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More than 10,000 people in Arkansas were dumped into a blackout Sunday following an attack on that state’s electric grid, the FBI said today, the third such attack in recent weeks. In August, a major transmission line in the region, around Cabot, Ark., was deliberately cut. The FBI said that two power poles had been intentionally cut in Lonoke County on Sunday, resulting in the outage. According to the FBI: In the early morning hours of September 29, 2013, officials with Entergy Arkansas reported a fire at its Keo substation located on Arkansas Highway 165 between Scott and England in...

The fall-out from a grid-down scenario would be absolutely devastating, as noted by a spokesman for the Center for Security Policy who recently responded to the potential for EMP capable weapons being deployed over the United States: And experts forecast if such an attack were a success, it effectively could throw the U.S. back into an age of agriculture. “Within a year of that attack, nine out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can’t support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity,” said Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security...

BRADY, Tex. — In October, the City Council of this Central Texas town voted unanimously to purchase advanced electric meters, known as smart meters, for the city-owned electric utility. But some residents resisted, and the smart meter vote played a large role in last weekend’s recall of the city’s mayor and the electoral defeat of two council members. Voters here passed a referendum last weekend to enshrine in the City Charter the right of residents to refuse the installation of smart meters on their property. Sheila Hemphill, an organizer of the effort, called the victory her “San Jacinto.” The reaction...

A non-profit clean energy group, Solar One, has been deploying solar generators to areas most affected by Hurricane Sandy. The group currently has several generators running in the Rockaways, and made a recent delivery to Midland Beach on Staten Island. The delivery went to a community-run center operating at St. Margaret Mary Roman Catholic Church. Adjacent to the church’s gymnasium is a building still without power. There, volunteers have set up services like a legal clinic, to help residents with their paperwork, and a free store, packed with donated goods like soap and canned foods. Outside is a small yard...

Four coal industry regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will likely cause electricity prices to rise and may “compromise” electric grid reliability — especially in the Midwest and South — according to the Government Accountability Office. “Several representatives from power companies and officials from federal and state regulatory agencies have expressed concerns that as companies incur additional costs in responding to these additional regulations, and as the electricity supply is affected by generating unit requirements, electricity prices could increase and reliability — the ability to meet consumers’ electricity demands — could be compromised,” the GAO

Some two weeks after Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta warned of a potential “cyber-Pearl Harbor” involving a possible attack on the electric grid, Mother Nature took the cue and hit the East Coast with a storm that left millions of us for days without electricity from the grid. Some said silent thanks for that old generator they’d thought to stick in the garage. Though it wasn’t a cyberattack, but Mother Nature gave parts of the grid a good lashing anyway. On my country road south of Annapolis, two transformers were blown down from their perches on telephone poles, and...

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators laid down principles on Thursday for planning and paying for new power lines, part of a long-term policy effort to help the nation’s electricity grid grow enough to meet the demands of renewable energy and a competitive electricity market. The rule, which has been in the works for several years, is intended to push the organizations that manage the grid into cooperating with one another, so that developers can build power lines across several states and multiple electrical jurisdictions. Such cross-jurisdictional transmission lines are becoming more important as states seek to reach their goals of integrating...

February 26, 2010 — 2:53 PM A massive solar storm could leave millions of people around the world without electricity, running water, or phone service, government officials say. That was their conclusion after participating in a tabletop exercise that looked at what might happen today if the Earth were struck by a solar storm as intense as the huge storms that occurred in 1921 and 1859. Solar storms happen when an eruption or explosion on the surface of the sun sends radiation or electrically charged particles toward Earth. Minor storms are common and can light up the Earth's Northern skies...

Infrastructure: The stimulus plan to turn America's electrical infrastructure into a so-called "smart grid" is a potential target for unfriendly hackers. It's also the fulfillment of a campaign promise rooted in socialism.There is $4.5 billion in the stimulus package to modernize the nation's electricity system. The whole idea is to monitor where and when electricity is used and to direct it to where and when it is needed. It is thought this will help utilities to adjust their rates to immediate supply and demand for power. It would supposedly allow consumers to adjust their consumption to the times when they...

Clovis, New Mexico, might just be the cornerstone of a clean-energy revolution. It might also be the epicenter of a political battle over how America embraces green energy. Clovis is the site chosen for the Tres Amigas electricity-transmission project, as our colleague Rebecca Smith reports today in The Wall Street Journal. The idea is to build a powerful substation in New Mexico using advanced supercondctors that could physically connect the three otherwise isolated power grids—the Eastern, the Western, and Texas grids. The project, which could take five years to finish, seeks to remedy one of the problems with renewable energy:...

Security: An Iranian mullah once said "a world without America and Zionism" was a real possibility. Our sellout of Eastern Europe and missile defense brings that dream closer to reality. It would take only one warhead."Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?" Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked at a "World Without Zionism" conference in Tehran in 2005. "But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved." He added that Iran had a strategic "war preparation plan" for what it called "the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization." A...

Strategic Defense: A new report says the United States must develop robust missile and space defenses to counter China. If you think the current economic crisis is something, imagine the effects of a nuke over Iowa.Imagine a world in which you can't get money from your bank or can't get a loan. You can't get money from your ATM even if it's within walking distance. You can't drive to one because your car won't work. No, it's not what would happen if the Congress doesn't pass a bailout bill. This is a small snapshot of what would happen if a...

Conservation: The Chevy Volt is said to be able to get 230 miles per gallon. That's if it's continually plugged into a fragile and overburdened power grid. Where will you be when the lights go out? Since most U.S. electricity generation is not carbon-free, the Congressional Research Service agrees. The "widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, carbon emissions," it observes. "If you are using coal-fired power plants and half the country's electricity comes from coal powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?"...

Electromagnetic pulse is hardly a household term. But perhaps it should be. Every computer we buy, every system we turn over to computer control, every device that relies on electronic components — all cars, TVs and phones, for instance — makes us more vulnerable to such a high-energy rain of electrons. EMP is a powerful and potentially devastating form of electromagnetic "fallout." It’s usually associated with nuclear weapons, although it can be triggered by any major explosive bursts. Unlike radioactive fallout, this rain won’t directly harm living things. It will just catastrophically fry all electronics and modern electrical systems by...

As Scientific American’s George Musser knows, installing solar panels on your roof is a lot easier – and cheaper – said than done. Now, if a Colorado power company has its way, solar aficionados are going to have to start shelling out even more dough to be hooked into the power grid. Xcel Energy has proposed charging a new fee to customers who install solar systems after April 2010, the Denver Post reports. The fee would be linked to the home’s electricity consumption and help the company maintain its aging power grid. Solar customers already foot the bill for installing...

Amidst all the congressional to-ing and fro-ing associated with the President's controversial health care, cap-and-trade and "hate crimes" initiatives, it would be easy for most legislators to overlook a hearing the House Homeland Security Committee has scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. If Congress fails to address the subject of that hearing, however, it literally will not matter whether the government addresses any of those other, disproportionately prominent agenda items. The title of the hearing - "Securing the Modern Electric Grid from Physical and Cyber Attacks" - fails to communicate the magnitude of the danger, and the imperative for urgent corrective action....

Increasing reliance on renewable energy from wind and solar farms might not necessarily mean the construction of thousands of new transmission towers stretching across the American landscape. Cold Cables (American Superconductor Inc.) That’s because of a technology called superconducting cable, that could be the recipient of federal assistance that would speed its deployment. Superconducting cable has for at least two decades struggled to prove its mettle and win big utility contracts from the power industry, which is notoriously slow to adopt new technology. But the technology won a powerful friend this week when House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s introduced on...

U.S. concerns about the potential for cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure extended to the American electrical power grid on Wednesday and experts pointed the finger anew at Chinese hackers, among others. As a result, electric utilities are likely to face new pressures from the U.S. Congress and government regulators to tighten security and preparations against computer intrusions that would wreak widespread havoc. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters the power grid is vulnerable to potentially disabling computer attacks, while declining to comment on reports that an intrusion had taken place. "The vulnerability is something that the Department of Homeland...

WASHINGTON -- Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials. The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war. "The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official....

Tenn. lab tests superconductor power cables for Manhattan, part of Homeland Security project A high-tech power cable designed to prevent rolling blackouts caused by everything from a wayward squirrel to terrorists is being readied for New York City's financial district. Now undergoing final tests at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the superconductor cable to be installed in Manhattan next year could prove key to the smart, secure, super grid of the future. Scientists fired 60,000 amps through a cable during a critical test Tuesday -- an electrical jolt comparable to turning on the air conditioning in 2,000 homes at the...