# U.S. Power System “Inherently Vulnerable” to Terrorist Attack



## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

Pretty good article explaining just how vulnerable we are!

From the article:

*The U.S. seems to focus most of its Homeland Security resources on protecting transportation against terrorism while seemingly insignificant targets like the country's electric power delivery system remain dangerously vulnerable to an attack that could cause tremendous damage.

An attack on the system, which carries electricity from large central generators to customers throughout the nation, could be devastating because all parts of the economy as well as human health and welfare depend on electricity. A new government report reveals this, stating that "power system disruptions experienced to date in the United States, be they from natural disasters or malfunctions, have had immense economic impacts."

The audit was conducted by the federally-funded National Research Council to assess the vulnerability of the nation's power system, which includes lines that span hundreds of miles and key facilities that are unguarded. "Considering that a systematically designed and executed terrorist attack could cause disruptions even more widespread and of longer duration, it is no stretch of the imagination to think that such attacks could produce damage costing hundreds of billions of dollars," according to the report.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the power grid is being used in ways for which it was not designed. The system was originally designed to meet the needs of individual vertically integrated utilities and is being utilized to move power between regions. As a result many portions of the bulk high-voltage system are "heavily stressed" and especially at risk to multiple failures following an attack.

Additionally, crucial pieces of equipment are decades old and in desperate need of new technology that could sense and control outages and their consequences. In short, the country's antiquated power grid is in horrible shape and virtually ignored by Homeland Security officials as pa potential target. Terrorists could carry out an attack with "little risk of detection or interdiction," the report says. "Further well-planned and coordinated attacks by terrorists could leave the electrical power system in a large region of the country at least partially disabled for a very long time."

There is one tiny bright spot in all this, according to researchers who probed the matter: "International terrorists have shown limited interest in attacking the U.S. power grid." That doesn't mean it can't happen. There are many examples of terrorist and military attacks on power systems elsewhere in the world, the report points out. The lack of a domestic attempt should not be a basis for complacency.*


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## mckbrew (Nov 5, 2012)

The issue is, how do you adequately protect a resource this large? 

In Northern Idaho large transmission towers pass through miles and miles of remote area. The cost of fencing, monitoring, etc... would be enormous. 

I agree it is an area of concern though.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

I read something similar to that a couple days ago ..

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/14/us-usa-electricity-attacks-idUSBRE8AD1LL20121114

*Report warns electricity grid vulnerable to attack*



> (Reuters) - The electrical grid is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, including cyber strikes, that could cause far more damage than those associated with natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, according to a report released on Wednesday.
> 
> Without urgent attention to security, the United States risks having large parts of the country blacked out "for weeks or months" at a cost of billions of dollars, the non-partisan National Research Council said.
> 
> ...


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

I'm not sure that I'd agree that a nation's power grid is a "seemingly insignificant target" but other than that this is a good article. I agree that it's unfeasable to guard/fence the whole grid but I think the article's point, in large part, was that the grid is using antiquated technology and equipment in ways it wasn't intended to be used, even when new and not worn out. I'm all for making upgrades that harden the grid, especially with American made equipment.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Like everything in America someone has to attack it, steal it or kill it before anyone cares. We knew that our airports weren't secure but didn't do squad about it until 9/11, and even know every bitches about the delays and elevated security. Our water is not secure, our power grid is not secure, etc., etc., etc. Right now our borders are not secure and the only thing out gov't is doing about it is to give guns to drug cartels to "track where they end up" and punish states who try and enforce their own borders. So no one is going to do anything about our power grid until a terrorist attacks it.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

A couple hundred men could bring the USA to its knees in a week. They wouldn't even need to bring any bombs with them.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

The job of government is not to protect borders and keep order in society, the job of government is to give people free ObamaPhones.


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## Attila (Jan 30, 2011)

Actually the power grid is a very enticing target for terrorist. Do people think that they have not taken note of the problems caused by Hurricane Sandy? Terrorist may be crazy, but they are not stupid. Plus they seem to very patient.

The North American Electrical Reliability Council oversees and manages the countries power grid. They are wanting generating companies to harden facilities against a solar flare event, while terrorism represents a far greater danger. 

What kind of devastation could be wrought by a terrorist attack that would wipe out transmission systems into New York City? or Washington D.C.? Or any large metro area or areas. Especially a coordinated attack of a number of large cities.

We Americans are addicted to our electronic toys and pacifiers. What better way to really screw us up than by denying us electrical power? Couple that with most people's inability to survive in a blackout situation that last more than a day or two.

This should be something that keeps us all worried at night.


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## Jimmy24 (Apr 20, 2011)

hiwall said:


> A couple hundred men could bring the USA to its knees in a week. They wouldn't even need to bring any bombs with them.


You nailed it. The transmission lines themselves are not the issue. A well coordinated attack by 200 people could bring the USA, at least large metro areas, in one night.

People speak of old equipment, have no clue. es the grid is old. Newest and latest equipment would not stop one who wants to shut down a given area. The old school equipment is actually less prone to tampering.

Having worked in the utility business for 30+ years I speak from experience. When you have 115kv transmission line feeding a substation, one 8' piece of 3/8" chain will shut down a sub in a heartbeat.

The terrorist just haven't figured it out yet....hopefully they won't, but articles like that is the same as "loose lips, sink ships"...

Jimmy


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## mckbrew (Nov 5, 2012)

I don't necessarily think that 200 people could realistically take out a major city at all. A major theme I see here is that city dwellers are incapable of taking care of themselves. That may be true to some extent, but think about all of the armed criminals in major metropolitan areas and how they may react if someone steps in and attacks their bottom line. Also major metro areas have well trained and equipped police (some with military grade weapons and armor) and of course major cities typically have a large national guard armory in close proximity.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

mckbrew said:


> I don't necessarily think that 200 people could realistically take out a major city at all.


Look at what 11 terrorists did in Mumbai. 200 terrorists acting in coordination with each other and working towards a goal of destroying a city would be a very formidable enemy. If they were well funded then that would be a force multiplier.

Knock out electricity to Chicago in the dead of winter. Knock out gas piplines. Blow up every bridge into Manhattan. The list goes on.

How do you imagine that FEMA is going to help the millions of people in Chicago deal with no water for the next few months, no natural gas, no oil, coming into the city, no electricity. People are going to be cold and there would be no heat sources. Shipping in bottled water for victims of Sandy was too much for FEMA to do correctly, so what happens when millions of people need water and they need that water every day for a month?


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## sailaway (Mar 12, 2009)

I don't think our power grid has been attacked as of yet because it's not as chic as bringing down a building. I do agree we are quite vulnerable here.

I am also amazed terrorists haven't sent a suicide bomber to a shopping mall durring the holidays or to a majoer sports event.


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## mckbrew (Nov 5, 2012)

sailaway said:


> I don't think our power grid has been attacked as of yet because it's not as chic as bringing down a building. I do agree we are quite vulnerable here.
> 
> I am also amazed terrorists haven't sent a suicide bomber to a shopping mall durring the holidays or to a majoer sports event.


A couple good fiction books about those scenarios though. I have even wondered what it would do to the population if someone set off roadside bombs along city streets, hwys, interstates, etc...

All it would take are a few to totally scare the sh!t out of people.


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

To prevent terrorist atacks , you have to think like a terrorist.

If I was a terrorist and wanted to start pandimonium in this country, I would have ten sucicide type terrorist simontainiously attack ten shoping malls spread out all across the country with automatic weapond and bombs.

After the news media had a half day of news cycle to report and put up vidio and talking heads, I would then take down the power grids all across the USA , leaving the public to wonder what else was happening and where.

This whole senerio could be effected with less than a hundred trained men.


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## mckbrew (Nov 5, 2012)

The fact that no major foreign terrorist attack has occurred on US soil since 9-11 tells us something. Depends on what you believe...

1) The entire thing was created by Bush to start the war. 
2) We are actually accomplishing something by dealing with them over there. 
3) They are planning something big and haven't done it yet. 

I think there have been a lot of thwarted attempts and that we only hear about a fraction of them. Realistically I think the bigger danger comes from "domestic" terrorists.


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

mckbrew said:


> I don't necessarily think that 200 people could realistically take out a major city at all.


Don't think you are following the thread, the point isn't an old fashioned military assault, the point is the millions who would die without a shot fired or bomb exploded, and without any enemy to fight, across the country, in every major city (not just one), if 200 coordinated people targeted and took down the electric grid nationwide. No electricity = every major and medium size city dies.

Its true. We have known it for a while. The solution is not guarding infrastructure but redundancy, which is part of the problem with the ageing system. Of course the problem with infrastructure is that folks want to have their cake and eat it too! Most utilities are quasi-private quasi-public and so like all communist arrangements where private property, and the right to reap rewards from it, are denied, no one wants to take responsibility and do what needs to be done, for fear that another party will come in and reap what others have sown...

Point in case here are some ideas from a Huffington post article, the original article was arranged to make it seem like big business is the problem. Anyone see the problem:



> A state report criticized LIPA in June for poor customer communications after Irene last year and for insufficient tree trimming.
> 
> They're going to be held accountable,"Cuomo said, citing lack of communication and preparation and even proposing they consider rebates instead of rate hikes."
> 
> ...


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

mckbrew said:


> The issue is, how do you adequately protect a resource this large?


The easiest way is to have many smaller generating plants serving more local areas. Unfortunately, most folks don't want a power plant in their neighborhood so plants have generally gotten bigger over the years.

Mcbrew,
The Padre nailed it.


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## NHPrepper2 (Jun 2, 2012)

A shut down in our electrical grid is certainly one of my largest, and possibly most probable, concerns. With enough resources, resolve, preparedness, and the right attitude a simultaneous shut down in several metropolitan areas would be something we could overcome. The problem is that it seems by the day we as a nation become worse off in each of the four mentioned areas. The more divisive and dependant on the government we become, the less likely we will be able to get through something of this magnitude and the faster a societal breakdown would occur in my opinion. There are certainly towns that are small enough across the nation that have the capacity and relationships to work through catastrophes, but on the whole it seems to me we are one or two medium to large events from everything going nuts. Anybody who served in the military in foreign countries where war destroyed the grid/localized structure has undoubtedly seen the opportunists and nut-jobs almost immediately go into action once the fear of being caught has diminished. The "have-nots" go after the "haves", religious faction upon faction, old grudges are settled, political side against side, etc... Eventually even the good people crack under the pressure of feeding their families. 

I'm absolutely not saying we are there yet, but it seems to me that every day we go more and more down the path to a status that would be as susceptible to such a reaction to a catastrophic event. It almost seems that a terrorist attack would be easier for our nation to deal with in that it would cause people to want to come together to work through it. I meant to make this a two sentence post...sorry for the rant.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

It wouldn't even take a few hundred; a dozen men could fly small planes packed with fuel and explosives into key targets and shut down the nation.

Fortunately, the government isn't quite as oblivious to this as people think. There is a reason that the Department of Energy is considered a part of the "intelligence community".


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

Sometimes (OK often) I think "intelligence community" is an oxymoron.


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

Turtle said:


> It wouldn't even take a few hundred; a dozen men could fly small planes packed with fuel and explosives into key targets and shut down the nation.
> 
> Fortunately, the government isn't quite as oblivious to this as people think. There is a reason that the Department of Energy is considered a part of the "intelligence community".


The point is turtle that our grid is so old and piecemeal that while there might be 12 high risk targets that the DOE is watching there are literally thousands of joints in the grid which are medium or even low risk by themselves, but NECESSARY all taken together for our highly interdependent system to function. Taking out 12 substations might not be a problem, but if you took out 30 key ones, and 30 HV lines, and 30 switches, etc. etc. eventually you will start a cascading chain reaction of too much or too little energy in the sensitive equipment causing them to break and the whole system to stop working.

We spend a lot of money protecting the gold in Fort Knox, but not protecting pennies from being stolen, and yet if you steal enough pennies from enough people you will eventually have more money than the value of the Gold that is in the vault.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

Padre said:


> The point is turtle that our grid is so old and piecemeal that while there might be 12 high risk targets that the DOE is watching there are literally thousands of joints in the grid which are medium or even low risk by themselves, but NECESSARY all taken together for our highly interdependent system to function. Taking out 12 substations might not be a problem, but if you took out 30 key ones, and 30 HV lines, and 30 switches, etc. etc. eventually you will start a cascading chain reaction of too much or too little energy in the sensitive equipment causing them to break and the whole system to stop working.
> 
> We spend a lot of money protecting the gold in Fort Knox, but not protecting pennies from being stolen, and yet if you steal enough pennies from enough people you will eventually have more money than the value of the Gold that is in the vault.


Padre, I'm not trying to agrue with you; to the contrary, I am saying that it wouldn't even take as much damage as what people are saying to cause a catastrophic failure.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

hiwall said:


> Sometimes (OK often) I think "intelligence community" is an oxymoron.


Haha, I'm part of it; you certainly don't have to tell ME that!

The biggest problem is that every agency thinks that THEY are the most important link in the chain. Which is silly, obviously, because how could that be possible when CLEARLY my agency is the most important?


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## drgnhntr37 (Apr 13, 2012)

There was also an article today that quoted a CIA station chief. They said the grid was extremely vulnerable to an emp attack. From a air burst nuclear device, which North Korea and Iran already have. Or a solar flare which NASA scientists are saying could happen in 2013. Either of these would have the power to destroy the grid for years. The results would cause 9 out of 10 people to die. They say that congress is aware of this but are failing to act and that it could be protected fo as little as 5 dollars per person.


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## Attila (Jan 30, 2011)

Padre said:


> Taking out 12 substations might not be a problem, but if you took out 30 key ones, and 30 HV lines, and 30 switches, etc. etc. eventually you will start a cascading chain reaction of too much or too little energy in the sensitive equipment causing them to break and the whole system to stop working.


Padre is correct. I work in the field,(over 25 years in generation),and substations are the weak link. Transformers, especially large step up transformers, (say 138 kva to 345 kva), are not kept on inventories in warehouses. I know some utilities keep some portable units on trailers to use in emergencies, but there are not enough to take care of more than a few substations if there was a major terrorist even. Power from generating plants is wheeled throughout the system in high voltage lines like 345 kva lines.

Power is moved throughout the grid in high voltages then stepped down as its distributed. High voltage is the most efficient way to move electrical power. I am not a transmission guy, so don't know that much about it.

It would be relatively easy to take out a number of substations. For one they're in remote locations, with little or no security beyond a chain link fence. They are certainly not manned.

NERC who over sees the electrical grid is fanatical about cyber security, but seem to be missing the easy targets. They really should be equally fanatical about transmission infrastructure security, although I don't have a clue about miles and miles of transmission could be secured, but it needs to be done.


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## Jimmy24 (Apr 20, 2011)

Attila said:


> Padre is correct. I work in the field,(over 25 years in generation),and substations are the weak link. Transformers, especially large step up transformers, (say 138 kva to 345 kva), are not kept on inventories in warehouses. I know some utilities keep some portable units on trailers to use in emergencies, but there are not enough to take care of more than a few substations if there was a major terrorist even. Power from generating plants is wheeled throughout the system in high voltage lines like 345 kva lines.
> 
> Power is moved throughout the grid in high voltages then stepped down as its distributed. High voltage is the most efficient way to move electrical power. I am not a transmission guy, so don't know that much about it.
> 
> ...


You nailed it. I too have 30 + years in the bizz. Any step down even 110k down to 23k are 2 year items. Our little outfit have 3 "extras" and 2 moblies. We have 88 subs....and the 230 subs are usually very isolated.

It's not if, it's when they figure it out...

Jimmy


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

I think the physical threat to the power grid is minimal compared to what hackers could do. They could work their way through the entire electrical system. Then wait for the perfect time to take the whole thing down. If they study it long enough they could cause it to do things that would create more damage than it otherwise would. Like when the Israelis attacked Iranian centrifuges with a virus that caused them to damage themselves but also caused their gauges to show that they were operating normally.

It wouldn't surprise me if Iranian hackers are planning to take down the entire electrical grid in the event of war.


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## Attila (Jan 30, 2011)

Cyber security is a threat, however, all utilities stay up on it. NERC fines care pretty stiff: up to a million a day per violation.

Not discounting hackers, but to really wreck havoc all it would take is some idiots with firearms, and some rail road flares at substations.


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