cycle (1/600th of a second) from coast to coast in over 80 years.

(snip)

Want to blow a nuclear reactor? Here's a good way to try! SUDDENLY and without announcement, introduce a frequency difference on the grid. Suddenly that nuke plant would be forced to deal with a rapid phase inversion on the grid. With all the stored momentum in the generators available for a nice peak surge output, thousands and thousands of times higher than anything they could ever handle if suddenly the coupled phases were inverted, there would be at a minimum enormous explosions in the circuit breakers and switch gear, and most likely enormous explosions from within the generator windings themselves.

SOURCE

reply to post by jaamaan

Want to blow a nuclear reactor? Here's a good way to try! SUDDENLY and without announcement, introduce a frequency difference on the grid.

I hardly think they are going to do it "suddenly and without announcement". And this could only be a legit attack for anyone who can control frequencies on the power grid. What I find actually interesting about this is the fact that they want to change the frequencies...why exactly do they want to do that? It will affect clocks and other devices that rely on a precise frequency for timing mechanisms. It's also interesting that not long ago a lot of people were reporting that Electric watches in Sicily (Italy) running all 20 minutes faster. It was soon realized that problems in the power grid were causing the troubles...but something about that story never felt right to me.

The quickest was to take out the power would be a EMP. A high altitude nuke explosion could take out a good chunk of the nation. High-altitude nuclear explosions

reply to post by jaamaan


Denial of service of electrical power could be used as a weapon.

I don't think that frequency changes would have great effect on power generation.

It may cause brownouts & pulsing where different segments of the grid were connected and cause timing issues for equipment that utilises the AC source as a time code.

Essentially, long runs of cable are a problem with electrical transmission. Losses become greater and induced currents (think CME's) become greater.

The grid, as it stands, is already segmented both physically and politically, but reliance on a master frequency means that newer technology/higher frequency generation sets which may be more efficient in particular circumstances, cannot be used because of an outdated and irrelevant standard.

reply to post by jaamaan

It certainly can be a very powerful weapon, Tesla was developing some world changing things in his short lifetime. Upon his death in NYC the FBI under orders from J Edgar Hoover took posession of his documents. For an idea of what they may have contained you need look no further than your local library.
As for the current "grid" it is pretty much exposed to anyone, most power lines in the US are suspended above wooden poles or metal structures built years ago. A decent ice storm or even a crazy squirrel can cause a blackout.
EMP is also very dangerous and the necessary components to black out an entire neighborhood are not out of reach to anyone. I won't elaborate for obvious reasons.

You folks really need to read the whole original article or at least the first half of it.

With zero knowledge of such things, my take is that this different phasing is really intended to prevent a Stuxnet or similar type of virus from crashing the whole US power grid.

As the author states a slight out of phase can blow the whole system. I'm going to further assume that this control outfit that he has never heard about is a secret government agency that will be the watchdog for such.

Anybody have any better ideas or want to dispute my comments above?

Hmmm... I read this article the other day and was thinking they meant cycle to cycle frequency variation would increase (basically reduce efficiency but reduce the need for correcting small variations, a tradeoff) but now I reread it and it seems it would be more regional. But anyway...

I was under the impression that there wasn't a national grid anyway... It is segmented, and each of those segments could run on a different frequency. Like shown here: uspowergrid.htm

There could still be very big problems due to the switchover... Like mentioned in the OP's source article: if the generators are not synchronized with the rest of the grid, the torque can rip the machines apart and/or out of their mounts. What those machines are tied to could cause other problems depending on their use and failsafes.

reply to post by jaamaan


This is not actually very feasible.

A brief primer on Electricity, and electrical power distribution follows:

Okay,
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c02f812bf159.gif[/atsimg]

Basic laws of electromagnetism states that a current passed through a conductor that is within a magnetic field at a right angle to the current flow will produce a motive force on that conductor at a right angle to the current flow and the magnetic field lines.

Conversely, the motion of a conductor through a magnetic field at a right angle to the conductors motion will create a current through the conductor at right angles to the motion of the conductor and the magnetic field.

This is known as the right hand rule.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/52c6eb032cc6.gif[/atsimg]

Electrical Generators use this principle to create electrical power.

The voltage produced by the armature (the coil of wire at the center) is proportional to the speed that it is cutting through the magnetic field lines....

Therefore, the closer it is to parallel with the magnetic field, the higher the voltage, and when it is at a right angle to the magnetic field (and thus not crossing the magnetic field) the voltage is zero.

When the coil of wire continues its rotation, it begins cutting the magnetic fields in the opposite direction, and thus the current flow reverses, Hence the sinusoidal voltage waveform:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6e709c27a029.gif[/atsimg]

With the current flowing in one direction during half the rotation, and the other way during the other hald of the rotation.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1e6f66d47318.gif[/atsimg]
This picture is an example of a 3 phase generator, with the difference from the above examples in that the Armature (spinning part) carries the magnetic field, and the Stators (stationary parts on the outside) are the current carrying conductors.

As the magnetized stator spins, it causes an alternating current in all three of the stators, producing 3 AC sine waves in three different conductors, that are exactly 120 degrees out of phase with each-other.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f9553d7ced77.png[/atsimg]

Now, a Voltage transformer takes advantage of another law of electricity... that a current passing through a conductor will create a magnetic field around that conductor, and conversely that a magnetic field passing through a conductor will create current flow.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6c063280bd99.gif[/atsimg]

The alternating current in the coil windings on one side, creates a moving magnetic field, that causes current to flow in the "Core" of the Transformer, which creates a magnetic field in the "Core" which causes current to flow in the windings on the other side.

The voltage change is proportional to the ratio of windings on one side, and the other... and the amperage change is inversely proportional to that same ratio.

This is because Voltage, Current, and Power are all interrelated.

Voltage is the "Electrical Pressure"
Current (amps) is the rate of Electrical Flow
and Power (watts) is the product of the two

So, 120 volts, at 5 amps, draws 600 watts.

120 * 5 = 600

This is known as Ohms Law.
en.wikipedia.org...

So, if your primary winding on a transformer has 1 loops of windings (and is 10 volts, 10 amps) and the secondary has 10 loop of windings, then the voltage will be multiplied by 10 for 100 volts, and the amperage will be divided by 10 for 0.1 amps.


This is why power is transmitted in high voltage lines, because current flow causes more electrical losses (sort of like electrical friction) than does high voltage.

And transmitting power in high amperage lines would require conductors that are HUGE, in order to accomidate the giant flow of electrons.

Note: 1 coulomb is the flow of 6,241,500,000,000,000,000 electrons pushed by a force of 1 volt through a resistance of one ohm producing a load of 1 watt.

Anyway, the typical force that is carried by these high voltage power lines is easily rated in megawatts, or as Electrical engineers call it, MegavoltAmps (it has to do with power correction and losses, and true power verses used power, and that's another explanation altogether)

So, these 3 phase sine waves are actually PRETTY strongly held in their "Cycles" and "Phases", in so much that in order to "De-Synch" them, you would need to supply power into the power grid at a rather large fraction of what these lines carry.

Which means, that if you wanted to alter the frequency of the power grid, would would actually have to HAVE a power generating facility of your own, and unless you were pumping out power in greater amounts than the power grid you were trying to destabilize, it would be YOUR power station that would "Bite the Dust" so to speak, because that is where the power imbalance STARTED, and thus, that is where the charge imbalance would hit FIRST.

reply to post by ErtaiNaGia

Originally posted by ErtaiNaGia
reply to post by jaamaan

 

So, 120 volts, at 5 amps, draws 600 watts.

120 * 5 = 600

This is known as Ohms Law.
en.wikipedia.org...

Technically this is Joule's Law (P=VI). Ohm's Law relates voltage, current, and resistance/impedance (V=IR). Otherwise, excellent post!

This is actually coming from the Pentagon.

There's too many old people needing SS/Medicare....cutting the military bdget to nothing.

So they came up with the plan to BAN light bulbs, force everyone to buy these new mercury filled CFL's with little circuit boards in them converting 110v to super high voltage to light up the gas in those new "energy efficient" bulbs.

Now if they mess with the National Power Grid and make a few surges....those CFL's will overload, burst open their glass and emit charged mercury gas in your small enclosed rooms to kill you all off.

Whallah....old people drop like FLIES....kids will live a few more years as the Mercury Gas won't kill them right away.

Now do you understand why they banned regular light bulbs? Not only did they make a fortune selling these new more expensive bulbs.....poison CHINA making them.....they now have a tool to cut the US old people population really quick like....making your own homes a Nazi Gas Chamber.

GENIOUS!

reply to post by Pervius


Wow...that is actually a pretty scary thought. Man, it would probably be fairly easy to pull off too. You just blew my mind!

Being a ex navy electrician that ran ships electrical generation plants and working as a industrial construction electrician building power plants.

First if a power plant goes out of frequency it automatically cuts off the grid, The tie breakers trip and you are offline.
Phase is set by the grid and the power plant fallows the grid phase and would trip the tie breakers if it started to go out of phase.

Japan runs on to different power frequencies part of japan runs on 50 hz and part on 60 hz.and there are interties that connect the two different systems.

In Japan, the western part of the country (Kyoto and west) uses 60 Hz and the eastern part (Tokyo and east) uses 50 Hz. This originates in the first purchases of generators from AEG in 1895, installed for Tokyo, and General Electric in 1896, installed in Osaka. The boundary between the two regions contains four back-to-back HVDC substations which convert the frequency; these are Shin Shinano, Sakuma Dam, Minami-Fukumitsu, and the Higashi-Shimizu Frequency Converter.

en.wikipedia.org...

In the US there are two interstate grid frequencies
60 hz and 0hz there are a number of HVDC interstate power lines.
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Any part of the US grid can be at a different frequency and still connect to a national grid through a Frequency Converter like japan. or a inverter like is used in the US to convert HVDC to 60hz AC.

large.stanford.edu...

reply to post by Pervius


While what you said is not completely unfeasible, it is rather unlikely. Most of the time the way CFL bulbs fail is in their electronics; meaning, it is extremely rare for a bulb to actually shatter before other components burn out. Now, if you're thinking that the manufacturers are in cahoots to make the bulbs fail first (instead of the electronics) then all I have for you is this: this would be a very inefficient way to kill people... if they wanted you dead, why not let the water do it?

Power is local, it is not national. Which is why we all pay bills to different power companies. Which is why your power can go out and it still is up across the street.

What this implies in a nutshell is to back feed electricity/current to a Nuclear reactor site at a different phase or feq. This can't happen due to an above post stating that you would need a larger power supply running at a higher constant and with almost a direct connection. Also, there have fail safes in place that act as circuit breakers for inbound current.

Now, overloading a local grid, by back-feed is possible.

A very interesting read so far.
Quite some mad new war strategies to me.
From now on ill see these bulbs in a whole new different light.

Ok, so here is another scenario.

If power can be back fed into the system, and it creates a surge to blow out electrical equipment (Large current could arch across power breakers) it could blow out the new Mercury filler bulbs, creating a small poisonous issue in each home.

The powergrid could be used as the most powerfull weapon in the world but not as you wrote it. Turn it off and there would be mass panic within minutes, after a few days with nothing to pump drinking millions dead.

reply to post by jaamaan


S&F OP

perhaps this is part of the "take us back to the stone age" agenda

or at least back to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt where Hydraulic Despotism was developed and perfected

reply to post by xenthuin


while pervius and macmans's suggestion is probably unlikely

it does provide denialability ["oops, it was an unforeseen accident"]

while hydraulic despotism does not

call me paranoid but if incandescent bulbs are banned i'll switch to LEDs