Are you ready if the power grid gets hacked?

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Padawan
Originally Posted By: Al
Tinfoil Hat-ism is at work here.


It seems to be the official headwear of BITOG.

lol...

 

[turtlevette]

Originally Posted By: VNTS
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
The power grid is not sophisticated enough to be hacked. How do you hack springs and levers? Most of the computerized portions are islanded local networks.

You might be able to hack in and look at your neighbors bill...

Understand that in the USA the grid is designed and operated by some of the most conservative people on the planet. They're just not sure about this computer fad thing.





They will take down the transformers....possibly destroy them in an attack. This would cripple the system for months.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579359141941621778



The only thing a cyber attack could possibly do, assuming they can get thru all the multiple firewalls, is open Breakers and dump load. Utilities could island and manually use cold load pickup and restore the power, I mean their have been huge ice storms which essentially do the same thing!

What the bad guys could do is shoot armor piercing rounds thru the large high voltage transformers which are the back bone of the 345Kv system and above. these units have very little redundancy and a loss of a single unit is a major problem, note spares are not availble in most case and lead times are 3-4 yrs from receipt of PO. The pols worry about Cyber non-sense but that is not what would probably happen.


There are a number of mobile substations available in the USA. There are indeed spares and a damaged unit could be rewound within weeks with proper motivation. The armor piercing round has to get thru the tank wich is approximately 1/2 mild steel. Then several feet of oil. If it does manage to have enough energy to hit the windings it'll create a turn to turn short which is non critical.

Custom SCADA systems control the breaker open/close with little known proprietary protocols. It's not like the average IT geek hacker has any knowledge or access. Uti!ities have their own communication infrastructure. It would be very hard to get access.

Guys, the Grid can still function with major sections out. How else could we ever do maintenance? A grid with a double or triple point of failure would be useless.

But if there is this much fear, there may be an opportunity for me to do some consulting for serious bucks.

 

[Wolf359]

Not worried about it at all.

For a cool site, check out ISO-New England, they run the power grid in the New England area. Gives you a daily report of the power used, available, etc.

http://www.iso-ne.com/markets-operations/system-forecast-status/morning-report

I think after the power went out after Sandy, NY ended up requiring gas stations to have backup generators. Most blackouts probably won't last long and you could always hop in a car and drive to some area that had power.

 

[Shannow]

When Israel released Stuxnet, it woke up the utility sector to the vulnerability of having their controls systems available to the Internet...and they fixed it.

As to taking out the transformers...yep shooting the porcelain works, as does shooting out the insulators on overland transmission lines (has happened in my state when some farmers weren't happy with the Mount Piper to Marulan line), but the term "grid" results in the electricity taking a different path.

They have spares...no company is going to be out of business for a year while they get a tranny built...

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...y_?#Post3975098

Fear sells stuff.

 

[Doog]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette

That site has a gazillion ads running. You want to believe it so you can feel good about that generator purchase?

But don't let me spoil your fantasies.



I paid $150 for my generator at Harbor Freight 3 years ago. Some guy brought it back and the spark plug was bad. I changed the oil, put a new plug in and zama...like new..

So I feel fine about the generator purchase....but the transformers that were shot are the huge ones...and there are no replacements in stock for months. You need to read the article.

That "site" is the Wall Street Journal.....duh

You guys in New England are really going to suffer when the grid goes down. The last time you were helpless.

 

[turtlevette]

Any site running all that garbage is a trash site. They shot up 17 transformers and still couldn't cause an outage. People shoot glass insulators all the time. They won't flash over until it rains. There is a fiberglass and polymer insulator that can take some fire without failure. Again the grid is more robust than people think.

Maybe a disease will turn people to zombies, then you'll be happy. A bunch of guys here would.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Doog
...but the transformers that were shot are the huge ones...and there are no replacements in stock for months. You need to read the article.

That "site" is the Wall Street Journal.....duh


Did you click on the link in my last post, and read what I said ?

If a power transformer is mission critical, there's at least one spare...my link was a new one getting delivered to work...so there's a spare, and it won't take months...if it's just a bushing, there's spares of those too, couple days to fit, some high voltage testing to see the tranny fared in the trip, and good to go.

When I worked in transmission, there were either local or central spares depending on the criticality.

In order to do what you (well the WSJ ... duh) are suggesting, there would need to be a concerted and co-ordinated attack on every station/switchyard at the same time.

A yard here and there, and the electricity just runs around a different set of wires.

But if you like feeling scared, read all the WSJ articles that you want...they are babbling and scaremongering on this issue.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
The power grid is not sophisticated enough to be hacked. How do you hack springs and levers? Most of the computerized portions are islanded local networks.

You might be able to hack in and look at your neighbors bill...

Understand that in the USA the grid is designed and operated by some of the most conservative people on the planet. They're just not sure about this computer fad thing.





They will take down the transformers....possibly destroy them in an attack. This would cripple the system for months.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579359141941621778


That site has a gazillion ads running. You want to believe it so you can feel good about that generator purchase?

We have spares. We have spare capacity. Transformers are pretty stout. You can shoot it and someone will be there in minutes to plug the holes and add oil. The bushings are most fragile part being porcelain. They stock lots of spares. Stuff blowsup naturally all the time and we just switch around it. There are many more power plants than needed. Lots of spare capacity.

But don't let me spoil your fantasies.


Where I used to live, a neighbor worked for the power company. He said they were just about finished replacing the last of the transformers that were installed in the late 20's! You're not kidding about transformers being pretty stout.

He also said that they still worked fine...but everyone that knew how to service them was retiring!

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: Dave Sherman
I would say most folks aren't prepared at all for a power failures. Our local PD bemoans the fact that if the power goes out for more than a minute, people are calling them frantically about when it will be on again.

Although the 2003 northeast blackout was widespread, it wasn't very long. I was without power for about 6 hours. I had some water stored up, I pulled the rope so I could open the garage door manually to park my car, managed to cook dinner lighting the gas stove with a lighter, turned on my battery powered lantern and lit the oil lamps for light, listened to the battery powered radio for the news, had a glass of wine and read a book after dinner. Found it a rather peaceful experience, actually. Next day, folks at work acted like it was the end of the world; they couldn't get their cars out of the garage because they didn't know to pull the rope, they had no idea how to cook without electricity, and they acted like I was MacGyver when I told them how I handled it.

Now I think I could go a couple days at least; I have a generator, some canned goods, a camp stove, and camp gear. Could sleep in the popup camper if I needed heat.


My mother has a generator now...her biggest problem with losing power is that she has no water! Her neighbor can't cook anything without power.

I had a generator for much the same reason: no power meant no water. (It also means no heat.)

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: VNTS
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
The power grid is not sophisticated enough to be hacked. How do you hack springs and levers? Most of the computerized portions are islanded local networks.

You might be able to hack in and look at your neighbors bill...

Understand that in the USA the grid is designed and operated by some of the most conservative people on the planet. They're just not sure about this computer fad thing.


They will take down the transformers....possibly destroy them in an attack. This would cripple the system for months.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579359141941621778


The only thing a cyber attack could possibly do, assuming they can get thru all the multiple firewalls, is open Breakers and dump load. Utilities could island and manually use cold load pickup and restore the power, I mean their have been huge ice storms which essentially do the same thing!

What the bad guys could do is shoot armor piercing rounds thru the large high voltage transformers which are the back bone of the 345Kv system and above. these units have very little redundancy and a loss of a single unit is a major problem, note spares are not availble in most case and lead times are 3-4 yrs from receipt of PO. The pols worry about Cyber non-sense but that is not what would probably happen.


There are a number of mobile substations available in the USA. There are indeed spares and a damaged unit could be rewound within weeks with proper motivation. The armor piercing round has to get thru the tank wich is approximately 1/2 mild steel. Then several feet of oil. If it does manage to have enough energy to hit the windings it'll create a turn to turn short which is non critical.


1/2" steel isn't much. A lead-cored .223 will punch through it. Anything bigger (or small & fast, like a .220 Swift or a .22-250) will go through it like paper, even with a cast lead bullet.

Couldn't the shooter simply wait a few minutes for the oil to leak out, then shoot another round?

 

[turtlevette]

You "gun ho" types want to think you're super powerful.

Most modern installations have concrete firewalls between units also. So shoot thru a concrete wall then 1/2 to 1" steel then several feet of oil.

And you want to wait around for 10,000 gallons of oil to leak out the hole the size of a 22 bullet? You got a few hours?

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Dave Sherman
I would say most folks aren't prepared at all for a power failures. Our local PD bemoans the fact that if the power goes out for more than a minute, people are calling them frantically about when it will be on again.

More than 80-90% Californian aren't prepared for any disaster, nobody down here has power generator or food and drinking water for more than few days. Without power we are doom.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: Joshua_Skinner
The power grid communications system I'm somewhat familiar with has no connection to the public internet so there's no hacking it from there. There are hardly any leased lines from the telcos any more as they don't want to sell and support them. If you did hack one of those you might lose some small data stream, but generation drop and circuit breaker operations aren't on those types of circuits as they are too slow. I agree that the transformers are the most vulnerable assets on most power systems. Conductor and insulators are kept on hand. I feel that earthquake is what's likely to cause the biggest problems.


Remember the Iranian nuclear project was not connected to the internet yet the CIA or Israel managed to hack it and destroy centrifuges.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
You "gun ho" types want to think you're super powerful.

Most modern installations have concrete firewalls between units also. So shoot thru a concrete wall then 1/2 to 1" steel then several feet of oil.

And you want to wait around for 10,000 gallons of oil to leak out the hole the size of a 22 bullet? You got a few hours?


Are you CAPABLE of making three posts without being a condescending terd?

 

[turtlevette]

Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
You "gun ho" types want to think you're super powerful.

Most modern installations have concrete firewalls between units also. So shoot thru a concrete wall then 1/2 to 1" steel then several feet of oil.

And you want to wait around for 10,000 gallons of oil to leak out the hole the size of a 22 bullet? You got a few hours?


Are you CAPABLE of making three posts without being a condescending terd?


You militia type people bother me. It'll be one of you wanting to do something like this to fulfill some alternate version of the country where you're on top because of your guns. Obviously you're already thinking about which rounds can penetrate a transformer tank.

 

[Doc8404]

Looking at a standby genset for the whole house. Problem is it would be hooked to NG. Might need to rethink and consider propane.

 

[Shannow]

I've got a little 700W 4 stroke to run the electrics on the (gas) hot water system and space heater....would have come in real handy to couple of times we've been out for 12-14 hours after snow.

But in the event that the grid goes down, the gas will be gone too not long after.

 

[turtlevette]

Generators just sit and deteriorate. I got a 1000va inverter for the suburban to run the boiler. The 5.3 can idle for not much more gas than a medium size generator. I can lock it up and let it idle 24/7. The wife thinks its hard on the car but I don't give a stink.

 

[Shannow]

Yeah, that probably would have made more sense, but you can't change the oil on an inverter.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
You "gun ho" types want to think you're super powerful.

Most modern installations have concrete firewalls between units also. So shoot thru a concrete wall then 1/2 to 1" steel then several feet of oil.

And you want to wait around for 10,000 gallons of oil to leak out the hole the size of a 22 bullet? You got a few hours?


Are you CAPABLE of making three posts without being a condescending terd?


You militia type people bother me. It'll be one of you wanting to do something like this to fulfill some alternate version of the country where you're on top because of your guns. Obviously you're already thinking about which rounds can penetrate a transformer tank.


Wait...because I am a recreational shooter, know that most rifle rounds will penetrate 1/2" steel (I have used scraps of it as targets), and asked a simple question, I am a "militia type" person?

Please see a qualified mental health professional to deal with your hallucinations.