Recent attacks on Energy substations
Not much attention anywhere...
While I finish my Long Covid piece, hopefully publishing it today, I feel the need to bring something to the attention of most of my readers, and incredibly enough, not being discussed much at least in “my” circles of information. And it does bear much more weight to the whole situation (in the veneer of Beyond Mathematical Odds than infectious diseases), and wider impact if success is achieved.
First a little bit of a history reminder.
On April 16, 2013, an attack was carried out on Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Metcalf transmission substation in Coyote, California, near the border of San Jose. The attack, in which gunmen fired on 17 electrical transformers, resulted in more than $15 million worth of equipment damage, but it had little impact on the station's electrical power supply.
Attacks on the energy grid have been a long target for both threat analysis and military fiction writings, one feeding the other. Yes, believe it or not, fiction, especially military fiction (both written and visual ) can and will influence policy, Keith Sutherland’s 24 TV series had one of the biggest influences on American foreign policy and how its covert operations arm effectively fought the War on Terror.
One of these long feared tropes, yet tangible threats to the national security of any country, but more specifically the United State was an attack on the power grid, as time passed the fear moved from kinetic (physical) to cyber (digital, hacking). Yet per what you can read in the article above, kinetic action against the grid has a massive ROI, it takes a really small group of decently trained people to momentarily “kill” the grid in large swaths of a country.
Here lies the conundrum of our times. In the last few weeks, what is probably a small group of individuals attack energy substations in the Washington and Oregon area.
Similar attacks happened elsewhere.
With no suspects or motive announced, the FBI is joining the investigation into power outages in a North Carolina county believed to have been caused by “intentional” and “targeted” attacks on substations that left around 40,000 customers in the dark Saturday night, prompting a curfew and emergency declaration.
The mass outage in Moore County turned into a criminal investigation when responding utility crews found signs of potential vandalism of equipment at different sites – including two substations that had been damaged by gunfire, according to the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.
The biggest issue from a threat analysis and national security perspective are these type of attacks are “accessible” to do, unlike the capital-intensive cyber warfare to disrupt regions or an entire country's energy supply, often needing deep pockets entailing being a Nation State actor (individuals or groups backed by governmental funding), these type of attacks can be done by non-state individuals, current or former workers with grievances to be settled, and of course eco-terrorists.
From a hybrid warfare perspective, these types of attacks are the best ROI, with very little investment, very little direct intervention, and some targeted manipulation of certain individuals and the ball is rolling. Intelligence services will often be lost for weeks at a time, trying to piece together motivation, a who is who and following dead-end trails. H
The problem with this specific type of attack, as I discussed in private with a friend when we were basically gaming events to cause a specific type of regional/national collapses, is it is often seen as a closed event, which I disagree with. Within such a short timeframe (multiple attacks, in different regions), this has the hallmarks of someone or some group (or nation-state) testing the waters, you can measure the response and the effects such attacks have, in real-time, and with some creative thinking and complex mathematical modeling, start to map out “tipping points”.
In network analysis, the most used form of structural representation is nodes, the image below is a mere visual representation of how one part of the system can tip the rest of the network into systemic failure.
The second, and one could argue, the biggest problem with these attacks is logistically related. A shortage of transformers necessary for energy distribution, here is a fairly old tweet of mine about it.
Here is a Utay energy-related association bringing attention to the current predicament, another news article from November, and one from October.
Allied with a drastic global weather shift, putting pressure on old technology (here is a great article talking about how many of these transformers are at the end of their lives) one doesn’t necessarily need to cause such a drastic failure at a national level to disrupts one’s adversary for months to years, given how fractured the supply chain is, and how the entire system is affected by the many moving parts, it takes now months to get a new transformer.
From a “tactical” standpoint, certain regions experiencing severe energy disruption can affect the whole nation, given that certain industries are heavily concentrated in certain regions. If you dig into my tweets or Substack, you will find I forecasted this type of event, and that it will increase in numbers and nature.
This deserves much more attention from both citizens and governments alike. After massive civil unrest in China, the CCP is easing its “Covid Zero” policies at a national level, something many energy traders and experts warned about because when they open, consumption of energy, and use (they import a lot of fuel) skyrockets. And the one most affected by this dynamic will be Europe.
Perhaps too soon to write the following, but I would say the word and theme for 2023 will be “Disruption” and “Unexpected”.
As always I appreciate the support of everyone here and on Kofi, and everyone who shares my articles.
The bans on log fires (in some places) and no more gas supply by 2030, and therefore fewer gas heating and cooking installations already; well, the planned nation wide dependency on electricity is effected.
Can still buy candles LOL.
Anyone could disrupt the national grid.
( Reporting from NZ.)
Thank you John Paul. It always concerns me when events of this nature receive a flurry of superficial news stories just after they happen and then it essentially goes dark. No new info and usually no mentioning of the event in any meaningful way by media again. To me, that’s a cue that there’s more to the story that investigators are keeping from us.