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Of course. But a key difference is that the electric grid seems to be drastically more decentralized than fuel pipelines. Pipelines for liquid or gaseous fuel

Of course. But a key difference is that the electric grid seems to be drastically more decentralized than fuel pipelines. Pipelines for liquid or gaseous fuel have a huge upfront cost and maintenance requirements compared to running power lines, so the incentives are to build them as big as possible. Taking down a power station is certainly a viable attack vector, but the damage caused by losing a single station is drastically more manageable than losing a key pipeline that a massive region of the continent needs to feed continuously from to keep civilization running. This is not even accounting for the further decentralizing and ruggedizing effect that comes when every rooftop subsidizes their own energy needs with solar and batteries.

clouddrover 5y ago
And you want to ignore the inconvenient reality that civilization has managed to keep running all this time? It's plainly not the problem you imagine it to be.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Wars with localized collapses of civilization certainly happened before. Life in freshly conquered Berlin was pretty harsh, especially in the first winter. There was a famous street graffitti that said "I envy the dead because their hands aren't freezing off."
throwawayboise 5y ago
Do you not remember the massive blackouts in the last 50 years? Entire regions of the USA and Canada have gone dark from time to time. California teters on the brink regularly. Remember last winter's troubles in Texas? It's not really any more stable than fuel distribution IMO.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Then huge battery on EV (and V2H) is helpful for life while blackouts.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  EV owners had it good during the Texas Kerfuffle: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-are-drawing-power-from-their-cars-during-blackouts https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-ar... They could use the huge battery in their car to charge devices and some people used them to warm their garage - something you can't do with a petrol/diesel car without, you know, dying.
dredmorbius 5y ago
The electric grid is vulnerabe to widespread and long-lasting outages, and has a history of multiple such events. Texas in the current year (weather and capacity induced), Puerto Rico ongoing following Hurricane Maria in 2017, "rolling blackouts" (induced through manipulation of the energy markets) in 2000, numerous regional blackouts through transmission and distribution failures dating to the 1960s. Major concerns are SCADA attacks against control systems themselves, or physical attacks against regional substations which could cripple distribution for weeks or months.
cesarb 5y ago
> Taking down a power station is certainly a viable attack vector, but the damage caused by losing a single station is drastically more manageable than losing a key pipeline that a massive region of the continent needs to feed continuously from to keep civilization running. It depends on which power station. For instance, in my country, something like a tenth of the power of the whole country comes from a single place, the Itaipu hydroelectric dam. Most power from it flows through just a few power stations. In 2009, a weather-caused triple fault at one of them left half of the whole country, and the whole neighboring country, without power for a few hours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Brazil_and_Paraguay_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Brazil_and_Paraguay_black...). (Not to mention that the long-distance HVDC power lines used to bring power from distant hydroelectric dams like the Belo Monte dam and the Madeira river dams do also have a "huge upfront cost and maintenance requirements". Given that the power loss is lower at higher voltages, and these dams are so far from the southeast where most power demand is, the incentives are to build them as big as possible.)

clouddrover 5y ago

And you want to ignore the inconvenient reality that civilization has managed to keep running all this time? It's plainly not the problem you imagine it to be.

inglor_cz 5y ago
Wars with localized collapses of civilization certainly happened before. Life in freshly conquered Berlin was pretty harsh, especially in the first winter. There was a famous street graffitti that said "I envy the dead because their hands aren't freezing off."

throwawayboise 5y ago

Do you not remember the massive blackouts in the last 50 years? Entire regions of the USA and Canada have gone dark from time to time. California teters on the brink regularly. Remember last winter's troubles in Texas? It's not really any more stable than fuel distribution IMO.

fomine3 5y ago
Then huge battery on EV (and V2H) is helpful for life while blackouts.
theshrike79 5y ago
EV owners had it good during the Texas Kerfuffle: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-are-drawing-power-from-their-cars-during-blackouts https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vyvk/texas-tesla-owners-ar... They could use the huge battery in their car to charge devices and some people used them to warm their garage - something you can't do with a petrol/diesel car without, you know, dying.

dredmorbius 5y ago

The electric grid is vulnerabe to widespread and long-lasting outages, and has a history of multiple such events. Texas in the current year (weather and capacity induced), Puerto Rico ongoing following Hurricane Maria in 2017, "rolling blackouts" (induced through manipulation of the energy markets) in 2000, numerous regional blackouts through transmission and distribution failures dating to the 1960s. Major concerns are SCADA attacks against control systems themselves, or physical attacks against regional substations which could cripple distribution for weeks or months.

cesarb 5y ago

> Taking down a power station is certainly a viable attack vector, but the damage caused by losing a single station is drastically more manageable than losing a key pipeline that a massive region of the continent needs to feed continuously from to keep civilization running. It depends on which power station. For instance, in my country, something like a tenth of the power of the whole country comes from a single place, the Itaipu hydroelectric dam. Most power from it flows through just a few power stations. In 2009, a weather-caused triple fault at one of them left half of the whole country, and the whole neighboring country, without power for a few hours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Brazil_and_Paraguay_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Brazil_and_Paraguay_black...). (Not to mention that the long-distance HVDC power lines used to bring power from distant hydroelectric dams like the Belo Monte dam and the Madeira river dams do also have a "huge upfront cost and maintenance requirements". Given that the power loss is lower at higher voltages, and these dams are so far from the southeast where most power demand is, the incentives are to build them as big as possible.)