

US risks national blackout from small-scale attack - anigbrowl
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579433670284061220

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jzwinck
Blackouts cause people a lot of trouble. But building physical protection
against attacks like the Metcalf transformer shooting would be expensive, and
people already complain their electricity bills are too high. Given the choice
between a 10% higher bill and a 1% greater annual chance of a blackout, which
would most people choose?

The article focuses on solutions involving physical security. Perhaps it would
be more cost-effective to bolster deterrents? For example, life in prison for
anyone convicted of sabotaging a major facility of any kind (in the Metcalf
case, this could include both the shooting and the cutting of telecom fiber
beforehand).

There also seems to be less focus on improving the resilience of the system as
a whole--given that the threats are being modeled to determine minimum amounts
of sabotage required, why not emphasize increasing that minimum, rather than
reinforcing the few critical points of failure? Computing has moved in the
direction of resilient systems made of less reliable components, and so could
the grid.

As an aside, a blackout in summertime can be pretty interesting. The one in
2003 brought people together in new ways--I experienced a sense of community
which was quite unusual, "old fashioned" you might say.

~~~
trobertson
With regards to your first paragraph, we have plenty of money to spend on
defense. The USA is expected to spend around 1.2 trillion dollars on defense
in 2014 [0]. The problem, is that most of that spending is overseas "defense",
and very little of it is used to secure critical domestic infrastructure. Like
our energy grids, our roads and highways, etc.

\---

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Audit_of_implementation_of_budget_for_2010)

~~~
jzwinck
In the US, isn't electricity supplied and managed by corporations rather than
the government? This complicates things somewhat, as it exposes the system to
market forces ("I want a choice of providers and I will choose the cheapest")
and may reduce the government's ability to "intrude" by adding safety
measures.

Perhaps more critically, since the US grid seems to be operated by a number of
competing companies, it may be less likely that the system itself will be made
resilient, because there is limited cooperation.

If the people of the US decided to spend money on hardening power delivery,
would the money come from tax dollars, or electricity bills?

~~~
clarky07
It is supplied by corporations, but it is a HIGHLY regulated industry, and
almost all corporations have a government granted local monopoly. Very little
choice in where you get your electricity from.

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csense
About the limited number of manufacturers of transformers: Would it be
possible and inexpensive to eliminate this problem by keeping a government
stockpile of spares somewhere protected with limited access? Do we have planes
big enough that in a crisis we could deploy them in hours, or would it involve
trucking them to their destination over the course of days? In the latter
case, surely the military has secure facilities well distributed over the
country and it should be possible to pre-position them.

Or are these transformers so large that they basically have to be built on-
site? Or so expensive that keeping ~10 spares would cost too much (say ~$200
million or more)?

Any electricity experts want to chime in?

~~~
bavcyc
[http://www.tjpottertrucking.com/trucking-oversized-
loads/hea...](http://www.tjpottertrucking.com/trucking-oversized-loads/heavy-
haul-trucking-1.jpg) ... if a plane can carry that, then transport by air is
possible. The Antonov An-225 Mriya could probably carry a large transformer.

IEEE (or the manufacturers?) have commissioning procedures. Typically the
larger transformers are manufactured elsewhere, then reassembled on-site and
commissioned (figure a week to a month).

Your ballpark estimate on the cost is close enough.

One point to remember is that 'if it bleeds it leads', news stories are often
sensationalized to achieve more viewers/readers. Typically for power
applications, the sizing of equipment is based on peak demand such that the
equipment is only fully utilized in a short time period (people get upset when
power isn't available or a fire is started). While this report is probably
correct in essence, without knowing the exact scenario that was modeled it is
difficult to determine a solution.

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anigbrowl
BTW if you're not a subscriber, then you can circumvent the paywall by
searching for the article title on Google and visiting it from there.

~~~
zxexz
You should probably resubmit this without the paywall. It is frontpage worthy,
but if I've learned anything, HN does not like paywalls at all. :P

This link works
[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230402010...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579433670284061220?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304020104579433670284061220.html)

~~~
jzwinck
Your link does not work for me. What works is what your parent suggested:
searching for the title and clicking on the result.

~~~
zxexz
Ahaha, oops.

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hga
While I can't read the article (paywall, and I'm not going to break the law by
circumventing it), it would take many small scale attacks to cause a "national
blackout". We have 3 grids, East, West and most of Texas (which is big enough
to have a stable grid and avoids a _lot_ of hassle by not crossing state
lines).

And these grids aren't like you probably envision, a good description I came
across is that they're a number of ponds with small streams between them. So
it would take some cleverness to affect more than one "pond", it all depends
on how the grid, or a subset of it is set up. E.g. taking out a lot of
California, since at least as I gather it imports so much power, would be
easier than many other areas.

Or take San Francisco (please! :-). I remember after one nasty blackout then
Mayor Willie Brown, who's a bit more grounded, you might say ^_^, than many
area politicians, saying, well, maybe we shouldn't shut down the last power
plant in the city....

~~~
anigbrowl
The disturbing takeaway from the article is that it would in fact only take 9
attacks at strategic points to bring down the entire grid, per the FERC report
- hence the relative urgency on display in asking utilities to submit plans
for improvements by June, and the unavailability of the report to the public
(as far as I am aware, after spending a few minutes searching for it).

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tlrobinson
BTW, "American Blackout" was a recent National Geographic program about a
hypothetical nationwide blackout
[http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/american-
black...](http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/american-blackout/)

There's a British version too. Probably worth watching one or the other, if
only to prompt you to make some basic disaster preparations.

