In late December, electric power service to some 700,000 homes in Ukraine was cut off for several hours in what government authorities claim was a cyberattack by Russia. A piece of malware known as BlackEnergy was recovered from the control system and is believed to be the cause of the outage. The malware was discovered on critical infrastructure systems in the United States late in 2014.
But malware attacks are just one of the threats to the U.S. power grid. A report at the Daily Caller lists seven top threats to the country’s electrical power grid:
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not suspected of inserting malware into the system, but tighter regulation on carbon emissions could remove as much as 81,000 megawatts from the country’s power generation capacity.
- Terrorism, in the form of damage to power facilities like substations.
- Cyberattacks, such as those related to the BlackEnergy malware.
- Solar and wind power requirements put added stress on a grid that has been designed to accommodate conventional sources of power generation. The intermittent nature of electricity generation from solar and wind sources can be difficult to control, as either too much or not enough power reaches the grid to meet consumer demand.
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- Electromagnetic pulses caused by naturally occurring solar activity or a small nuclear weapon. An event like a massive geomagnetic storm that struck earth in 1859 could not only knock out the electrical grid, but take down the Internet and all satellite communications as well.
- Old infrastructure is not getting any younger, and the cost to rebuild it runs into the trillions of dollars.
- Squirrels cause more power outages than lightning. The little critters scamper around on power lines, chewing on the wires and electrocuting themselves. They also manage to commit suicide inside other sensitive and expensive equipment.
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