Getting ready: Pentagon to protect electric grid from massive attack

washingtonexaminer.com ^ | 4/14/17 | Paul Bedard

[Farmer Dean]

Anyone really worried about the grid going down should buy an MEP-802a or MEP-002A generator.These things are EMP proof and will run for thousands of hours with normal maintenance.We bought one,it will run the entire house for 24 hours on 5 gallons of diesel.

[Freedom56v2]

I hope there will be a retooling of some factory to make the transformers in the US-I heard they are only made in Germany(?) and take several months to receive.

[ColdOne]

I do not do youtube much. Bandwidth. Is that from right now?

[laplata]

That sounds good. But one would need many thousands of gallons of diesel on hand if there was an EMP.

[marktwain]

But lets be clear. North Korea is no threat to our electricity grid today. And China and Russia could easily take out our electricity. Russia especially. And there is no ability to make it safe from attack of either of those two countries.

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Mostly true, but the electrical grid would be only one of our problems in a nuclear war. We should not forget the China’s ability to strike us was increased exponentially by Clinton’s willingness to sell them advanced guidance technology.

The threat from Russia has existed for 60 years. We trust them to be somewhat rational. The more believable threat to the grid comes from three sources.

First, the Sun. Extreme solar flares can induce widespread natural EMP that could take down the grid and make it very difficult to bring back up. The latest event that hit the Earth was in 1859. Another missed us in 2012.

Second, a physical attack on the most vulnerable parts of the U.S. Grid, the high voltage power transformers at the end of our high voltage transmision lines. There are only a couple of thousand of these transformers, concentrated at substations.

One analysis is that taking out 9 critical substation could take out the entire grid, because of critical interdependencies that exist. A couple hundred terrorists could target the hundred critical substations at once.

While a little hardening has been done, nearly all of these substations are unguarded.

Third, an EMP attack could knock out the grid. For a national attack two or three nuclear devices would be necesary, and they have to be detonated in space to be effective over large distances.

Fourth, cyber attacks are possible, but are occurring daily. Consequently, defenses are constantly improving for this threat, IMHO.

http://securethegrid.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Grid-Vulnerability-Brief1.pdf

We really do not have thousands of independent grids. We do not have much spare capacity, and that makes all those little grids interdependent. We have a few large, interdependent systems. Texas has an independent system, for example.

What would it take to protect from these threats? Estimates are from 2 billion to 20 billion. Pretty small potatoes considering what is at stake.

[Gadsden1st]

The U2 just landed and they have dropped live feed for now.

I have youtube live feed from N.K. that is up and running a test pattern. I figure if something happens, the feed will go dark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGfqe5__GnI

I lived in New Orleans during the Cuban Missile scare. Glad I don’t live on west coast. Rumors of sub chasing out there.

[Farmer Dean]

I’ve got 1000 gallons in storage now,plus another 1000 gallon tank to be filled.If we only ran the enerator for a few hours a day to do the essential stuff we’d be good for a long time.Plus if the grid’s down there will be diesel available by foraging for it.

[ColdOne]

Thanks.

[ColdOne]

Since the servers at FR are in Cali...won’t this site go dark?

[Terry Mross]

Since the EMP would try everything electrical, what kind of weapons would we yes to retaliate that don’t use electricity?

[Terry Mross]

Since the EMP would try everything electrical, what kind of weapons would we yes to retaliate that don’t use electricity?

[laplata]

That sounds good. You’re in so much better shape than 99% of the population. Best wishes.

[Cobra64]

For years, Newt's been warning of EMP threat. No one paid attention except the author of this book:

[freepersup]

NASA had to have China turn the giant cylinders on their behemoth lathes, to replace the ones that raise and lower the 1 mph tractor that moves our space shuttles from the assembly building to the launch pad. Bucyrus Erie is bye bye and is out of the business of turning large metal cylinders the size of small grain elevators.

[grey_whiskers]

Since the EMP would try everything electrical, what kind of weapons would we yes to retaliate that don’t use electricity?

Trident D-5 MIRVs on boomers would work just fine.

[yarddog]

I wonder if Oshkosh is still making those big fire trucks?

[freepersup]

Depending... they are still making airport size; water/foam sprayer apparatus.

Wondering about an aerial ladder truck- which is rather large, as far as the size of fire trucks go, eh?

[spacejunkie2001]

I read it; it was pretty good. One HUGE pet peeve was he kept using “could of” “would of”, etc., instead of could HAVE would HAVE.

I have not read the follow up titled, I think, One Year After....have you?

[yarddog]

I once met one on a two lane on the Eglin AFB reservation. It was so big that it took up over half the highway. I asked an old retired pilot and he told me it was an Oshkosh Crash Truck.

[Rashputin]

I remember people in the Pentagon saying it was a bad idea to move NORAD out of their Cheyenne Mountain home built especially for NORAD due to danger of an EMP attack. What was that, 1994 or 1995?

So, last year they let out a fat contract for something like $700 million to Raytheon (I think it was them anyway) to move NORAD back to Cheyenne Mountain mostly because they're worried about an EMP attack..

At least the tech weenies at the Pentagon have taken this threat seriously for twenty plus years but we're just now going to do something about it? Or so they say