Ten Dangerous Scenarios

Attack a nuclear plant

Cripple the
Transportation System

Destroy the
Fort Peck Dam

Detonate a suitcase bomb

Attack the Alaska pipeline

Contaminate a ventilation system

Cut off power to
a major city

Shoot down
Air Force One

Attack a chemical factory

Destroy a stadium

>> See the entire list <<

Scenario: Cut off power to a major city

Scenario

Using explosives and gunfire, cut off power to a major city.

Description

For American society, electricity is like oxygen -- Everything we do depends on it. We use electricity for lighting, cooking, heating, refrigeration, air conditioning and entertainment. It powers our factories, our businesses, our hospitals, our stores and the rapid transit systems in large cities. It provides for essentials like traffic lights and elevators. Our computers, in which we have locked almost all of the information needed by a modern society, are useless without electricity.

The power grid in the United States today is an amazing but extremely sensitive system. There are thousands of power plants and millions of customers, all interconnected. The sensitivity comes from an interesting fact about the electric power system -- all the electricity needed by the system must be generated and transmitted at the moment it is needed. If, at any moment, there is more demand than there is supply, then someone will have to do without. As an example, parts of California were subjected to mandatory rolling blackouts because there was not enough power to go around in 2001.

If there is ever a large imbalance in the system, a cascade effect can cut off huge parts of the grid. This article talks about one scenario: "Of course, the high level of system integration can lead to problems, as residents of the Western US and Canada found out in August 1996. A series of failures during a period of heavy demand for electricity led to a domino-like cascade as plant after plant switched out of the grid to avoid equipment damage." If one plant fails unexpectedly, the other plants have to pick up the load. If a plant gets to a point of overload, it will switch off the grid to avoid damage. That makes the problem worse for other plants, and there can be a cascade effect that blacks out a big region.

The fact that the electrical system is essential to life and commerce, combined with the fact that it is fragile, makes it an extremely inviting terrorist target. There are three different places for terrorists to attack:

  • The power plants themselves. The nuclear plant scenario discusses different ways to attack a nuclear plant. Coal and gas-fired plants are currently much less secure and could be attacked even more easily.
  • Long-distance transmission lines. To get the power from the power plants to the customers, it travels over transmission lines at high voltage. These are the lines you see running across the countryside on huge metal towers. They carry voltages ranging from 100,000 volts up to 700,000 volts. Many transmission lines run through the middle of nowhere and are completely unprotected in most cases. Simple explosives can knock down towers or cut the lines.
  • Transmission transformers. At the power plants, transformers step up the voltage to that used on the transmission lines. At the destination, transformers step transmission voltages back down to more reasonable levels for distribution. These transformers live, along with circuit breakers and switches, in substations. Many substations are located in remote areas and are protected by nothing more than simple chain link fences. Transformers can be destroyed with explosives or gun-fire.
To cut off a city's power supply, terrorists could attack the power plants in the vicinity of the city along with the transmission lines or transformers bringing electricity to the city from other parts of the grid. In most big cities, the number of targets that the terrorists would have to hit to darken a city is remarkably small -- perhaps ten. Many of those attacks can take place in remote areas far from the city.

By attacking transmission transformers and power plants, the terrorists also have an unexpected advantage -- they may be able to keep the city dark for a very long period of time (weeks or months). Transmission transformers are not off-the-shelf items in most cases, and fixing a power plant could take a very long time.

Damage Potential

Damage from a power outage comes from four sources:

  • There is the gigantic economic damage that comes from shutting down a major city.
  • There is the disruption to the rest of society. For example, if the target city is New York or Washington DC, many services that the rest of the nation relies on would be shut down or curtailed.
  • There may be massive riots or looting, depending on the mood of city residents.
  • There is the psychological effect of disrupting life for millions of people.

Potential Solutions

With the existing power grid, this scenario is so simple that we have to assume that terrorists will try it. Therefore, we should take the following steps:

  • We should place military guards at all transmission transformer sites and at all major power plants. These targets are too valuable, and too hard to replace if they are damaged. See also the nuclear plant scenario. We should protect these assets as though our lives depend on them. We should also establish automated systems to watch and protect the transmission lines.
  • We should prepare ourselves for as a society for major power outages. If there were an attack like this, one way to lessen the impact would be to have a plan in place that cuts national energy demand by a factor of 10% to 20% very quickly.
  • We should encourage people and businesses to buy generators. Municipalities should equip all essential city services (like traffic lights) with backup power systems, as should building owners (to power elevators, ventilation and lighting systems). These should not be "one hour" systems -- they should be able to run for weeks using diesel fuel or gasoline trucked in from local suppliers. Many high-tech and manufacturing companies already have backup power systems to maintain power in a natural disaster. We should extend that philosophy across society so that a total loss of power has no significant effect on a city.
  • We should instill in people the same spirit we saw in New York around 9/11, and in the 1965 blackout. This article states: "Despite the confusion and disarray (during the 1965 blackout), New Yorkers spent the night in peace. There were no riots or widespread looting. Instead, New Yorkers helped each other. Some directed traffic. Others assisted the New York fire department as they rescued stranded subway passengers. In many cases, New Yorkers just shared extra candles and flashlights with neighbors, reveling in the opportunity to get to know the people who lived across the hall."
Ultimately, we need to redesign our power systems (like our water systems and our fuel system) to be far more distributed and far less centralized so that no attack has large-scale effects. Our power, water and fuel systems are currently designed under the assumption that terrorism does not exist, and they balance supply and demand on a razor's edge. This creates highly vulnerable systems begging for attack. We should start the process of redesign today.

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