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Can you give some examples of? I can imagine that under the right circumstances you might succeed in blowing up some transformers or even a turbine, but it seem

by K0balt 9mo ago

Can you give some examples of? I can imagine that under the right circumstances you might succeed in blowing up some transformers or even a turbine, but it seems like you’d be up to speed within a month or two on the outside? Or am I missing the gravity somehow?

3eb7988a1663 9mo ago
Pardon? A month or two without power does not seem like an enormous crisis? Stuxnet destroyed centrifuges. It does not seem impossible that a sophisticated attack could shred some critical equipment. During the Texas 2021 outage -they were incredibly close to losing the entire grid and being in a blackstart scenario. Estimates were that it could take weeks to bring back power - all this without any physical equipment destroyed or malicious code within the network. Edit: Had to look it up, the Texas outage was "only" two weeks and scattershot in where it hit. The death toll is estimated at 246-702. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
- K0balt 9mo ago
  A month or two of isolated outages should not be a crisis in a developed nation with resources and infrastructure. The fact that the Texas outages killed anyone is a testament to the fact that the USA is, apparently, a developing nation, possibly going through a rough patch. It’s not like there wasn’t enough generators or fuel in the nation to ameliorate that crisis. It was that, like all developing nations, resources are not available at the point of need despite their widespread availability.
applied_heat 9mo ago
Transformers and turbines of any significance are not off the shelf parts and can have lead times of years
- esafak 9mo ago
  How do they not have backups??
  - 3eb7988a1663 9mo ago
    Enough for the entire grid? There are some amount of reserves on hand (eg drunk runs into a telephone pole), but nothing that could replace a targeted attack with the explicit goal of taking out the most vital infrastructure.
    - jacquesm 9mo ago
      And those pole mounted transformers are tiny. The big ones require special transports and can weigh a few hundred tons. Some are so large they are best transported via boat if possible.
- sillywalk 9mo ago
  > Transformers and turbines of any significance are not off the shelf parts and can have lead times of years Bloomberg had a decent article[0] about transformers and their lead time. They're currently a bottleneck on building. It wasn't paywalled for me. "The Covid-19 pandemic strained many supply chains, and most have recovered by now. The supply chain for transformers started experiencing troubles earlier — and it’s only worsened since. Instead of taking a few months to a year, the lead time for large transformer delivery is now three to five years. " [0] [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-transformers/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-transfor...
genocidicbunny 9mo ago
It's middle of winter, and it gets pretty danged cold. Being without power in such weather might well end up being deadly, even with short durations.
thimkerbell 9mo ago
I've seen less-than-credible software in an ATM and in a "ring up your own groceries" station. No idea who's behind it or who would care, though.
jacquesm 9mo ago
> Or am I missing the gravity somehow? Yes, there is the risk of cascading failures, some industrial processes are very hard to re-start once interrupted (or even impossible) and the lead time on 'some transformers' can be a year or more. These are nothing like the kind that you can buy at the corner hardware store. A couple of hundred tons or so for the really large ones. Grid infra is quite expensive, hard to replace and has very long lead times. The very worst you could do is induce oscillations.
XorNot 9mo ago
Consider that if a cyberattack could destroy a major power grid transformer, for a marginal cost approaching zero, versus the low-end US$10 million a Kinzal ballistic missile would cost to do the same thing (presuming you only need 1 which is...unlikely), that that might be a significant military capability.

by K0balt 9mo ago

3eb7988a1663 9mo ago

Pardon? A month or two without power does not seem like an enormous crisis? Stuxnet destroyed centrifuges. It does not seem impossible that a sophisticated attack could shred some critical equipment. During the Texas 2021 outage -they were incredibly close to losing the entire grid and being in a blackstart scenario. Estimates were that it could take weeks to bring back power - all this without any physical equipment destroyed or malicious code within the network. Edit: Had to look it up, the Texas outage was "only" two weeks and scattershot in where it hit. The death toll is estimated at 246-702. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

K0balt 9mo ago
A month or two of isolated outages should not be a crisis in a developed nation with resources and infrastructure. The fact that the Texas outages killed anyone is a testament to the fact that the USA is, apparently, a developing nation, possibly going through a rough patch. It’s not like there wasn’t enough generators or fuel in the nation to ameliorate that crisis. It was that, like all developing nations, resources are not available at the point of need despite their widespread availability.

applied_heat 9mo ago

Transformers and turbines of any significance are not off the shelf parts and can have lead times of years

esafak 9mo ago
How do they not have backups??
- 3eb7988a1663 9mo ago
  Enough for the entire grid? There are some amount of reserves on hand (eg drunk runs into a telephone pole), but nothing that could replace a targeted attack with the explicit goal of taking out the most vital infrastructure.
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    And those pole mounted transformers are tiny. The big ones require special transports and can weigh a few hundred tons. Some are so large they are best transported via boat if possible.
sillywalk 9mo ago
> Transformers and turbines of any significance are not off the shelf parts and can have lead times of years Bloomberg had a decent article[0] about transformers and their lead time. They're currently a bottleneck on building. It wasn't paywalled for me. "The Covid-19 pandemic strained many supply chains, and most have recovered by now. The supply chain for transformers started experiencing troubles earlier — and it’s only worsened since. Instead of taking a few months to a year, the lead time for large transformer delivery is now three to five years. " [0] [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-transformers/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-transfor...

genocidicbunny 9mo ago

It's middle of winter, and it gets pretty danged cold. Being without power in such weather might well end up being deadly, even with short durations.

thimkerbell 9mo ago

I've seen less-than-credible software in an ATM and in a "ring up your own groceries" station. No idea who's behind it or who would care, though.

jacquesm 9mo ago

> Or am I missing the gravity somehow? Yes, there is the risk of cascading failures, some industrial processes are very hard to re-start once interrupted (or even impossible) and the lead time on 'some transformers' can be a year or more. These are nothing like the kind that you can buy at the corner hardware store. A couple of hundred tons or so for the really large ones. Grid infra is quite expensive, hard to replace and has very long lead times. The very worst you could do is induce oscillations.

XorNot 9mo ago

Consider that if a cyberattack could destroy a major power grid transformer, for a marginal cost approaching zero, versus the low-end US$10 million a Kinzal ballistic missile would cost to do the same thing (presuming you only need 1 which is...unlikely), that that might be a significant military capability.