It's the best there is... affordably.
Posted on 10/19/2011 6:40:27 AM PDT by Any Fate But Submission
One objective might be significant damage to a coal/oil fired plant that provides electricity to the Grid. How would they do that?
A simple example would be my electric tea pot at home. Every morning I fill the tea pot with water and turn it on. When the water comes to a boil, I turn it off and pour the water into a cup. My tea pot has a mechanical on-off switch but if I leave it on, the water boils out and the overheat safety switch automatically turns it off. If it was controlled by a computer a cyber attack could turn it on late at night and disable the safety switch such that the tea pot would destroy itself and maybe start a fire.
To get the control codes for key equipment they send a virus into the manufacturer who makes the equipment. They find out in which plants that particular equipment is installed and steal the codes to incorporate them into their attack. That is what the Israelis did to destroy centrifuges in Iran with the Stuxnet virus. This is what our enemies are doing right now, this very minute.
Back to our power plant. They now have codes to some of the operating systems/equipment of the power plant. One of the many things they could do is disable the pressure control systems and the safety “switches” as well as have the system show on the control panels that it is at a normal 3,000 psi when it is really way past 5,000 psi and explodes. By controlling the control system the operators of the plant would never know there was a problem until the explosion.
My tea pot can be replaced for $12 at Wal-Mart but replacement of a huge boiler might take 6 months or more. There would be no electricity from that plant until then.
Now, what if most, if not all, of the power plants in the USA were severely damaged simultaneously such that most of the USA was without electricity for months? Think about 6 months of life without water from the tap, heat, AC, lights, internet, computers, cell phones, 911, GPS, credit cards, ATM, refrigeration, stove/oven, gas stations (no cars, trucks, or trains), street lights, radio/tv, fire, police, and the stock market. Hospitals, etc. have perhaps 72 hours fuel for their emergency generators, then what? How much cash in your wallet because cc won't work?
98% of the population has less than 1 day of water on hand and less than 30 days of food on hand. What then? Desperation, panic, and starving mobs. Think the horror of death, destruction, rape, torture, murder, starvation and disease.
Don’t be a victim. Store a year’s supply of food per person and have access to an unlimited quantity of clean water. Oh yeah, be able to hide yourselves and your food from the starving mobs who will kill you for it.
Sleep well………. OK, maybe not so well, but you can sleep a whole lot better knowing your family will not starve. Remember, it is not about you, it is about your children and grandchildren who rely on you for your foresight and wisdom. Start today, right now, buy a shopping cart full of canned goods, rice, etc and develop a place to hide it. Keep it secret, very very secret. (If you store food secretly you do not have to feel foolish or embarrassed about storing food because no one else will know, so go ahead, its OK).
Cheaper Than Dirt website, or
Preparednessdaily.com or,
just "Google" "preparedness supplies" or some such.
“How would someone living in a city have access to unlimited water?”
Set up a downspout from your gutter to a couple of 30 gallon plastic garbage cans. Cover the top with screening material to filter out the big stuff and then get a Big Berkey water filter to purify it. Once the electric goes off so will your tap.
You're not, but you aren't ubiquitous either.
IIRC, it was precisely one of these autonomous breakers that was a root cause of the big NE blackout of 1965...
All power plants have numerous pressure safety valves AND local gages to measure pressure AND experienced operators in the field monitoring plant conditions AND emergency trips not connected to the plant control network AND FERC does not allow Generators to connect plant control systems to a WAN.
I guess to sum things up, you're full of poop.
Large-scale result of massive cyber-attack? As another poster said, look to the Northeast Blackout of 1965. We lived near Syracuse, NY at the time and I remember it well.
That would work ok, unless you lived in a big apartment building.
But this article was imagining ways to damage the actual vessels, piping and the like.
The NE blackout tripped safety systems that prevented damage and allowed restarting by the next day.
Very different than what this tread topic implied. The risk is not that way.
Risk can’t be eliminated. Mechanical safeties fail too, but they’re the next best thing to leaving the big switch in the “Off” position.
bkmk
Funny thing? The breaker that "caused" the '65 blackout did precisely what it was intended to do.
It protected the generators from pounding themselves to pieces when the load abruptly became grossly imbalanced.
I'll trade happily trade a couple dark nights for several months of getting new generators on line!
As you say.
If you haven’t yet, consider a system such as this site offers. Of course, if the worst happens and you’ve got a generator, make sure you have home defense, because you’ll need it when desperate people notice you have power.
Maybe look around for a zombie zapper, shake-and-bake styled electrified fence.
Traditional dog and lead combo is good too. :)
“That would work ok, unless you lived in a big apartment building”
Sadly in that case you will be pretty much SOL in the USA. When they talk about the first die off thats what they are talking about.
Too bad for anyone that’s not within walking distance of a river.
Just look at Duke(Kook) Energy - shut down an entire windmill plant ...for a freaking bat.
“Too bad for anyone that’s not within walking distance of a river”
Even if you do live within walking distance of a river its going to be a real picnic making that walk everyday. Not to mention who you will run into on your way there and back. You would have to be fully armed and go in a group.
After a few days of no running water especially in an Apt building it will become basically unliveable. No sanitation and within a week or so there will be dysentary, then typhoid etc. due to no working toilets and the garbage piling up in the streets. Rats running everywhere.
Once the canned food runs out you will not have the water or any way to cook even rice or beans in an apt. At least in the burbs you could cook it out on the deck or in the back yard but the aroma would bring every unprepared neighbor right to your door.
Basically the people who will be able to weather the storm in some kind of normalcy will be in the rural areas.
Thanks so much.
Thanks so much.
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