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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