US Seized Chinese-Built Transformer

The lab, which is operated by Honeywell International, handles contract work for the US Energy Department associated with threats to national security, the report added.

A US representative of the company, Jim Cai, told the newspaper that it had sold more than 7000 such transformers in the past two decades to numerous international customers.

Cai was unaware of what had happened to the transformer until he was asked for comment by the WSJ.

US President Donald Trump on 1 May signed an executive order for the DoE to find and ban devices from the power grid made by foreign countries that were considered a threat to national security.

A report in Politico said Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette had recently played down concerns from industry that new clean energy projects could be inconvenienced by the order.

The language in the order is said to be so all-encompassing and covering nearly 20 types of gear that developers fear they may have to delay projects, anticipating that components ordered from abroad could be banned.

The seized transformer was meant for the Western Area Power Administration for use in its Ault substation. Apart from WAPA, the Chinese firm has also sold units to American customers the New York Power Authority, EDF Renewables, B.C. Hydro and MidAmerican Energy.

The report said WAPA fed wholesale electricity to power stations in 15 states in the western and central US.

Transformers do not contain software-based control systems and are passive devices, though recent equipment may contain diagnostic electronics, the WSJ said.

Imagine if one of these happened and knocked out much of the grid around the world.
Who would have first dibs on the critical equipment that would need to be replaced to restore widespread electrical service? It would be the same people who claimed first dibs on PPE, first dibs on medication, etc etc. This is a very real threat.

Seems our 'elites' put us in this spot - sold us out to China... This is sad. What a horrible way for our country to die.

As an engineer, I can easily see China placing control circuit chips where they can be commanded to shutdown a transformer and stay down even on reboot. It would be impossible for field engineers or technicians to know of those circuits. Sandia, however, can trace the chips and find the hidden circuits.

This would take China’s government to back such an effort but it can easily be done. Even I could do it with basic tools. The risk to China is that we discover those circuits and consider it an act of war, and I do.

I am not a war hawk. War with China is ludicrous, but finding those circuits should mean we take serious action such as banning all electronics made in China from the US, including all cell phones, TVs, computers, etc. Shut them down completely.

“How hard would it be to send intel to China regarding power flows?”

More likely, it’s a simple “off” switch.

But a lot of other things can be hidden, too. A lot of electronic equipment can be caused to transmit data over the power lines in which it runs.

All you need is a receiver.

Yes. The “trade with China crowd is good” crowd put profit above common sense.

Years ago I read some about this after hearing a guy interviewed on a talk show (can’t remember, possibly Lars Larson Show).

The irony was that this equipment can easily be made for competitive prices here in the US if it were not for environmental regulations. The guy sounded knowledgeable about the subject and had worked in the industry.

The good news is that Trump is aware of this and has commented on it before. The best thing to come out of this horrible virus (if Trump wins in November) is that Trump will address some of these issues moving forward.

We not only need to harden our grid as critical infrastructure, but we need to accept that having the capability to make our own equipment is a national defense priority and not some series of numbers on a spreadsheet at the Chamber of Commerce.

Turning out the lights for a few months would not be an “inconvenience” - it would disrupt everything and likely turn our urban centers into disaster zones. It would be far more catastrophic than this virus was.

I’m not even worried about SCADA systems, really. There are enough Chinese CCP members in the US that if commanded they could easily just physically destroy key electrical infrastructure components and take down the grid.

We are a nation that relies on peaceful citizens, and I am happy we are, but this also means if we don’t protect ourselves from those that seek our demise then we will be destroyed from within.

Sandia is managed (I guess you could say operated!) currently by Honeywell International and has been since May 1 2017. When I used to go their it was managed\operated by Lockheed-Martin.

“...…
.” Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Electric, was formed on October 5, 1949, and, on November 1, 1949, took over management of the Laboratory. The United States Congress designated Sandia Laboratories as a National laboratory in 1979. In October 1993, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) was managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin. As of May 2017, management of Sandia National Laboratory transitioned to National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, covering government-owned facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico (SNL/NM); Livermore, California (SNL/CA); Tonopah, Nevada

………”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandia_National_Laboratories

Sandia does a lot of weapons effects simulations using electrical discharges.

(Google “Marx Generator” to see the kind of stuff I am talking about.)

This could be nothing more than them invoking the Defense Production Act to divert a necessary piece of big, long lead, electrical gear to accelerate one of their programs.

Yup.

This whole issue of how to secure SCADA systems and IoT enabled devices has been a huge topic of discussion in the IT world for over a decade now. There are more vulnerabilities than you can count with more and more things being enabled for remote control via the web.

Even if nothing like that were part of the original design spec of the transformer I would certainly not put it past the Chinese to slip something of that nature into the circuits.

All of that is a cover fiction. Sandia is owned by the US government. It is government land and government facilities and government equipment. The contract is a mechanism to pay the employees.

You have to look at the details of the contract to understand that. The employees are employees of the lab. The government could, for cause, terminate the contract tomorrow, write a new contract with someone else and transfer the employees to the new entity.

...IIoT and "Industry 4.0" are being touted as "the" way for US manufacturing to compete with the cheaper labor markets around the world...

...with advanced ML, automation and "dark plants"...

..."Made in the USA" is a real possibility in the future...

...but due to the nature of the newest incarnation of the "Cold War"...

...special care is going to be needed to secure our power and data infrastructure...

...or at least that's how this high-tech redneck sees it...

Last paragraph says it all.

I liked the last paragraph in your first linked article:

"But whether a company has a culture that promotes theft, dishonesty or obstruction of justice is just as relevant," he said. "It tells you how the company will behave when it suits its interests."

What Chinese company is not like this?

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