Grid Down Power UP (2024)Documentary Narrated by Dennis Quaid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kErOyJ0u-8
My notes from the video (watch it for yourself)
What happens if electricity is interrupted:
-No light, fuel, water, internet, heat, transportation, food supply, hospitals,
medication, banking, all communication
Example: 2021 Texas grid collapsed
-Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Formal Complaint (look up)
-they had to boil water as it was unsafe
-grocery shelves emptied
-4.37 minutes away from a prolonged grid power outage
Difference the minutes made:
-short-term interruption 2-3 days = 200 deaths
-long-term outage 1-2 years = 10s of millions deaths
Why does the power grid matter?:
-the most vulnerable affected by a short or long term power outage would be
the elderly, disabled, babies/children, and special needs
-our critical civilian infrastructure relies on power for everything in our society
-the power grid should be protecting our power supply
-power gives us control over our environment
-the power grid generates, transmissions, and is how power is distributed
What is vulnerable?
-high power voltage transformers-= power plants to transformers to homes
& offices & factories
-vulnerable high voltage transformers= takes 18 months to replace just one
and with no electricity then can’t replace it
-China is buying land and putting their input in our grid and Chinese transformers
that we imported into the united states (200 transformers)
-Chinese transformers 10% of electricity in New York, and 20% in Las Vegas
-Physical attack on power grid are happening
Ex.-terrorism in California 2013 had to reroute power
Ex.-Arizona diesel fuel explosion of transformer
-there have been random events = picture of a bigger attack
Ex. PG & E in the northern area 2014 March-years later but no word on the energy attack
Ex. 60 minutes covered cascading blackout-just hit few-less than 20 = 9 substation coast to coast blackouts
Ex. 2020 = 700 attacks on our grid but not being covered by politics or media
-there have been physical attacks on our electrical infrastructure
-now using encrypted messaging as platforms to test the power grid called simple attacks
Physical attack vs. Cyberattack:
-Russian Hackers access controls to energy facility (not covered in media)
-advanced and digital attacks have hit our grid (covered by New York Times & MSNBC)
-results of hacking our infrastructure will affect our power grids
-solar winds, colonial pipeline, meat packing processing plants are vulnerable to cyber attack (Detroit free press covered this)
-there is no oversight to deal with malware attacks of the power grid
Ex. cyberattack 2015-Russia hacked into the Ukraine grid and knocked out their power
-attack power, light, heat in the middle of winter then took out the capitals’ grid, 3rd wiped out state, federal intelligence agencies, wiped out ways to get money-ATMs of no use so people couldn’t pay for gas to heat their homes, boil water, or buy anything , paralyzed railway services, 1st automated blackout
Ex. 2 years later-Ukraine- forensics says they were not the end game but the test kitchen (trial run)
-US is the real target and will be so much worse since we are not automated
-U.S. is digital based in every part of our infrastructure: power grid, healthcare, pipelines, etc…
-warning from Ukraine-geopolitical conflict-cyber war or cyber attack-who would win the conflict?
Ex. Israel is the example of of a country that can run its own functions-Israel national cyber security strategy-can still function with hostile neighbors surrounding them
U.S. vulnerable:
-U.S. would lose this war-Chinese, Iran, and Russians are all testing and planning to destroy our power grid
-vulnerabilities in our security are state wide
-we are not a preventive society-we are a reactionary society
-electromagnetic pulse: historically nuclear war image of mushroom cloud but not same today
-today=nuclear hit in outer space no one feels it-but the magnetic pulse charge hits the power grid and wipes it out
-nuclear explosion in the atmosphere above the United States would send a burst-invisible electrical energy in a fraction of a second-overload all our electrical devices-including the national power grid
EMP: high altitude explosion:
-even a weather balloon in the atmosphere could cause catastrophic damage to the power grid
-existential threat: North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China plan of war is to take out U.S. power grid-they already have the capabilities
-Iranian scientists have been present in North Korea-working to arm their missile warhead
-U. S. hears the warnings, ignores it, then when it affects U. S. they try to throw money at it
-if the power grid goes down there will not have enough money or time to combat
-if an EMT attack happens we would not survive
-EMP suitcases- one individual can bring down a whole metropolitan city
-North Korea has two satellites launched in 2015-2016, polar orbit from south to north several times-transmitting data-weapons waiting to drop a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere of the U. S.?
-U.S. is complacent on motives of our adversaries-China has 2 paths to world domination
-an EMP attack can be anonymous disguised-
Ex. Russia using an EMP in Ukraine-they can place an attack on their system and not be immediately blamed
Goal of Islam:
-demise of U.S. and Israel believe will trigger an event where the last Islamic Messiah will appear kill the rest of the infidels and then Islam will rule the world
GMD: Geometric Disturbances
-natural process-GMD- we have been hit by sun spots
Ex. 2013 Lloyds of London- solar storm North American electric grid-warns of geometric storms-outage could last from 6 days to 1-2 years, relies on spare replacement transformers, one of greatest threat is a natural EMP
Ex. 2012 there was a solar superstorm surpassed the intensity of the Carrington event in 1859
United States not up to par:
-the power grid has been studied in other countries, but power companies in the U.S. are not interested in studying the impact here?
-U.S. doesn’t spend money on ensuring we enact our grid is working and protected but instead billions of dollars spent on lobbying
-the federal government has no direct authority to require the electric grid to be protected
-electric utility industry is self regulated
-utilities are supposed to protect grid from all hazards
-they do not think they should protect the grid from outside sources
-no other government agency wants to step up or take responsibility
Who is in control over our power grid?:
-Department of Defense says an EMP from the sun is a natural threat so belongs to department of homeland security
-so an EMP can be from a nuclear weapon so that is department of defense responsibility
-Department of energy who oversees the electric grid so they say national security is not our responsibility at all
-physical grid is pieced together- so has its regulatory system-overseen by two agencies
-federal energy regulatory commission(FERC) gave its authority to Nerc
-North American Electric Reliability Corporation (Nerc) is a pawn for the the electric industry by lobbyists (12 trustees)
**bipartisan legislation: mandate that utility companies to meet the bare minimum of cyber security always knocked down by lobbyists
-utilities managing these tangled webs of software that has not been updated in a decade (article 2010)
-they do not want inspection-oversight of government
-they regulate themselves so they can be opaque
***the attitude of it is that it will be someone else’s problem
-no one is watching over them to demand they be honest
-billions of lobbying dollars with no fixes at the federal or state level
-the utility industry has made itself untouchable
Securing the power grid:
-Center for security policy-is trying to require the securing the U.S. power grid
-Israel and Ukraine have appointed single champion to protecting their power grid
-U.S. doesn’t have one person in charge of protecting our power grid
-the president can appoint one person and provide resources and mandate to get out there and protect our power grid
-any overwatch over our power grid is blocked by bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Energy
Ex. Obama and Trump signed executive order regarding protection of our power grid from naturally electromagnetic pulses-naturally
- 2019 & 2020 national defense authorization act so making progress
-when Biden took office progress has stalled- bogged down with inaction and endless calls for more studies (Going Green doesn’t protect the power grid)
Ex. California in 2018 legislature dominated by democrats-voted yes to upgrading and protecting the power grid-infrastructure
-4 years later not action on the hazard mitigation summit
What is happening now?
-good power companies = Dominion Power, Duke Energy, CPS energy, CenterPoint Energy, American Electric Power, Southern California Edison,
-recent progress report by homeland security-electromagnetic pulse shared (2020)
Plan to fix the electrical grid:
-hold the electric industry accountable-for making sure the grid is protected
-hold the U.S. government and state governments accountable
-we know how to protect our power grid assets
-demand the defense department protect our important strategic systems like our nuclear weapon systems, communications systems against nuclear electromagnetic pulses, there are military standards that know how to do this, mitigation measures against EMP-digital substack
-make EMP protections affordable to make substations and easily attained but power companies slow to retrofit their substations
-it can be done in phases-depending on need-work first on the ones hardest to replace:
1st-transformers
2nd-substations
3rd-transmission
4th-generation
5th-fuel supply
-use of micro-grids for huge transformer
-move away from big grids
-each city has own micro-grid, independent power source, this would change the politics over electric energy, gives more autonomy to the people
-create a smart city roadmap for public power utilities
-municipally owned power station in cities like San Antonio
-electromagnetic defense initiative
-local grid community
-local, state, national levels need people to come together and speak out
-legislation provide discipline structure regulatory and people on the ground to get it done
-2017 report- assessing the threat from electromagnetic pulse (emp)
Commission recommendations to congress:
President establish an executive agent with authority, accountability, and resources to manage us national infrastructure protection defense against the existential emp threat
Implementation of cybersecurity for the electric grid and other critical infrastructure include emp protection
President to work with congressional leaders to establish a joint presidential-congressional commission with members supporting the nation’s leadership for the protection of critical national infrastructures
Government agencies and industries adopt new standard to protect critical national infrastructures from damaging E3 EMP heave fields, with more realistic standards of 85 V/km
Department of defense and department of energy provide expedited threat-level full system testing of large power transformers in wide use within the bulk electric system and share key findings with the electric utility industry
-protect civilian power structure. Griddownpowerup.com
-send emails and letters to legislators, utility companies, and regulators
-local government officials and demand America's defense be addressed now
-enough people come together to make enough noise then this can get done
***The goal should be to have a reliable and defensible power grid
Clean Energy Sources-Go Green Climate skews the data
Solar Energy. Our beautiful bread and butter, solar energy. ...
Wind Energy. Another clean energy source, wind energy is technically another form of solar energy since the sun is partly responsible for all weather patterns on Earth. ...
Bioenergy. ...
Geothermal Energy. ...
Hydropower. ...
Nuclear Energy. ...
Natural Gas.
What science provides as data:
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