Physical & cyber sabatoge on U.S. electrical grid

[willc453]

If you look on the net, you'll find Ted Koppel's book Lights Out free as a pdf file. Started reading it off and on about a week ago. It's 200 pages, here's the link:


www.scribd.com/document/280933314/Lights-Out-by-Ted-Koppel-Excerpt


Then started looking for info on the substation attack that happened south of San Jose back in 2013:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack

But this isn't the first time it's happened to this substation:

www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Equipment-Stolen-from-Metcalf-Substation-Site-of-2013-Sniper-Attack-san-jose-april-272962371.html

There's also a Congressional report about the vulnerability of the NINE major substations in the U.S. Didn't know there were so few. Haven't found that report yet. So, you have an actual attack against this substation and of course, possible cyber attack(s) by any number of countries unfriendly to the U.S. Makes me wonder how/if other countries protect theirs. And remember what happened when SNAP (food stamps) system went down a few years ago? Imagine it not only going down, but NO power thru out a city like Chicago? And how the first power outage that happened in NYC, with everyone handling it well, but the 2nd time it happened... Here's a list of companies that make electrical transformers, though don't know who makes them for the power companies to put on poles/towers. At one companies website, ONE transformer was going for $20,000. I've also started reading a emp story ala One Second After which so far, seems realistic/good. When I find it on one of my thumb drives, will post a link to it for downloading. Author says his story has been downloaded TWO MILLION times. 

So I'm thinking several scenarios: cyber attack in just California with ransom money demanded from PG&E, which you know, isn't too popular in California right now with its blackouts. Imagine no power during winter even in California. Another cyber attack could be done by someone who's tired of blacks/Mexicans getting free housing, medical, etc. while he/she/they are busting their behinds just to keep their heads above water. Actual physical attacks, again demanding ransom money. Earlier this year a  city government computers in Texas got hacked and ransom had to be paid. And what about social security numbers, bank info, etc. that has been hacked?

Anyway, hopefully someone will come up with a story. Or maybe, even several people will come up with ones.....you know, where one group is going for power stations, le another hitting credit card companies/city computers and another physically damaging these power stations/sub stations.  

[papaof2]

I have a story in progress (writing chapter 7 at the moment but my muse seems to be slowing down so no promises of when or if this one will be completed; working title is "Sudden Silence") which starts with things going silent (except the UPS units which BEEP!BEEP!BEEP!) as a massive power outage affects a fourth of the US. Not an EMP, but a massive grid failure, allowing phones, cell phones and internet to continue working for a little while - however long the towers and offices have backup power. Having a little communications would likely help with spreading rumors about what REALLY happened and thus generating even more hysteria and paranoia.

A properly coordinated and implemented attack could be initiated from a number of places and the vulnerabilities of an unsecured SCADA system which has connections to the entire grid could lead to a near-nationwide shutdown in a matter of minutes - remember the great Northeast blackout? Care to guess which generating plants and which regions of the country are secure and which ones have that security upgrade out somewhere in their next 5 year plan? My guess is that older, less profitable generating plants have expensive upgrades in a future budget, if ever, so there will be some weak fences - or perhaps open gates - in that security.

Meanwhile, I have another story to finish and post.

[9idrr]

Way back in ancient history, when the Oroville Dam spillway fiasco was occurring, one could look at a map and see just west and north of where water would've rushed if the Dam had failed, is the PG&E Cottonwood substation. It might've kept dry, but if it didn't there would've been some interesting fireworks. It sits right out in the middle of open country, within easy range of anybody with an adequate weapon. Ultra-lights fly in the area frequently. Lots of power generated along the Feather River but I don't know how far they could send it if that substation went down.

[papaof2]

Oct 23, 2019 20:28:59 GMT -6 9idrr said:

Way back in ancient history, when the Oroville Dam spillway fiasco was occurring, one could look at a map and see just west and north of where water would've rushed if the Dam had failed, is the PG&E Cottonwood substation. It might've kept dry, but if it didn't there would've been some interesting fireworks. It sits right out in the middle of open country, within easy range of anybody with an adequate weapon. Ultra-lights fly in the area frequently. Lots of power generated along the Feather River but I don't know how far they could send it if that substation went down.

Remember that "In The Dark" starts with a small aircraft (4 seater Piper Cherokee, max of 50 gallons fuel) crashing into a small local substation. This place sounds like a much bigger target with much greater repercussions if it is damaged - maybe a larger plane there such as a Beechcraft King Air 350i (11 occupants, 236 gallons of avgas) or an Embraer E170 commercial jet (66 passengers, 3000 gallons of jet fuel)? That type of crash occurring in wildfire season would almost guarantee an extended power outage over a very large area.

And I'm sure someone is saying "That can't happen here" which is what people said about Mount St. Helens until it erupted in 1980. If something is possible. our current climate of shock and awe almost guarantees that someone, somewhere will try something even less believable than what some author may have posted...

[willc453]

If I remember right, there's a substation or maybe a transfer kind of thing on the outskirts of the west side of Fernley. Think it's something like 75x 150 feet? There's a sh*t load of those transformers, but also remember all these substations are worthless if there's no grid (power lines) to transfer them to. In any case, how many rounds can be fired in one minute destroying those transformers, then hauling a$$? How many times have you seen those tall electrical towers that provide power to the cities and it's substations? More than once I've read where dynamite that's been used and stored at some construction site shed has been broken into, with the dynamite stolen, along with blasting caps and fuse. Which is a lot easier than getting a license, etc. for it. And in Florida, there's a lot of these electrical towers. The ones outside or near Disney World actually have "heads" on them like Mickey Mouse. So, blow 3-4 of these miles apart....how long will it take the electrical company to get girders, equipment, etc. out to the one of them and how long would it take for them to figure out where the break or breaks in the system is at? Also think of the mayhem that can be caused by a train wreck. I've looked at more than one map of the railroad tracks in the U.S. and there aren't that many compared to what was used back even in the 50's and 60's. How about the train carrying a bunch of hazardous material, blow the tracks near some stream/river or better yet, as it passes thru some neighborhood. Remember reading about a train wreck that happened in San Bernardino, California 10 years, maybe more ago. A couple of houses were wiped out.

[millwright]

There are something like 33 grid interconnect, transformer stations in the country.

Many maps are available on the transmission systems and power generating stations.

After an attack on transmission infrastructure, I think we would still see a lot of regional areas still powered up.

[papaof2]

There's a long downhill section on a rail system somewhere near there and a fully loaded freight lost its brakes going down that stretch, resulting in it blasting into town at a speed which guaranteed derailment. There's a desert freight that's nearly all fuel tankcars (gas, diesel) and would be an excellent target going through an inhabited area. How much C4 can one of the big drones or winged R/C aircraft carry? Could a shaped charge blow the cap off a tank car and ignite the contents? Could someone at a military base take over a Predator or similar and simply fly it into the side of a tankcar, taking it off the rails? If the Predator is armed, it could take out one or more tankcars from a distance and go on to do further damage. If you explode one tankcar, the train derails. Some story (maybe a JDY?) has a train of propane cars going up. "Deep Winter" (by Thomas Sherry, series is online and on amazon.com) has a typical mixed load train derailed by the earthquake and the combination of explosive, corrosive and deadly-when-mixed chemicals takes out a large section of the downtown area along the tracks.

Finding damaged highline towers is easy from above, whether using drones, light aircraft, choppers or satellite images - just look for the discontinuities in that usually straight line. Repairs are not so easy, some things requiring the Sky Crane level of copter to bring in and stack pieces to build a new tower (BIG Erector set). Electrical switching stations near generating facilities would typically be working at very high voltages (as evidenced by each "line" being that three wire triangle held in position by spacers every XX feet). The loss of one of those stations - or even part of its capacity - would affect many people and it's not likely that they have enough spares to repair three of those that are damaged in the same timeframe (day, week, month?).

Some low power switchgear is "generic" (transformers feeding single house or small group of houses) but many of the big items are custom built with long lead times and some of the transformers and other things come by ship from South Korea or China - good luck getting one of those overnighted to you.

[papaof2]

Oct 24, 2019 11:19:46 GMT -6 millwright said:

There are something like 33 grid interconnect, transformer stations in the country.

Many maps are available on the transmission systems and power generating stations.

After an attack on transmission infrastructure, I think we would still see a lot of regional areas still powered up.

The minimally affected areas *should* be able to power back up after the interconnects are opened so they're not trying to power the world, but having multiple interconnects open suddenly would have the generators going over-voltage from lack of load and shutting down. IF the generators and switchgear are not damaged by the over-voltage event, local power could be restored (however big their "local" power area is). Reports of power being on in Smithville would likely have people migrating from Jonesville, Brownsville, Podunk and other towns outside their "local" power area just to have power. Once the motels fill and the restaurants run out of food, where do you get more food to feed them if Jonesville was the bigger city and the fuel pipeline terminal and the grocery warehouses there are now without power? This is possibly more likely across state boundaries because Alabama Power will try to provide for Alabama while Mississippi Flicker and Flash does so for Mississippi and never the twain shall meet and agree on leaving "their" customers in the dark.

[millwright]

The piece I read on this mentioned a critical number of X-fmr failures that would cause cascading failures.

I can see equipment being scavenged just to keep a more localized area lit up.

[9idrr]

Well, millwright, we can sure see how smart the Greenies are, wantin' to get rid of natural gas, huh?

[papaof2]

Oct 24, 2019 20:56:50 GMT -6 9idrr said:

Well, millwright, we can sure see how smart the Greenies are, wantin' to get rid of natural gas, huh?

Yep. Then all their electric cars would be charging from that dirty coal-fired electricity.