Assault on California Power Station Raises Alarm on Potential for Terrorism

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7. Attack on electric grid raises alarm

Another one.

Attack on electric grid raises alarm

Damage to power station in shooting last year prompts worries over terrorism.

By Evan Halper and Marc Lifsher
February 6, 2014, 5:55 p.m.

Shooters armed with assault rifles and some knowledge of electrical utilities have prompted new worries on the vulnerability of California's vast power grid.

A 2013 attack on an electric substation near San Jose that nearly knocked out Silicon Valley's power supply was initially downplayed as vandalism by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the facility's owner. Gunfire from semiautomatic weapons did extensive damage to 17 transformers that sent grid operators scrambling to avoid a blackout. ... But this week, a former top power regulator offered a far more ominous interpretation: The attack was terrorism, he said, and if circumstances had been just a little different, it could have been disastrous.

Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission when the shooting took place, said that attack was clearly executed by well-trained individuals seeking to do significant damage to the area, and he fears it was a test run for an even larger assault. ... "It would not be that hard to bring down the entire region west of the Rockies if you, in fact, had a coordinated attack like this against a number of substations," Wellinghoff said Thursday. "This [shooting] event shows there are people out there capable of such an attack." ... Wellinghoff's warning about the incident at PG&E's Metcalf substation was reported this week by the Wall Street Journal, expanding on a December report by Foreign Policy magazine.

"We've got a vulnerability and we've got to get serious about fixing it," said Granger Morgan, who heads the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. "Almost everything we do in modern society relies on electricity." ... A National Research Council committee he chaired issued a 2007 report warning how easy it would be for a criminal enterprise to knock out the power grid in a way that "could deny large regions of the country access to bulk power systems for weeks or even months," leading to "turmoil, widespread public fear and an image of helplessness that would play directly into the hands of terrorists."
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Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

Electric Power Grid 'Inherently Vulnerable' to Terrorist Attacks; Report Delayed in Classification Review, Will Be Updated

Date: Nov. 14, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON — The U.S. electric power delivery system is vulnerable to terrorist attacks that could cause much more damage to the system than natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, blacking out large regions of the country for weeks or months and costing many billions of dollars, says a newly released report by the National Research Council.

According to the report, the security of the U.S. electric power system is in urgent need of attention. The power grid is inherently vulnerable physically because it is spread across hundreds of miles, and many key facilities are unguarded. This vulnerability is exacerbated by a reorganizational shift in the mid-1990s, prompted by federal legislation to introduce competition in bulk power across the country, resulting in the transmission network being used in ways for which it was not designed. As a result, many parts of the bulk high-voltage system are heavily stressed, leaving it especially at risk to multiple failures following an attack. Important pieces of equipment are decades old and lack improved technology for sensing and control that could help limit outages and their consequences -- not only those caused by a terrorist attack but also in the event of natural disasters.

"Power system disruptions experienced to date in the United States, be they from natural disasters or malfunctions, have had immense economic impacts," said M. Granger Morgan, professor and head of the department of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. "Considering that a systematically designed and executed terrorist attack could cause disruptions even more widespread and of longer duration, it is no stretch of the imagination to think that such attacks could produce damage costing hundreds of billions of dollars."

This report was completed by the National Research Council in the fall of 2007, but the sponsoring agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, decided at that time that the report would be classified in its entirety. After a formal request from the Research Council for an updated security classification review, the report was cleared for public release in fall 2012. A foreword to the report, written by Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and Charles M. Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering, provides details about the delay and says that the key findings of the report remain "highly relevant."
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