Terrorist Attack on Power Grid Could Cause Broad Hardship, Report Says

Someone already tried to hack duke energy last month.

I don't think we need terrorists to cause hardship with energy.

After all... wasn't this one of Obama's stated goals? You remember.. He wanted energy costs to "necessarily skyrocket" for the American people.

Originally posted by butcherguy
Look at the troubles New Jersey has had due to Hurricane Sandy. Imagine it happening to an entire region, or worse the nation.

Whoo hoo. Turning the traffic lights off would be horrible enough, what would it look like if it all went off? Then three days later, when the cell phone towers emergency backup power dies.... my teenagers would not survive without their cell phones.

It happened to an entire region last year... funny how people for get that so soon. Most of New England was powerless for a few weeks (cell towers went after 36 hours) after Storm Alfred. Was certainly NOT fun....

The news will never report real terror.

Back up the city infrastructure, that takes human waste away and watch how fast things fall apart.

On the power grid thing. Here is art imitating life.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin

It was meant for you. One man would be all it would take to take out the electrical grid. I will not go into how. Not into teaching people things like that.

Originally posted by OtherSideOfTheCoin
A threat like this is very real but it would be difficult for a single attack to take out a large part of the national grid as it power goes down in one part another can take over. Most power plants are well defended particularly nuclear plants so a physical attack would be difficult requiring a number of terrorists and people trained sufficiently enough to find the points at which to plant explosives or to say physically turn off a section of the grid. What is a bigger danger facing the grid is the possibility of a cyber-attack however again this could be difficult given that some utility systems work on a closed network.

There are a lot of terrorist attack scenario’s that could give us cause for concern I personally don’t see attacking the national grid as being a big one. What would cause more harm is if telecommunications systems were to be targeted such as a major internet hub was physically destroyed, and something knocked out satellite telecommunications. That is a worse case event, no phones, no GPS, no internet, we are so reliant on it these days that we would lose everything. If this where to happen in the US, you would probably see massive economic problems, planes falling out of the skies, all transport would halt, emergency services would be crippled. Basically not good.

This is a bigger threat that hitting the national grid and although still difficult it is probably relatively easier the only thing I could really see that would be worse is a biological or nuclear attack.

Interesting find nonetheless.

A tip, power plants are not the target and taking grid down is simple stuff at unguarded points by multiple timed and coordinated attacks, grid down and you lose that precious internet anyway so quit worry over that.

telecommunications - thats a secondary issue.

In the scenario power plants overload or shutdown as electricity has nowhere to go but to ground at the plant itself

reply to post by Phoenix

In the scenario power plants overload or shutdown as electricity has nowhere to go but to ground at the plant itself

Most people don't understand the difference between turning off a light switch and suddenly disconnecting a high voltage transmission line from it's load. At the simple level both are just "turning off a switch". But high power systems act in a totally different manner to sudden disconnection than a home electrical system does to flicking a wall switch.

Actually, the above statement is not quite accurate. Both things are the same but in a high power system the effect on the system is hugely magnified. In other words it ain't hard to turn a faucet off but you ain't gonna shut off Niagara falls that easy.

Case in point...

I used to work for a screw machine shop that just happened to be the last plant on the end of a 24,000 volt transmission line. It was located in Schiller Park Illinois. Schiller Park still had an old fashioned noon whistle. So, every day near noon break workers in all the surrounding plants were just waiting for that noon whistle to go off to shut down their machines. Every once in a while they hit the buttons just perfectly enough to create a huge drop in load on that 24,000 volt line in a very short time. On average this would throw a transmission line breaker about once a month. But about two or three times a year it would burn out one of the three phase transformers mounted on a platform behind our building. One time it hit so hard that it blew up two of the three transformers and the resulting shrapnel, oil spray and fire destroyed several cars in the back parking lot. I still remember how it sounded. The noon whistle went off, we hit our off buttons on our screw machines and a second or two later it sounded like somebody had fired one of the battleship Missouri's 16" guns outside of the building. Even inside the building our ears rang for several minutes from the blast of those two transformers blowing up simultaneously.

What I described above is just one step in the cascade effect that can take out a whole region if a large enough drop in load happens at just one transformer substation. One huge transformer fails and the resulting drop in load makes the next transformer back up the line fail and that just makes things worse because each failure in the cascade adds to the amount of load drop.

I think hardship would be the least of peoples worries after all the hardcore criminals have walked out of the electronically controlled maximum security prisons.

Does anyone really believe there are terrorists in America... I mean real ones and not ones that are entrapped by the FBI?

Who hear hasn't taken chemistry? With a few thousand dollars in cash couldn't we all make some serious holes in America and be under the radar until the blast?

Why aren't there any of said holes being blown in America?

Derek

reply to post by Viesczy


I have often wondered the same thing. I know I could do some major damage with nickle and dime stuff from the local garden and hardware store. And it wouldn't take any knowledge of chemistry either.

I won't provide any details because some deranged idiot might try it but I have a way, using just a very little chemistry and off the shelf items to bring down an airplane when it is either taking off or landing and do it from well outside the airport.

Then if you want to talk bombs, I know how to convert fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate to weapons grade with no chemistry knowledge. That would give it many times the kick of the stuff they sell in the garden supply store. And I can't even mention the material involved for the reason stated above but I also know how to use several common items that are readily available to make some powerful bombs that could fit in the trunk of a car and take out a whole neighborhood.

So, if a Joe Schmo like me could do that then, like you, I have to wonder just who is yanking our chains about terrorism that doesn't exist and what their real agenda is?????

[rant..]
You can't tell me that the federal agencies that can't even make a sizable dent in the illegal drug trade are efficient enough to stop foreign terrorists from crossing our Swiss cheese borders.

So, I have to conclude that either the terrorists are really too dumb to operate here or they don't really exist. Then, maybe, just maybe, our gun running government agencies are the real financiers and promoters behind the terrorists operating in other countries so they can fool us into believing they are doing all the stupid homeland security crappola and such for our own good and not to trash our constitutional and God given rights.

[/rant..]

Not sure if this is relevant, but I can tell you that I lived in Ohio years back and our part of the grid was degraded and failed. It caused the whole eastern part of the US to fail because our governor (then Bob Taft) ignored pleas for funds to repair it. It ended up costing some OUTRAGEOUS amount in loss and Ohio's government was slapped with a HUMONGOUS fine from the federal government.

Originally posted by Phoenix
A tip, power plants are not the target and taking grid down is simple stuff at unguarded points by multiple timed and coordinated attacks, grid down and you lose that precious internet anyway so quit worry over that.

telecommunications - thats a secondary issue.

In the scenario power plants overload or shutdown as electricity has nowhere to go but to ground at the plant itself

You are correct.... Taking down the power grid is only one piece of a coordinated attack. They will remove our eyes, ears, and mouth. Don't you think that would be the best way to strategically confound your enemy? Don't need a class at West Point to figure that one out.

So you send in feet on the ground to take out these critical points that can't be accessed via cyber warfare. I can tell you for certain that EVERY major telecommunications carrier (both wireless and incumbent carriers) have had their infrastructure hacked by the Chinese. The Chinese have also accessed natural gas and oil company systems. All well documented.

Here's another piece of fat to chew on.... This past week United Airlines had a complete system crash. The company has yet to admit that it was caused by hackers but it grounded every plane in the entire US for that company. Without electricity, internet, etc....even planes don't fly because no one wants the liability of making a mistake and costing lives.

Oh, and for those of you who are interested....there are 18 critical infrastructure sectors. Eighteen "inroads" to bringing down a society and culture. (Google if you are interested) However, not all 18 need to be fired upon at once to get through the initial gate and take the fight to the bailey.

Another thing to the consider.... Look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Look at the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy? You take out the electricity, especially for a period of months, and there is an entire segment of society who will lose any capability of feeding themselves or basic care.

Lots of movies that explore the outcome of that kind of scenario....

You get chaos. Martial law.

reply to post by happykat39


Agreed.

TPTB just throw this info out to keep us scared and create a "need" for the TPTB.

Derek