(Natural News) It’s looking more and more like it will take a major attack against the U.S. power grid before the government and electric industry come together and get serious about protecting it.
According to a new investigative report that likely won’t get much attention outside of certain circles, the U.S. electric grid is increasingly vulnerable as power companies lag behind in adopting better security measures.
And the result, someday soon, could be catastrophic — as in near-complete societal breakdown.
As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, says that the grid’s vulnerability is heightened by an unprecedented wave of attacks that threaten to cripple the entire country.
NERC notes further that amid a wave of stepped-up attacks against key power stations, the organization has had difficulty convincing power companies to step up their protective measures meant to thwart would-be attackers and terrorists.
Since 2014, according to the Congressional Research Service, which cited from the NERC report, “security risks to the power grid have become an even greater concern in the electric utility industry,” though the power sector “has not necessarily reached the level of physical security needed based on the sector’s own assessments of risk.”
The Free Beacon noted further:
In the three years since federal overseers implicated a series of new standards for physical security of grid locations, the industry has worked to improve its defenses but has struggled to implement all of the government’s recommendations, according to the report.
The slow moving pace of reforms, combined with an increased threat level and inability of the federal government to warn of upcoming attacks, has fueled concerns that the U.S. electric grid could be easily taken down by a rogue actor.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Last week I gave a talk at The Scottish Oil Club in Edinburgh that was well received. The slide deck can be down loaded 
The shutdown of the leaking Aliso Canyon underground gas storage facility has caused a loss of about 70bcf of stored gas that Southern California utilities have historically counted on to see them through the hot, high-demand summer months. The California Independent Service Operator (CAISO), which manages the California grid, estimates that as a result all customers should expect to be without power for a total of 14 days this summer. Some 21 million Southern Californians stand to be directly affected.
