Posted on 09/03/2013 7:55:07 PM PDT by Travis McGee
The electric grid, as government and private experts describe it, is the glass jaw of American industry. If an adversary lands a knockout blow, they fear, it could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of Sept. 11. This is why thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, F.B.I. antiterrorism experts and officials from government agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico are preparing for an emergency drill in November that will simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid. They will practice for a crisis unlike anything the real grid has ever seen, and more than 150 companies and organizations have signed up to participate. “This is different from a hurricane that hits X, Y and Z counties in the Southeast and they have a loss of power for three or four days,” said the official in charge of the drill, Brian M. Harrell of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, known as NERC. “We really want to go beyond that.” One goal of the drill, called GridEx II, is to explore how governments would react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain for everyday necessities. “If we fail at electricity, we’re going to fail miserably,”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The feds are practicing for a grid collapse.
That expertise involves running 5,800 major power plants and 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, monitored and controlled by a staggering mix of devices installed over decades. Some utilities use their own antique computer protocols and are probably safe from hacking — what the industry calls “security through obscurity.”
But others rely on Windows-based control systems that are common to many industries. Some of them run on in-house networks, but computer security experts say they are not confident that all the connections to the public Internet have been discovered and secured. Many may be vulnerable to software — known as malware — that can disable the systems or destroy their ability to communicate, leaving their human operators blind about the positions of switches, the flows of current and other critical parameters. Experts say a sophisticated hacker could also damage hard-to-replace equipment.
yup, they may even make it happen...
“Another problem is that the electric system is so tightly integrated that a collapse in one spot, whether by error or intent, can set off a cascade, as happened in August 2003, when a power failure took a few moments to spread from Detroit to New York.”
Obama will likely count this ‘drill’ in his statistics for how much he has opened up land for ‘drilling’.
The feds are practicing for a grid collapse.
They can practice the mechanics of it until the cows come home and still not have a clue.
They do not know us - the people. They can’t factor it in because they don’t know who we are, only who they think we are. The way the people cope, react, respond is something they will never understand.
As that’s a good thing.
The un-reliability of Wind and Solar is what will be crashing the grid
bookmark
Texas is stand-alone on the electric grid. We're not tightly integrated with the rest of the USofA.
/johnny
Keep it that way, and make it even more robust.
/johnny
Alas, Brave New Babylon
(link to the Free Republic thread)
OK, so 1.7 billion rounds bought, 3,000 MRAPS all over the country, and now this “innocent exercise” cover-story.
Nice.
Hey, I’m SURE we can trust the Fast & Furious Prez with this set-up, right?
Oh, sure. All this for PRUDENCE.
Uh-huh.
A cold November without power would kill a lot of people in America’s northern latitudes.
Very few people heat with wood or coal anymore, or could do it even if they were forced to try.
I’m so glad they are looking out for us.
I wonder how they will simulate massive food riots, looting, and widespread arson, plus shooting at police and fire fighters?
Because that’s what the fedgov will be facing, not just an electrical problem.
They will start to burn furniture in makeshift fireplaces, and entire blocks of apartments will burn to the ground.
Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
But I think that they think the majority will go running to the government like babies to the tit. That they will then gain complete power.
But, that is not how it will play out.
These exercises of theirs are meant to instill fear. And I'm sure it will work on a few, the same few will be the first to perish if a grid down becomes reality.
Not to mention the deaths by carbon monoxide...
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