U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack

submitted by Margery Schab

Federal Analysis Says Sabotage of Nine Key Substations Is Sufficient for Broad Outage

wsj.com - by Rebecca Smith - March 12, 2014

The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

The study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, people familiar with the research said.

A small number of the country's substations play an outsize role in keeping power flowing across large regions.

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