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madmartigan

Big American Vulnerability exposed: Pinehurst, NC power outages

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The security (or lack thereof) and substations is absurd. Someone exposed it in some targetted attacks on substations in NC recently. Drive by shootings it sounds like. This needs to be fixed for the sake of national security: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/05/1140775417/north-carolina-substation-attack-what-we-know 

There are only two things I can't stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. 

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On 12/7/2022 at 2:31 PM, madmartigan said:

The security (or lack thereof) and substations is absurd. Someone exposed it in some targetted attacks on substations in NC recently. Drive by shootings it sounds like. This needs to be fixed for the sake of national security: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/05/1140775417/north-carolina-substation-attack-what-we-know 

Remember saying after the 9/11 attacks that if terrorist's wanted to disrupt the USA that there's a tons of isolated power lines & railroads that could be hit that would disrupt power & supply lines.

This attack on the power station is similar to one that happened after the Boston Marathon bombing near San Jose 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606/sniper-attack-on-calif-power-station-raises-terrorism-fears

The top of the Journal's story grabs your attention:

"The attack began just before 1 a.m. on April 16 last year, when someone slipped into an underground vault not far from a busy freeway and cut telephone cables.

"Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, they surgically knocked out 17 giant transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. A minute before a police car arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night.

"To avoid a blackout, electric-grid officials rerouted power around the site and asked power plants in Silicon Valley to produce more electricity. But it took utility workers 27 days to make repairs and bring the substation back to life."

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On 12/7/2022 at 3:54 PM, UNLV2001 said:

Remember saying after the 9/11 attacks that if terrorist's wanted to disrupt the USA that there's a tons of isolated power lines & railroads that could be hit that would disrupt power & supply lines.

This attack on the power station is similar to one that happened after the Boston Marathon bombing near San Jose 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606/sniper-attack-on-calif-power-station-raises-terrorism-fears

The top of the Journal's story grabs your attention:

"The attack began just before 1 a.m. on April 16 last year, when someone slipped into an underground vault not far from a busy freeway and cut telephone cables.

"Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, they surgically knocked out 17 giant transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. A minute before a police car arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night.

"To avoid a blackout, electric-grid officials rerouted power around the site and asked power plants in Silicon Valley to produce more electricity. But it took utility workers 27 days to make repairs and bring the substation back to life."

It's a huge vulnerability that needs some fixin. 

There are only two things I can't stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. 

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On 12/7/2022 at 3:04 PM, madmartigan said:

It's a huge vulnerability that needs some fixin. 

Might be easier in the eastern half of the country since things aren't so isolated..............out west there's vast empty areas where power lines go thru & rail lines that would be hard to secure 

 

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We've always been vulnerable to right wing terrorism. 

Remember that every argument you have with someone on MWCboard is actually the continuation of a different argument they had with someone else also on MWCboard. 

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On 12/7/2022 at 4:07 PM, UNLV2001 said:

Might be easier in the eastern half of the country since things aren't so isolated..............out west there's vast empty areas where power lines go thru & rail lines that would be hard to secure 

 

Our grid security is high risk and not thoroughly protected.  Honestly, I’m surprised terrorists haven’t taken advantage of this more. We won’t dedicate more security resources until a massive disaster happens. That’s just the way we roll. 
 

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On 12/7/2022 at 4:34 PM, happycamper said:

We've always been vulnerable to right wing terrorism. 

You seem to be implying this was right wing terrorism. Didn’t know they knew who did this. 

There are only two things I can't stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. 

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On 12/7/2022 at 4:21 PM, madmartigan said:

You seem to be implying this was right wing terrorism. Didn’t know they knew who did this. 

IIRC it was done to disrupt a drag show. 

Remember that every argument you have with someone on MWCboard is actually the continuation of a different argument they had with someone else also on MWCboard. 

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On 12/7/2022 at 4:30 PM, happycamper said:

IIRC it was done to disrupt a drag show. 

I guess someone was questioned after they implied they knew about it on social media.  They were released, but it sounds like they are thinking it was Christian extremist organization, for that exact reason.  Between that and the stuff happening in Texas and Ohio, it seems like this is an escalating phenomenon regarding drag events.  I am leaving the gay club shooting out of it, as that may be more of the standard "I hate gays" type that did that.

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Having worked in the Utility Industry for a number of years, I've been yelling about this for a long time now. There are something like 7-8 strategic substations that if taken out relatively simultaneously, would cascade outages all the way from west of the Appalachians to at least the Rockies if not on into California, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and potentially others. 

These two substations went down on the third... over 35k people ended up without power as a result. Most of them have gotten power restored by today, but not everyone will have power most likely until sometime tomorrow. A big part of why this takes so long is that these substations are either too old for them to keep spare parts on hand for stuff like this, when it would make more sense to develop a replacement plan. The other part is that a ton of these parts are made overseas, so it's not as easy as popping into Lowe's and getting a replacement fuse. 

It also looks like this type of attack is on the upswing, and not going away anytime soon. 

 

image.png

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A complicating factor is that this really isn’t the government’s problem to fix (other than law enforcement of course). It’s up to the myriad of licensed utilities providing us power to protect their infrastructure. 

Thay Haif Said: Quhat Say Thay? Lat Thame Say

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On 12/7/2022 at 6:00 PM, Old_SD_Dude said:

A complicating factor is that this really isn’t the government’s problem to fix (other than law enforcement of course). It’s up to the myriad of licensed utilities providing us power to protect their infrastructure. 

I think this should fall under Homeland Security’s umbrella.  But we would actually have to have leaders take this serious before we use some logic. 

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On 12/7/2022 at 5:57 PM, retrofade said:

Having worked in the Utility Industry for a number of years, I've been yelling about this for a long time now. There are something like 7-8 strategic substations that if taken out relatively simultaneously, would cascade outages all the way from west of the Appalachians to at least the Rockies if not on into California, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and potentially others. 

These two substations went down on the third... over 35k people ended up without power as a result. Most of them have gotten power restored by today, but not everyone will have power most likely until sometime tomorrow. A big part of why this takes so long is that these substations are either too old for them to keep spare parts on hand for stuff like this, when it would make more sense to develop a replacement plan. The other part is that a ton of these parts are made overseas, so it's not as easy as popping into Lowe's and getting a replacement fuse. 

It also looks like this type of attack is on the upswing, and not going away anytime soon. 

 

image.png

This is a clear example of out of sight, out of mind, it works so let’s do the minimum and no need to waste money on efficiency and security. When we turn on the light switch everything works just fine, so no rush. 

Our action plan will be to fix this and spend way too much money after a national disaster with billions in losses. 

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On 12/7/2022 at 2:31 PM, madmartigan said:

The security (or lack thereof) and substations is absurd. Someone exposed it in some targetted attacks on substations in NC recently. Drive by shootings it sounds like. This needs to be fixed for the sake of national security: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/05/1140775417/north-carolina-substation-attack-what-we-know 

Why I think solar with battery back-up in areas with enough sunny days makes more sense.   Distributed power generation eliminates the risk.   

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On 12/7/2022 at 5:27 PM, sactowndog said:

Why I think solar with battery back-up in areas with enough sunny days makes more sense.   Distributed power generation eliminates the risk.   

Probably way too expensive for feasibility and if that requires multi-utility firms or jurisdictions, the agreements, pricing, O&M and capital project schedule would be an absolute nightmare unless a massive entity oversaw that, which would likely only be government, and I am not sure companies would want to do that.  They are already bounded by regs individually, I doubt they want more for what is relatively rare to justify the effort.  May be better to fortify the boundary like data centers  or power plants do.

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What I am curious about is what kind of redundancy is there? I don't want to assume that there isn't any kind of redundancy built into the power grid, because it seems absurd to think that there isn't, but this makes me concerned that there is not enough.

"BYU is like a 4-year-long church dance with 20,000 chaperones all waiting for you to forget to shave one morning so they can throw you out." -GeoAg

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On 12/7/2022 at 7:37 PM, Naggsty Butler said:

What I am curious about is what kind of redundancy is there? I don't want to assume that there isn't any kind of redundancy built into the power grid, because it seems absurd to think that there isn't, but this makes me concerned that there is not enough.

It appears based on recent events like this and Texas we are woefully unprepared and there is little if any redundancy. 

There are only two things I can't stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. 

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