Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act or SHIELD Act, to prevent EMP damage

Can your teenage children survive without Texting or Internet, for a day, a weak or years? Recent storms across the country have had many go without power for days, and a few people without power for weeks. Now consider what happens when the power goes out for years. The U.S. has 80,000 miles of extra-high voltage (EHV) transmission lines making up the backbone transmission grid that enables the long-haul transport of electricity for our nation, all of it acting as a giant antenna to pick up Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) events. Such a EMP event could come from natural solar storms or a man made deliberate attack. "The first warning the U.S. would have of such a strike in progress would be the EMP..."

Congressional documents (see below) from the Committee on armed services indicate that a small nuclear device detonated 250 miles above northeastern Nebraska would have wide spread devastation throughout the continental United States, as well as Canada and Mexico.

As hard as it is to believe, Congress (113th Congress, 1st Session) actually tries to do something that makes sense on a very rare occasion. In this case they created H. R. 2417 "Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act" or the "SHIELD Act":

Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act or SHIELD Act - Amends the Federal Power Act [16 U.S.C. § 824a(c)] to authorize the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), with or without notice, hearing, or report, to order emergency measures to protect the reliability of either the bulk-power system or the defense critical electric infrastructure whenever the President issues a written directive or determination identifying an imminent grid security threat.

Directs FERC to consult with governmental authorities in Canada, Mexico, and the Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) regarding implementation of emergency measures.

Prescribes: (1) implementation procedures; and (2) related cost recovery measures affecting owners, operators, and users of either the bulk-power system or the defense critical electric infrastructure.

Directs FERC to require any owner, user, or operator of the domestic bulk-power system to implement measures to protect the system against specified vulnerabilities.

Requires FERC to issue an order directing ERO to submit for approval, within 30 days, a reliability standard requiring implementation, by any owner, operator, or user of the bulk-power system in the United States, of measures to protect the bulk-power system against an identified grid security vulnerability (including a protection plan with automated hardware-based solutions [This could be creating a new market area for Embedded Systems]).

Directs FERC also to order the ERO to submit reliability standards to: (1) protect the bulk-power system from a reasonably foreseeable geomagnetic storm event or electromagnetic pulse event (EMP); and (2) require entities that own or operate large transformers to ensure their adequate availability to restore promptly the reliable operation of the bulk-power system in the event of destruction or disability as a result of attack or a geomagnetic storm or EMP.

Directs the Secretary of Energy to establish a program to: (1) develop technical expertise in the protection of electric energy systems against either geomagnetic storms or malicious acts using electronic communications or electromagnetic weapons; and (2) share it with owners, operators, or users of systems for the generation, transmission, or distribution of electric energy located in the United States and with state commissions.

If you are not familiar with the potential threat from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) events, I've have explained how it works and the decades worth of damage that could be caused in the past:

• Scientists, Politicians Take Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat Seriously. Human Exposure to EM Fields.
• Natural or man-made EMP attack on the horizon?
• Comet to cause EMP Armageddon? Are you prepared for EMP?
• DHS Study of Critical Infrastructure Risks from GPS Disruptions.
• From Its Birthplace: A Symposium on the Future of Nuclear Power, March 27 and 28th and the coming Grid Collapse.

Some of the mega-transformers have a two year lead time, when they need to be replaced. 90% of consumed power passes through a high voltage transformer at some point. If these transformers fail, especially in large numbers, therein lies a very big problem. --- Power Hungry: Prototyping Replacement EHV Transformers EHV transformers, and the nation's electric grid, are on the Department of Homeland Security's mind.

Alas in typical politics can't just get something done in one try, H.R. 2417 has been handed off to the Energy & Commerce Committee, where it may take a EMP event to get it moving...You may want to speak to your congressional representative about this issue.

Not addressed is the issue of the cost to the 'user', which is you and I. In typical government overreach The Man could come and demand that you retrofit your house with EMP protection, at your expense. On the upside the massive and permanent failure of The Grid could finally result in things like Cold Fusion becoming a reality on a large scale.

Make no mistake here, far more than just The Grid will fail during a EMP event. Potentially every unprotected semiconductor, that is your fancy phone for example, could be damaged beyond any hope of repair. The hobby of Steampunk, that typically features steam-powered machinery, could suddenly go from a hobby of some, to the survival of the fittest for all in a EMP flash...

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Congressional Committee on armed services EMP reports, and other government documents:

• Threat Posed by Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) to U.S. Military Systems and Civil Infrastructure.; July 16, 1997
• Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP): should this be a problem of national concern to private enterprise, businesses small and large, as well as government?; June 1, 1999
• The report of the commission to assess the threat to the u.s. from electromagnetic pulse attack.; July 22, 2004
• Terrorism and the EMP threat to homeland security.; March 8, 2005
• R. James Woolsey testimony before the house Committee on Energy and Commerce.; May 21, 2013 "Information Warfare Operation of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. These potential adversaries in their military doctrines include as a dimension of cyber warfare a wide spectrum of operations beyond computer viruses, including sabotage and kinetic attacks, up to and including nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack..."

Comet to cause EMP Armageddon? Are you prepared for EMP?

At least once I year I try to bring attention to how vulnerable our technology is to Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) events. David Eichler and David Mordecai article Comet Encounters and Carbon 14 published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters; Volume 761 Number 2 got me motivated to write my 2012 EMP warning.

The [Carbon-14] production of shock-accelerated particles is calculated in terms of the total energy released in energetic particles. The recently reported 1.2% jump in the [Carbon-14] content of the atmosphere in the year C.E. 775, it is found, would require 1034 erg in energetic particles, less than first estimates but far more than any known solar flare on record. It is noted that the superflare from a large comet (comparable to C/Hale-Bopp) colliding with the Sun could produce shock-accelerated GeV cosmic rays in the solar corona and/or solar wind, and possibly account for the C.E. 775 event. Several additional predictions of cometary encounters with the sun and other stars may be observable in the future.

Bruce Dorminey, converts that to Human in his article Sun-Grazing Comets As Triggers For Electromagnetic Armageddon. The bottom line is that a comet in the year 775 may have triggered the largest EMP event ever recorded on Earth within the time of Human Memory, and it could happen again. The end of the Mayan Calender is less than twenty days away...

Several interviews with Government officials on their concerns over EMP, and most importantly Are you prepared for EMP? are items that you must read.

See also Congress told: U.S. life 'unsustainable' after EMP by F. Michael Maloof, in reference to: Written testimony of National Protection and Programs Directorate Infrastructure Analysis and Strategy Division Director Brandon Wales for a House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies hearing titled "The Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat: Examining the Consequences."

"...so large a swath of American technology that between 70 percent to 90 percent of the United States' population could become unsustainable."

My past articles will explain the issues with EMP if you need a refresher:

• Natural or man-made EMP attack on the horizon?
• Scientists, Politicians Take Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat Seriously. Human Exposure to EM Fields.
• From Its Birthplace: A Symposium on the Future of Nuclear Power, March 27 and 28th and the coming Grid Collapse.
• Are we to reliant on GPS/GNSS? Royal Academy of Engineering says we are.

As reported in a recent issue of the Amateur Radio Magazine QST if you need an impromptu Faraday-Cage for your equipment, put it in your washing machine (and don't run it as if it that needs to be said, sigh).

Watch the sky and keep an eye on the Space Weather...

The Time At the Tone is Nov. 19th 2000. Say what?

On November 19th one of the primary Network Time Protocol (NTP) clocks, The Official Source of Time for the Department of Defense (DoD) for the Global Positioning System (GPS), and a Standard of Time for the United States, broke for 51 minutes, reporting that the year is now 2000, about 30 million seconds ago.

USNO NTP FAILURE -- 19 NOV 2012

On Monday, November 19, USNO made what was expected to be a routine upgrade. Unfortunately, for 51 minutes, between 21:07:32 - 21:58:56 UTC, the server gave out the year as 2000 instead of 2012. We have resolved the issue that caused this error.

We regret the disruptions that this may have caused. We strongly recommend that all NTP users configure their software to get time from three different sources at a minimum. Most software should be able to use the redundant data to identify and ignore incorrect time sources. You can find a list of other time sources at http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/WebHome.

Many of our Embedded Widgets rely on getting accurate time from Internet. Sometimes because we are to cheap to put in a real clock, or we think that the Internet will always be here and is always telling the truth which will give us accurate time.

Ask Bjørn Hansen who runs the http://www.pool.ntp.org time pool, what I believe to be the most common source of time for Embedded Widgets had some comments on the Nov. 19th incident.

The official advice from NTP is that you should always configure at least four different NTP time servers when you use NTP. No two from the same organization and, as much as possible, reachable only via diverse, nonintersecting paths, and no more than 128 ms apart. Can your Embedded Widget coupe with that? Many do not have the required resources to do it.

In an related time issue that shows that time can be truly hard to code correctly, as it can take literally forever to test all future dates, Android 4.2 Deletes December From People App.

One year one of my colleagues got a yearly calender that he used all year long. In December he showed us that Thursday December 17th was missing. Calendar went from Wednesday 16th to Thursday the 18th. The lesson here is that even pre-Internet technology still can't figure out time...

From Its Birthplace: A Symposium on the Future of Nuclear Power, March 27 and 28th and the coming Grid Collapse

As you are going to be in the Cleveland area this week for Dan Saks visit, you might want to hang around until next week for the Symposium on the Future of Nuclear Power, in Pittsburgh. This symposium is sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy and the Swanson School of Engineering.

The main topics of the for symposium sessions are:

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

• Nuclear Power and Energy Alternatives - 2:00 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.
• America's Nuclear Future - 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

• Three Mile Island. Chernobyl. Fukushima Daiichi - 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
• Legal and Financial Aspects of Nuclear Power - 2:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Registration for the event is required and there is a $300 fee to attend.

You may be wondering what this has to do with Embedded Systems or Software Safety? Westing House Nuclear is one of the largest employers for Embedded System Designers in the Pittsburgh region. Also, all of our widgets currently require to electricity to run them. Our current path of relying on 'Green' energy, and the closing of Coal based power plants is only going to lead to a failing Electric Grid as early as this summer (2012); I'll have more to say about that in a future blog.

Just this week the Utilities and the Department of Homeland Security ran a Power Hungry: Prototyping Replacement EHV Transformers test, better summarized as the Transformer Replacement Test.

As I've reported previously something like an EMP event, or a Solar Storm could put the Grid out of commission for days to months. Some of the mega-transformers have a two year lead time, when they need to be replaced. 90% of consumed power passes through a high voltage transformer at some point. If these transformers fail, especially in large numbers, therein lies a very big problem.

Small, local, Thorium Pebble-Bed Reactor buried in backyards solves the whole Grid collapse issue (there is no grid, or at least a very small one)...

Are we to reliant on GPS/GNSS? Royal Academy of Engineering says we are.

I have blogged in the past about our reliance on GPS technology here Politicians replace Air Traffic Control RADAR with GPS and here Scientists, Politicians Take Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat Seriously. Human Exposure to EM Fields, now the Royal Academy of Engineering in London has released a new report: Global Navigation Space Systems: reliance and vulnerabilities.

This report details how we have become to reliant on the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), Global Positioning System (GPS) is currently the most widely used and best known example of GNSS.  GPS is used a for more things than just getting us from Point-A to Point-B with maps of dubious accuracy.  Telecommunication Network timing and the International Banking System are a couple of examples of 'hidden' uses of GPS. The timing aspect of GPS is used by the infrastructure systems more than the position aspect of the system.  The report covers other infrastructure uses, and how they might be attacked and exploited.

The report also says that there should be an independent backup to GPS.  It is interesting to note that the U.S. recently destroyed the LORAN system, with explosives no less, under the guise of saving money; it cost more to dismantle the system that it would have cost to keep it running.  The paranoid among us might think there is a conspiracy to get everyone relying on a technology then take it away to advance a yet unknown agenda.