Zero Hour on the Grid

by Art Dickerson

Overview

Zero Hour on the Grid hypothesizes a plan by a foreign country to collapse the US electric power grid for a period of several weeks. During this period, the US dollar will be unavailable to support its role as the world’s reserve currency in international trade. The attacking foreign country plans that its currency will replace the dollar in international trade. The foreign planners debate secretly the four ways to take down the grid and settle on a mixture of three and a plan to communicate with the few personnel who will participate. The book then explores the effects of the extended loss of power on several families that the foreign currency has displaced the dollar in world trade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781490772585
Publisher:	Trafford Publishing
Publication date:	04/15/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	52
File size:	122 KB

Read an Excerpt

Zero Hour on the Grid

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By Art Dickerson

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2016 Arthur Dickerson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-7257-8

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CHAPTER 1

ZERO HOUR FOR THE GRID

The car pulled up to the gate of the San Francisco consulate. The guard, recognizing it as attached to the operation, opened the gate and saluted. He then smiled at the driver. The man on the back seat he recognized as the chief of station, in charge of domestic intelligence operations. He did not recognize the second passenger, but her face and clothes said she was from the motherland. He watched the car drive through and then closed the gate. All seemed well at the consulate.

"I was told that your consulate was nicely kept, but I see that was an understatement. It is beautiful and securely private."

"Thank you, we value privacy greatly and who can argue with beauty? Let's step inside I am eager to hear what you bring from the motherland. I know that you are scheduled to deliver a technical paper Analysis of Macroeconomics Using Modern Control Theory. It sounds very technical, even for the director of the the economics bureau."

"Let's talk about it when we are inside."

Inside the consulate they sat in a room shielded electromagnetically and sonically and sipped slowly at their cups of Earl Grey tea. "The paper is not my primary mission. Are you are aware of the nature of the U.S. electric power grid?"

"I know that it delivers the energy to operate nearly everything in the U.S. Including the lights in this room, the stove that brewed this tea and even the pump that put gas into the car that brought us from the airport."

"Let's suppose for a moment that it was shut down."

"It would be a catastrophe unless it could be brought back up quickly."

"Suppose it took three days to bring it back."

"That would be terrible, we would be without lights, heat, even food."

"Suppose it took three weeks."

"My god, hospitals shut down, no police, no food, no communication. Total catastrophe!"

"We are going to take down the grid. That's the purpose of my visit to San Francisco. We need your help in setting the correct action and the timing for maximum effect. Are you with me and your government, or do we have a problem?"

There was a silence in the room. The Chief of Station's jaw hung wide open for several seconds. With a jerk it closed. "You mean that the motherland has decided to punish America by taking down the grid ?"

"That is correct, but you have not answered my question. Are you ready to play your role in this endeavor, or must you be removed back to the motherland?"

More seconds passed. "I am an official of the motherland. I will play my role, but I must ask questions and voice opinions in secret. If my name ever got out, I could be killed."

"Do not worry about your name. You and a few other Chiefs of Station will be referred to by names that designate your location. For example, you will always be Francis in any conversation or communication on this matter. If we have an associate in Philadelphia, he will be Phil. This is absolutely essential for security purposes. The NSA and FBI, as you know, are reading all consulate communications. Thus, any reference to our associates will be in American names. My name will be Randy, because I move about. Also, the triggering event will be named 'Eddy'. Thus a text message to Phil might read, 'Eddy is arriving on American Airlines about 1 pm Monday. Please be sure to pick him up."

"I see, Randy. The message would not look suspicious to either humans or digital 'crawlers' which scour messages. Very simple, very clever. However, we must be careful to communicate only when necessary. The heavier traffic might in itself raise suspicions."

"Very good. Now we will need to talk with a student in Los Angeles. He is already part of the plan. Selected by the chief himself and for this task named Cal. He knows about the plan for the grid. Cal is from the motherland and here on a green card studying electrical engineering for his doctorate. He has a contract to study the vulnerability of the grid. We can drive down after I have delivered my paper. The paper is not a fake, but a good technical analysis and excellent excuse for my traveling."

CHAPTER 2

TECHNOLOGY CONSULTATION

The room in the Los Angeles consulate was a mirror image of that in San Francisco. Randy introduced the third person in the room. "This is Cal, he is a doctoral student at USC on a green card. His thesis is on the vulnerability of the U. S. power grid to total failure. Cal, this is Francis, Station Chief in San Francisco. You can speak openly with him."

"It's an honor to meet you Francis. And especially to meet you Randy, I've learned of your upcoming paper on Macroeconomics. It sounds very interesting."

"It's good to meet you Cal, I compliment you on your thesis work. Tell me, is there tight secrecy around your topic?"

"None. The technologists are aware of the vulnerability. The government is deeply concerned about the effects, but knows of no solution. They are funding some study in hopes of finding a possible solution. That's not in sight now."

Randy looked directly at Cal. "Suppose you tell us how the grid might come down?"

"Well, there are four ways. First, a bombardment from a large sun spot. When such an explosion occurs on the suns' surface, there is a huge burp of charged particles called a coronal mass ejection or CME. It shoots out away from the sun for a brief period. Usually this just goes off into space with no effect on the earth. However, if the hole in the suns' atmosphere is aligned with the earth, this huge stream of CME enters through the earth's atmosphere and induces high electric currents in the grid. This may burn out key pieces of equipment. That happened in 1989 in Canada and took down the Canadian grid."

"How long did it take to get back up?"

"In the Canadian case they had a good stock of spare parts and were up in a few days. However, if large transformers are involved, it can be weeks or months. Those things are huge and very expensive. Spares are rare. Should I explain the sun spots in detail?"

"That's not necessary, although my doctorate was in economics, I've studied physics. I'm with you."

"Well, a second means to take the grid down is by human attack. This was demonstrated in California recently when a substation was shut down by rifle fire that punctured the cooling equipment for the transformers. That was well planned as the rifle cartridges showed no finger prints. It almost took off a portion of the grid in California. A recent study of the U.S. Grid has shown that a simultaneous loss of just nine select stations out of 55,000 could bring down the whole grid."

"How many people do you think were involved in that rifle attack"

"No one is sure, but my guess would be four or five. It was quick and very well planned."

"So to take down nine or ten stations simultaneously by gunfire would require around fifty people."

"Yes and considerable communication between them beforehand. That might be a weakness and it could attract the NSA and CIA."

Cal stopped momentarily and then said, "A third means is by cyber attack, getting into the computer control of key stations and taking them down. It isn't clear how long it might take to recover from this. Studying that is part of my thesis. However, there are a little over 2000 stations that can be communicated with via the internet."

"But we need not attack all 2000 at once, maybe only 10 or 12?"

"That would do it. A fourth means is much less recognized. This is by electro-magnetic pulse or EMP. When a nuclear weapon is detonated there is a brief but intense release of gamma radiation known as 'prompt gamma'."

"Would it be possible to cover the entire U.S. with one detonation?"

"Yes, if a reasonable sized weapon were discharged 300 miles outside the atmosphere, the territory directly below, about the size of the U.S., would be radiated enough to destroy the electronic controls of the power stations."

"Would that have to be an ICBM?"

"No, the weapon might be on board an ordinary satellite unnoticed for years."

"Wait a minute, Cal Is this just theory?"

"No. In a test shot in the Pacific, a weapon was detonated outside the atmosphere and electric stations were damaged in Hawaii over 1000 miles away. Actually green 'northern lights' were seen over Hawaii."

"So the vulnerability of the grid isn't theory, it's happened. The question is one of severity and how long it takes to restore the grid?"

"Randy, I could'nt put it better."

Unknown to Cal and Francis, all of this had been logged on a small black recorder sown into the center of Randy's generous black bra. She leaned back and with a slight touch to the middle of her blouse turned off the recorder.

"Thank you very much, Cal, you have been extremely helpful to the motherland. That will not be forgotten."

CHAPTER 3

WHEN AND HOW DO WE ACE?

Randy had delivered her paper at the east coast conference and was back in the San Francisco consulate. She and Francis sat in chairs on a section of lawn bounded by small trees and bushes. They paused briefly and she said, "Is it safe to talk here?

"Almost as safe as the 'quiet room'. There are white noise generators in the bushes that obscure any sound that would reach a microphone or recorder. You might hear a slight rustling sound like bugs moving in dry leaves. And, we are visually obscured by the trees so that no one can read our lips. I think we can talk safely."

"I'd like to hear your ideas on when and how we start to take down the grid. We don't want to kill a lot of people, although some deaths will be inevitable. The prime objective is to ruin America's financial reputation worldwide. It must be the end of the American dollar as the world's reserve currency. If there were major casualties and the cause was ever traced to the motherland, there would be great trouble. Death for you and me would be inescapable."

"Well Randy, to reduce casualties the event should occur in midsummer and avoid effects of lost residential heating. Also, at that time there will be food crops maturing. However, transporting them to cities would be a problem. So, I'd say between mid-June and October a span of 4 1/2 months."

"Would there be any advantage of beginning in the first year after an election so that a new set of politicians would be in charge at the federal level?"

"True that bonding and trust would not yet have been established. However, those qualities have been notably lacking in recent decades. Remember that after the event there would be almost no communication available with the internet, commercial radio and cell phones out of order. Only hard-wired phones and CB radio would be available along with some ham radio on batteries. In short, command and control would be greatly limited."

Randy thought for a moment. "OK, lets say that mid-June to October will be the time. What's your view on method?"

"We may want to talk further with Cal, but I have some tentative views. For example, the use of human attack seems risky. That would require a lot of communication and money beforehand. It would be hard to avoid the notice and decoding by NSA and the FBI. Then the communication at the zero hour would be a further problem. I would put human attack at the bottom of the list."

"I agree with you, Francis. There is also the problem of information leakage from fifty people who would want others to know how powerful they can be. Let's put it off the table for the time being. What about cyber attack?"

"That seems to be a good approach. However, we should talk again with Cal to learn what protection moves are underway. One very positive thing is that it might require no more than five or six people each using two computers to do the hacking. Coordination among these five or six should be easy and would not attract attention."

"Would it be possible to have the original internet addresses for these hackers to be in the U.S.?"

"Yes, also they could use Facebook and Twitter daily so as not to attract attention. In fact they might be able to use their Facebook pages to coordinate the attack time using some simple code such as I'm going to a movie tonight with Paul at 7:00pm we'll have a late dinner afterward. Looks innocent unless you know that Paul doesn't exist."

Randy smiled. "I love it! And with only five or six people this should be secret and manageable!"

Francis bent his head down then said. "One thing I've been pondering is the sunspot attack. It has much to commend it as the source is not on the earth. However, we have no control over it. But there is a possibility. Cal said that typically there is a period of half a day to a day after the explosion on the sun is visible and the time that the CME strikes the earth. Suppose we could coordinate a cyber attack to occur just after the opening moments of a sunspot strike. It would then appear that the stations lost by cyber means were just a follow on to the sunspot. Later analysis might show a difference, but communication at the time would be so bad that immediate analysis would be impossible."

"Most interesting Francis, but how do you coordinate the cyber attack in the middle of a sunspot CME?"

"That's going to take some thought and planning, but we can discuss it with Cal. Looks like we need a second meeting with him."

"OK Francis, how do you see the EMP attack?

"It would be so big and unusual that there will be a much longer recovery time. Something that bothers me is that Northern Radiation and Air Defense, or NORAD will track the satellite after it leaves synchronous orbit. They may not know or guess what is about to happen, but they will know who put the satellite up there. NORAD has just moved back into It's original radiation-proof home inside Cheyenne mountain in the Rockies. They will be able to analyze the satellite data immediately and know who caused the attack."

"So you see the EMP is a last ditch stand if all else fails?"

"You would know better than I whether the motherland wishes to go that far."

"Alright Francis, let's talk about a meeting with Cal before we go inside. I think it might be well for him to go to the Los Angeles consulate so that there is no question occurring to NSA as to why he goes all the way to San Francisco for any minor item that could be taken care of in Los Angeles."

"That's wise. Let me know when you can go and I'll ask Los Angeles to have him come in on something small, say a review of the mother country address for his Green Card."

As Randy rose from her chair to go inside the consulate, she touched the center of her blouse, turning off the recorder.

Cal was to report about his green card. He was shown directly into the quiet room and knew when he saw the other occupants it he was not there for a review of the card. They shook hands all around and Francis started the conversation.

"Cal, we need additional information about the grid, specifically what efforts are underway to arm it against a crash and how long it might take to recover from one. We have decided that the attack will be in late summer, say around mid August. We've ruled out human attack and the EMP method. So what is underway to strengthen the grid against cyber attack or CME?"

"I think you've made good decisions on the method. There are some moves underway to stiffen grids against collapse. For example, in China there is the start of High Voltage DC or HVDC ties that can bring a remote energy source to an urban load from any distance. HVDC is also popular in Europe and Brasil. In America things move slowly. There is talk of a 'Tres Amigas' DC station at Clovis, New Mexico to permit high energy exchange among the three parts of the U.S. Grid, the Eastern Grid, Western Grid and Texas Grid. This would be a great help in preventing collapse. But at present there are just a few such links in the U.S."

"When will that 'Tres Amigas' station start operation."

"Not for sometime, maybe three or four years. They have just now obtained an OK to buy a reserve on the necessary land."

Randy smiled. "Ah, great! Let's assume that we are talking about a zero hour in the next two years."

"Then I think you will see little change in the U.S. grid, maybe some in Canada, but not here. The grid is owned by so many different companies that getting agreement on action and money is nearly impossible."

"Tell us a little about the vulnerability of the present grid."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Zero Hour on the Grid by Art Dickerson. Copyright © 2016 Arthur Dickerson. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
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