U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack

Federal Analysis Says Sabotage of Nine Key Substations Is Sufficient for Broad Outage

he U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

The study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, people familiar with the research said.

U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack

This is just the teensiest bit odd coming on the heels of the power outage in DC last night, which is what made me catch this to begin with (sorry if it's already posted).

FERC's analysis is not exactly new news...just the latest version of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't publishing this kind of helping out any potential terrorists?

Or...is it maybe a massive diversion and this really isn't the layout at all? *Eyebrow thingy...

ETA: It's going to be a well-covered secret.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Hm, I agree with you, I think it's likely that they have a backup or a different layout. I don't think that they would allow such information to fall into a terrorist's lap if such information was 100% accurate.

Nice OP nonetheless! S&F

Hey, maybe they're putting this information up so to see and catch whoever is gonna bite (in other words, catch potential terrorists).

At least the US didn't make the same mistake we did; selling our electricity suppliers to foreign entities. We could be shut down by France should they decide to do so.

reply to post by Nolimits


Hm, This is interesting.

I live in Quebec, I thought WE were selling our hydroelectricity to you guys. If we are selling to you, and you are selling to others... where do both of our electricity go?

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I agree that there is likely a backup plan or this is false info....why on Earth would any country openly tell the whole world their weaknesses...doesn't make sence to me at all.

and if they attack/sabottage those lines, Not only the USA would be affected as the big red lines (main as the Kvolts are higher....I think) at the top of the map posted is Quebec, Canada. my home.

reply to post by Teye22


Fellow Quebecois here.

I thought that electricity was coming from Hydro's dam, not towards it. Meaning that a shut down in the US would cut the line there, but we are the source, not the receiving end, thus we wouldn't really be that affected.

Unless, of course, they attack HydroQuebec's station. But that's in our country. Whoever would sabotage both countries would have a hell of a time escaping both the FBI and the Crown.

swanne
reply to post by Nolimits

 

Hm, This is interesting.

I live in Quebec, I thought WE were selling our hydroelectricity to you guys. If we are selling to you, and you are selling to others... where do both of our electricity go?

edit on 13-3-2014 by swanne because: (no reason given)

YEAH and WE buy it back from them at 3X the price and then we pay HUGE monthly fees for OUR power......

its all politics I guess but still frustrating nonetheless!

Thanks for the thread, although I'm not so sure it's a good idea for this to have been made public. I mean, the govt is always shouting "terrorism" and making laws in the name of "national security". Seems odd that the U.S. infrastructure vulnerabilities have been exposed like this. They even included a nice map!

ETA - Woops, it looks like others are saying pretty much the same thing!

swanne
reply to post by Teye22

 

Fellow Quebecois here.

I thought that electricity was coming from Hydro's dam, not towards it. Meaning that a shut down in the US would cut the line there, but we are the source, not the receiving end, thus we wouldn't really be that affected.

I missworded my post...that was my point...If I were to sabottage (I would not of course) I would hit the source....ie Quebec

YEAH and WE buy it back from them at 3X the price and then we pay HUGE monthly fees for OUR power......

And then they make us PAY when we refuse the installation of their bloody "intelligent" counters.

Teye22
I missworded my post...that was my point...If I were to sabottage (I would not of course) I would hit the source....ie Quebec

Okay now I understand.

In which case, you make a very good point indeed.

swanne
reply to post by Nolimits

 

Hm, This is interesting.

I live in Quebec, I thought WE were selling our hydroelectricity to you guys. If we are selling to you, and you are selling to others... where do both of our electricity go?

edit on 13-3-2014 by swanne because: (no reason given)

I wasn't aware we got any power from plants outside of the UK? I assumed we relied on an outdated nuclear system and some fossil fuel/natural waste burning plants. Interesting, I'll have to research this. Have a star on me

reply to post by Nolimits


Truly sorry, I didn't realized you were British, not American.

My bad.

swanne
reply to post by Nolimits

 

Truly sorry, I didn't realized you were British, not American.

My bad.

edit on 13-3-2014 by swanne because: (no reason given)

Lol no worries

Still I doubt any national electricity infrastructure is truly invulnerable.

This reminds me of a post from a few months ago here titled, "Snipers Wipe Out U.S. Power Station" ...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Nolimits
Still I doubt any national electricity infrastructure is truly invulnerable.

Indeed.

On the topic of UK electricity, though: I just found out that UK does import electricity from outside:

According to IEA the UK was top electricity importer 6th importing 11 TWh after (TWh): Brazil 42, Italy 40, United States 33, Netherlands 16 and Finland 14.[4]
The UK grid is connected to adjacent European and Irish electrical grids by submarine power cables, including for links to northern France (HVDC Cross-Channel), Northern Ireland (HVDC Moyle), Republic of Ireland (East–West Interconnector), the Isle of Man (Isle of Man to England Interconnector), and the Netherlands (BritNed). There are also plans to lay cables to link the UK with Iceland and Norway (Scotland–Norway interconnector) in the future.

source: en.wikipedia.org...

Wow, you guys got here fast.

Speaking of EMPs, do you guys know that almost all countries other than the U.S. have EMP protection?

The U.S. Congress just doesn't want to piss off cronies in the energy business or something, I guess. They just won't pass the bill, called the SHIELD Act.

www.govtrack.us...

www.shieldact.com...

They've been dragging their feet for YEARS. I'm sure I posted a thread or in a thread about this many moons ago. I will see if I can find it.

reply to post by r0xor

Yep...this is a followup...of sorts...look....

And now...check this: REFILE-COLUMN-Snipers won't blackout US power grid, but Sun may: Kemp:

That prompted a group of senior senators last month to write to FERC asking the Commission to consider whether additional reliability standards are necessary to protect the grid from physical attacks.

reply to post by r0xor


I live in Silicon Valley and just saw a follow up on that incident. I don't have the link but the jist was that if they had succeeded there would have been a serious long term outage. Their intent was to cascade burnouts of multiple transformers.

The interviewee said that it takes up to six months to manufacture a replacement transformer of the type they targeted.

Six months of darkness….


put that in your pipe an 'moke it.

intrptr
reply to post by r0xor

 

I live in Silicon Valley and just saw a follow up on that incident. I don't have the link but the jist was that if they had succeeded there would have been a serious long term outage. Their intent was to cascade burnouts of multiple transformers.

And whose intent is that? Who is training snipers so they become pros at shooting down american power girds?

~Lucidity

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't publishing this kind of helping out any potential terrorists?

I thought this very same thing as I started reading this thread and was going to reply to say as much until I continued to read and saw you had already came to the same conclusion.

Here was my thread from 2011 on the SHIELD Act: www.abovetopsecret.com...

We have made NO progress in this area.