Technocrats around the world are praising today the start-up of the world’s first nationwide “smart” electrical grid. Few laymen understand how the smart grid works, and even fewer realize its potential dangers.
Republic of Malta-June 16 (Examiner.com) -- This cluster of islands in the Mediterranean Sea south of Sicily, today became the first nation in the world to be completely served by a “smart grid” electrical distribution system. The combined area of the Malta archipelago is 316 square km or 124 square miles. Its estimated population is approximately 420,000 persons, making it the most densely populated nation in the world. All residents of the major islands are served by the new, high-tech electrical system, although there are some smaller islands that have no public electrical service. Malta’s officials expect the new system to reduce overall power consumption by as much as 20-30%, which will reduce its expeditures for imported fossil fuels that generate most of its electricity.
Future-thinking electrical engineers and emergency management bureaucrats have been urging nations or even continents to install smart grid systems for well over a decade. Smart grids have been proposed for all of the European Union, regions of the United States and even, the entire United States. These proposals have been a favorite mantra of futurist and former, American Vice President Al Gore, since he left office.
An alternative label applied to smart grids is “interactive power control systems.” The most common benefits ascribed to smart grids are elimination of blackouts and brown outs, plus more accessibility to dispersed power sources.
Journalists from around the world followed the continuing installation of Malta’s smart grid with accolades that it was a model for their own countries. Not having technical backgrounds themselves, the journalists tended to fill the news coverage in words of praise, but not substance. Smart grids were described as being "good things" in the same genre as polio vaccinations, automobile seat belts and a cure for cancer. Laymen were left to their own resorts to figure out what, exactly, was a “smart grid.” However, “smart grid” technology is not just one invention, but the blending of thousands of technological advances over the past 30 years.
While smart electrical grids for large nations or regions of large nations are plans for the future, the basic technology has been at work and steadily improving, in large buildings for two decades. High rise office buildings and apartments containing “smart electrical systems” are commonplace in many developed countries. They have been proven to reduce total power consumption and improve internal security.
A convergence of several technologies
The origin of one aspect of smart building and smart grid technology originated in the espionage efforts of the Cold War. Government scientists learned that a type of radio wave, known as a long wave, could be transmitted within standard electrical wiring. Conventional counter-espionage equipment could not detect the waves since they did not travel through the air. It was possible to install electronic bugs in TV’s and radios that received the sounds in a room (such as conversations) then converted the sound waves to long waves and sent the information back to a receiver attached to the power grid.
Before the widespread availibility of cheap electronic chips, 12 volt, direct current lines connected central control panels with sub-panels that were essentially personal computers. After long wave technology became more sophisticated, electrical engineers realized that long waves could be used to operate any machine or device operated by electricity supplied through wires. Building mechanical and lighting systems could be operated from a central console without a second system of low voltage control wiring and ancillary computers.
Power companies developed long wave applications that enabled them to monitor power flow through wires and transformers. That is why most power companies and coops today often know when a tree has fallen on a line without being called by consumers.
Unfortunately, some participants in Operation Desert Storm applied military long wave technology to the electrical communication systems. Employees of rural electrical coops in the Southeastern United States, who were members of right wing extremist groups, learned that they could covertly communicate with each other via the long wave frequencies assigned to electrical coops. Until recently, counter-insurgency agents could not detect their plans for domestic terrorism with conventional surveillance devices.
During the 1980s the personal computer quickly evolved from being a primitive 64K RAM "toy" with limited applications to a far more powerful machine that could interact with the user via a mouse. The “chips” developed for personal computers were soon applied to industry, where they functioned as mini-computers spread throughout the production process to monitor each item in the assembly line. Chips were also installed in automobiles, passerger jets and military aircraft to improve their safety and energy consumption.
During the first decade of the 21st century, the internal operation of automobiles, commercial jets and most military aircraft became totally dependent on networks of chips, micro chips and internal computers. The internal operations of “smart buildings” are also totally dependent on hundreds of microchips spread throughout the structure. The mechanical systems of a building are run by a computer, 24/7. unless a human takes control of the main panel.
Simultaneously, the logic and capacity of the internet grew exponentially. The internet was little more than what is today called “email” until around 2000, when massive server computers were developed that could essentially store all of the knowledge of the world and make it accessible to the world.
The first application of these emerging technologies to private homes appeared in the late 1980s; particularly in the more affluent neighborhoods of Washington, DC. They were called low voltage, remote-controlled electrical systems. Houses were wired with 12 volt direct current wiring systems in addition to the standard 115V-220V alternating current systems. The 12 volt system linked a control panel, which was connected to a personal computer on one end and on the other ends, switches that controlled 115 V AC circuits. Some remote control systems were also connected to the thermostats of heating and cooling systems, or to security systems. The personal computer was connected to a telephone terminal that contained its own set of chips.
The technology of the late 1980s and early 1990s seems primitive two decades later, but then, it seemed to be magical that an administrator of the Smithsonian Institute could control his home in Loudon County, VA. By typing in a code on his push button phone, he could turn up the thermostat on the furnace, a Crock pot filled with soup, even the water heater, and then time the lights to turn on, just before the administrator was scheduled to complete his daily commute. Problems immediately began to appear in the early remote control systems that soon squelched the emerging technology, until more sophisticated electronics with fail-safe devices became available.
Unanticipated consequences
In the late 1980s the United States Navy installed underground antennas for miles along the mountains of West Virginia near its border with Virginia. The antennas could theoretically broadcast long waves underground to naval bases, fleets and submarines around the world. However, as soon as the antennas went operational in 1990, chaos erupted. Leading Edge brand personal computers went haywire, or even refused to operate in northwestern Virginia. The microwave and long wave radio system used by the Virginia Power Company to monitor transformers and communicate with repair trucks shut down.
The sensitivity to military long wave freqencies was eventually one of the causes of Leading Edge going out of business. The public was not told the cause of these computers' unpredictable behavior, because it would expose military secrets during Operation Desert Storm.
Because of the Navy's long wave transmissions, northwestern Virginia homeowners with the 12 volt control systems, run by Leading Edge computers, often experienced catastrophes. Furnaces, lights, water heaters and coffee pots turned on and off erratically. Some houses burned down because electrical cooking appliances turned on while the owners were away. The Navy eventually did “something” to stop the problem, without admitting it, but the experience should have been a warning to proponents of regional or national smart grids.
A far more sinister situation has developed in the years since the Navy long wave incident. The Washington, DC area is awash with former military or national security personnel, who regularly did things in their career that, are quite illegal in the civilian world. Far too many place the skills learned for hire to the highest bidder. When buildings or vehicles are placed under the control of computerized electronic systems, they become quite vulnerable to hackers. Once a computerized control system is under the command of a person or organization with nefarious intent, the building’s occupants become their prisoners. Criminal acts can be made to appear like electronic malfunctions.
The vulnerabilities to external control or malfunctioning are the greatest potential dangers of a smart grid system. Its theoretical domain encompasses all elements of our civilization. Installation of a smart grid involves thousands or even millions of mini-computers and control devices. Each chip and each control device would be subject to failure from defective manufacturing, or even external manipulation.
The smart grid would have many characteristics like the internet, but . . . unlike the internet, it could not be turned off with the flip of a switch. Human lives could become like those eerie opening lines of the hit TV series, “The Outer Limits.” “You are no longer in control. We can control everything. We can turn your TV on and off. We can control what you hear and can not hear . . .”
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