U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack [View all]

[Lodestar]

Federal Analysis Says Sabotage of Nine Key Substations Is Sufficient for Broad Outage

By REBECCA SMITH CONNECT
March 12, 2014 7:03 p.m. ET
The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

The study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, people familiar...

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The nation's entire power grid could be blacked out for months if as few as nine of the nation's 55,000 electric substations were put out of commission by saboteurs, The Wall Street Journal writes, citing a "previously unreported" study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The Journal's report follows accounts of what happened last April at a power station near San Jose, Calif.

As we reported here and here, snipers apparently fired at the station's transformers. Seventeen of the transformers were knocked out by the shots. Officials avoided a local blackout by rerouting power around the site. No one has been arrested in connection with the incident.

That attack led former FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff to tell NPR and other news outlets that there's a dangerous lack of security around key parts of the nation's power grid. He called for "mitigation measures," including the placement of concrete barriers in front of transformers so that they can't be shot at from outside power stations.

Now, there's word from the Journal that the FERC study concludes "that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, people familiar with the research said." Such attacks would be especially damaging if they came on a day when the power grid is already under stress — such as a hot summer day when demand for air conditioning is especially high.

more- http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/13/289779344/report-small-scale-attacks-could-cause-national-blackout