US Seized Chinese-Built Transformer

The lab, which is operated by Honeywell International, handles contract work for the US Energy Department associated with threats to national security, the report added.

A US representative of the company, Jim Cai, told the newspaper that it had sold more than 7000 such transformers in the past two decades to numerous international customers.

Cai was unaware of what had happened to the transformer until he was asked for comment by the WSJ.

US President Donald Trump on 1 May signed an executive order for the DoE to find and ban devices from the power grid made by foreign countries that were considered a threat to national security.

A report in Politico said Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette had recently played down concerns from industry that new clean energy projects could be inconvenienced by the order.

The seized transformer was meant for the Western Area Power Administration for use in its Ault substation. Apart from WAPA, the Chinese firm has also sold units to American customers the New York Power Authority, EDF Renewables, B.C. Hydro and MidAmerican Energy.

The report said WAPA fed wholesale electricity to power stations in 15 states in the western and central US.

Transformers do not contain software-based control systems and are passive devices, though recent equipment may contain diagnostic electronics, the WSJ said.

some very smart FReepre wrote a long post on how that’s not NEARLY as easy as it is to the professional worriers here :)

There’s always the assumption that our military isn’t the brightest and would Never consider something like this happening nor prepare for it.

China is a real concern.

Being fatalist like I see around here is also

Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for unspecified reasons, The Wall Street Journal reports.... The lab, which is operated by Honeywell International...

Sandia is not a Honeywell operation. It is a federally funded research and development center. It is owned by the Federal Government. It is operated for the government under what is called a Management and Operating Contract held by Honeywell, but that is a vehicle for paying employees on other then government civil service wages. It is an arrangement dating back to the Manhattan Project.

This is important because Sandia does some of the most sensitive work that the government does and as an advanced engineering science laboratory is probably the premier place for any such investigations to be done.

“Transformers do not contain software-based control systems and are passive devices, though recent equipment may contain diagnostic electronics, the WSJ said...Cai told the newspaper that even if someone accessed the diagnostic data, it was of no import.”

Well, we’ll find out - it’s not hard to slip in a few circuits in a device that weighs over 200 tons. I suspect they plan to thoroughly examine the device, see what type of communications gear it has, figure out how to neutralize it, and then do the same for the rest of our power grid - virtually all supplied by China now (thank you again, American labor unions).

“...A report in Politico said Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette had recently played down concerns from industry that new clean energy projects could be inconvenienced by the order.

The language in the order is said to be so all-encompassing and covering nearly 20 types of gear that developers fear they may have to delay projects, anticipating that components ordered from abroad could be banned....”
****************************************************
Hmmmmm.. looks like the WSJ is doing a bit of subtle interference running for the Chicoms.

Good link. Genuine CHICOM parts are flooding this country everywhere. Much of it is junk. I am sick to death of crappy CHICOM fasteners, you know, screws, that torque off before they are engaged. I got a lockset for a door a while ago. Made by CHICOMS. A machine screw sheared off in a threaded hole. The other screw I discovered wouldn't even engage the threads.

Yet genuine CHICOM CRAP (TM) is pervasive in our supply chain. Our hardware stores are replete with genuine CHICOM crap. It isn't counterfeit. It's real. It's CHICOM produced and it is utter rubbish.

Oh, and did anyone mention that we got this way because McKinsey advised all out fortune 500 companies to get their cost advantages by relying on genuine certifiede CHICOM CRAP (TM).

I'm not surprised. I've posted on this topic before, the large multi-national bank I work for recently completed an audit of all vulnerable systems in our data centers (storage, network, compute, printer peripheral, etc..) based on guidance from the banking regulators and U.S. intelligence resources.

Every vulnerable/potentially vulnerable device was identified and remediated where possible, removed and replaced where not. It was a huge project that took approximately 18 months to complete.

The US Government is very active in getting the financial services industry shored up against Chinese (and Russian, Iranian, etc..) state sponsored hacking. The backdoors that Chinese made compute components contain are well known, the effort to shore up and protect financial services is huge, I cannot imagine the urgency that must be felt in the power and other utility industries right now.

We have to kick China all the way out of our Country. Their state sponsored students (spies) and everything made in China has to go. They're doing their level best to take us down from within and we must not let them win.

“Unions have little to do with it. China will match the price at any level to get the business.”

Well, they certainly MADE IT EASY for China to take over manufacturing, the way they treated their employers. We never needed their crap and I have to admit, I was DAMN HAPPY to see those assholes put out of work while our manufacturing was sent to China and Mexico.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.