Monday, October 22, 2012

Smart Grid: Bright Idea, Scam, or Security Risk?

Hugh Montgomery thinks a "smart grid" is anything but a smart idea...for Americans, anyway.

Who is Hugh Montgomery? Click here to find out:

http://www.potomacinstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=224

Hugh Montgomery has chosen to share concerns he addressed in a letter to Virginia's State Corporation Commission. Although the copy of the letter forwarded to me was in a clunky PDF format, the relevant text was formatted simply enough to be pasted into Word and cleaned. For others who think "PDF" stands for "A Pain to Download, Forget about it," but want to know what the "smart grid" is and why Mr. Montgomery opposes attempts to build it, here's his highly informed opinion:

"[To:] Virginia State Corporation Commission
P.O. Box 1197
Richmond, VA 23218

Gentlemen,

I serve as a member of the Virginia Commission on Energy and Environment. I am writing,
however, as a private citizen to provide public comment to the Commonwealth of Virginia State

Corporation Commission in the matter of Case Number PUE-2011-00093, for which a public

hearing is scheduled for March 6, 2012.

I would like to begin by stating for the record that I am an active environmentalist and a longtime

public speaker on behalf of energy conservation and environmental issues. I drive a hybrid vehicle,

designed our home 25 years ago to be extremely energy efficient and was "green" long before such

things became fashionable. It is therefore with deep regret that I must express my very strong

opposition to the Dominion Virginia Power proposal for installation of individual metering systems

and the initial stages of the so-called "smart grid" technology.

Let me offer my qualifications to speak as an expert on the subject. I am a retired federal Senior

Executive and Senior Fellow with the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. I served for almost two

decades on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations as the Department of Navy senior career

civilian for Science and Technology requirements and resources - the sponsor for all technical

programs of the Office of Naval Research. My educational background includes graduate degrees

in Physics from the University of Tennessee and in National and International Security Policy from

the Kennedy School at Harvard University. I serve in retirement on a part-time basis as a Special

Assistant for Science and Engineering in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. I was the

founding Executive Director of the Institute for Defense and Homeland Security, with a primary

emphasis on national energy independence and energy security. I published a book, "Bureaucratic

Nirvana," in late 2010 on the Federal Research and Development system, and engage frequently in

public speaking in the areas of Science and Technology, national security policy and national energy

security. I was appointed by Speaker of the House William Howell to serve on the Virginia

Commission for Energy and Environment.

With respect to the issue at hand, I served for three years on the Defense Science Board Energy

Task Force, chaired by Dr. James Schlesinger, who served as the first Secretary of Energy and also

as Secretary of Defense. I was a member of two of the four subgroups of the Task Force, the

Research and Technology Subpanel and the Policy Subpanel, the latter chaired by former CIA

Director and noted energy advocate James Woolsey (who also wrote the preface to my book). The

Task Force examined the nation's energy resources and infrastructure at highly classified levels so

as to determine "ground truth" with respect to our national energy security. To say that what we

learned with respect to vulnerability of the power grid was alarming would be a great

understatement. Specific details are available in the classified annex of the report for those with the

requisite clearances and need-to-know. The following excerpts from the publically available

unclassified report were taken from the Defense Science Board website:

"For various reasons, the grid has far less margin today than in earlier years between capacity

and demand. The level of spare parts kept in inventory has declined, and spare parts are often colocatedwith

their operational counterparts putting both at risk from a single act. ...In addition to

physical attacks on the grid, there is the potential for cyber attacks. U.S. grid control systems are

continuously probed electronically, and there have been numerous attempted attacks on the

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that operate the grid. None have yet

resulted in major problems in the U.S., but the potential exists for major outages in the same way

successful hackers can disrupt computer networks. ... The confluence of these trends, namely

increased critical load demand, decreased resilience of commercial power, inadequacy of backup

generators, and lack of transformer spares in sufficient numbers to enable quick repair, create an

unacceptably high risk to our national security from a long-term interruption of commercial

power."

Contrary to the understanding - and sincere belief- of supporters of the "smart grid" that such a

system is secure from individual hackers or organized terrorist activities, even the most cursory

examination at classified levels shows that this is not true. Damage far more severe than hours or

days without power can be inflicted from anywhere on the globe by a person with malicious intent,

a laptop computer and internet access. Although I regret deeply that this is the case, the smarter the

grid becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes - thus the more vulnerable we all become,

individually and collectively. And in the case of Dominion Virginia Power, the more vulnerable the

corporation becomes to a deliberate externally-induced catastrophe.

I respectfully urge the State Corporation Commission to consider the unacceptably high risks

inherent in this proposal and to deny its implementation. The efficiencies gained pale in comparison

to the risks incurred to the Commonwealth, the corporation and the people of Virginia. To quote

again the Defense Science Board report,"... an unacceptably high risk to our national security

from a long-term interruption of commercial power." If we start down this path in Virginia, I am

deeply concerned that the issue of a catastrophic power interruption becomes not a question of if,

but when."

[Signed: Hugh Montgomery]

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