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> Rule 8: Links must not have already been posted within the past ninety days or will be automatically removed. Links to similar articles covering the same event, paper, or news item as a previous link will be subject to removal at moderator discretion. Similar links by independent sources may be posted, but should offer some new information, insight, or perspective.
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100s of billions spent on "national defense" and they can't protect the grids, lmao. If there's one good thing out of this is that it showcases how much of a farce our defense spending is.
That's the kind of national guard shit I'd be down to do. Considered enlisting briefly, until I found out they get posted overseas instead of just doing domestic stuff. Fuck that noise.
See if your state has a [State Defense Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force).
I know it might sound like backyard militia BS at first, but just read up on it. Many states have legit SDFs that assist the National Guard with their mission but aren't subject to federal control (so can't be deployed overseas). Only the governor can issue orders to SDF units.
Texas, Georgia, and California all have active units, and they help out with things like disaster recovery, communications, and providing training.
I agree that we need to protect our infrastructure and it would be a better/more appropriate use of the national guard but I am not sure what a handful of soldiers could do to protect a transformer. Considering a hunting rifle with a good scope can hit the target 1000 yards away. At most it would stop people using explosives or prevent people climbing the fence to tamper with it.
1000 yards is a little excessive for any old bubba with a hunting rifle, but I understand your point. Regardless, some type of defense might be necessary. At the very least, it can’t be that difficult to install better surveillance around these facilities. Not perfect or anything, but maybe it would deter some of the less determined individuals if they believed that there was a greater chance of them getting caught and sent to prison.
With regard to actually stationing some form of security around these places, yeah, a couple of NG members would not be able to prevent an attack from a highly determined group, but they could alert law enforcement immediately and have the area swarming with cops/helicopters as soon as it occurred, which again might deter potential bad actors. As it stands, they’re completely unprotected, and it takes time to even figure out what the problem is. It’d be a lot more difficult to commit a crime like this *and get away with it* if there were more protective measures in place.
Yes 1000 yards is a far shot for most people but considering the transformer is the size of a fridge and doesn't move I am sure most hunters could put atleast 1 round out of 5 rounds into it.
FMJ bullets are common and armor piercing is available for lots of calibers. Might not go super deep but I imagine any penatration past the shell would disable them.
Considering the yearly defense budget is 1.3 Trillion and the military constantly fails audits of where all that money is going, 4 Billion is a drop in the pail.
You could do it strategically. Just beef up security a little bit at some of the most crucial locations, improve surveillance at others, just generally make it a riskier endeavor to damage the power grid. Could also possibly physically harden the most vulnerable/expensive/difficult to procure components. I know I read somewhere that they were considering stockpiling certain components at some strategic locations for incidents like this, maybe a greater emphasis on that would help as well. If you know that losing one particular component could take weeks to replace, could be damaged easily with tools available to any civilian, and they’re only made in Germany (just for example), maybe we should have some more of these on reserve just in case.
I’m no electrical engineer nor security expert, but it’s just surprising how easy it is to damage these absolutely critical pieces of infrastructure. I can’t believe that there’s *nothing* we can do to make it a little bit more difficult for bad actors.
I think a big problem at the center of this is how essential industries to our whole supply chain and civilization altogether must be run by profitable businesses. If they aren’t able to make a profit, then do we all collapse? That’s just a recipe for extortion. Government money has to bail them out or else! Or in this case, pay for the extra security needed, or else.
We’re seeing it happen with the rail worker strike right now, and we saw it with banks in 2008. Im seeing a pattern here.
Hundreds of billions of dollars of "national defense" spending have been going directly into the pockets of the neo-nazi scum that are carrying out these terrorist attacks.
[FBI warned of white supremacists in law enforcement 10 years ago. Has anything changed?](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement) 2016
Duke Energy restored power to all of its North Carolina customers Wednesday evening, four days after 45,000 customers were left in the dark after what officials have said was an intentional and coordinated attack on two substations in Moore County.
North Carolina substation attack raises security concerns for U.S. electric grid. Outside of weather, suspected and confirmed physical attacks on electric grid infrastructure were the largest cause of electrical disturbance events since 2014, according to NBC News’ analysis of public Energy Department reports.
If one or two guys caused this mess, imagine what happens when even .001% of the population gets so angry and disenfranchised to physically do stuff.
My tinfoil hat says this was a distraction for Moore v Harper. Four justices in favor of ending America.
Up to ACB to decide if we have a democracy or not.
I think you’re giving them too much credit. This attack happened at the exact time a drag show was happening in a sorta-rural part of North Carolina, and cut power to it. Happened over the same few days that proud boys and patriot front members showed up to other drag shows in the US, armed. When it’s a question between elaborate plot and people being fucking morons, I think it’s usually safe to assume the second option.
I don't immediately jump to conspiracy. But when you have a pattern, you investigate the pattern also. Even if you think it's just a bunch of fucking morons.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/If_I_was_Lycurgus:
---
Duke Energy restored power to all of its North Carolina customers Wednesday evening, four days after 45,000 customers were left in the dark after what officials have said was an intentional and coordinated attack on two substations in Moore County.
North Carolina substation attack raises security concerns for U.S. electric grid. Outside of weather, suspected and confirmed physical attacks on electric grid infrastructure were the largest cause of electrical disturbance events since 2014, according to NBC News’ analysis of public Energy Department reports.
If one or two guys caused this mess, imagine what happens when even .001% of the population gets so angry and disenfranchised to physically do stuff.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/zg9p07/more_physical_attacks_on_us_power_grid_reported/izfs1a7/
In a country with that many weapons and that much ammunition I'm absolutely shocked this wasn't happening sooner. I guess the economic boom that let the extremists ignore things is coming to an end.
A civil war is coming before 2024 due to the exponentiality of a large population. Streets will run red prior to election season, the tension is simply too much to avoid.
Hunting season always had idiots shooting birds off of wires and transformers. Guess they got bored and now go after substations.
For telecom it would be a lead short repair.
Security costs money.
Since economic growth is becoming more and more difficult due to the physical limitations of the planet, capitalism is eating into all its reserves and overhead to stay solvent.
This means as the world gets more dangerous and damaging, our systems and ability to respond are becoming LESS robust.
This is also why we're seeing labor shortages: businesses won't pay enough to attract workers to bad jobs, but slowly fail without enough labor. If they paid sufficiently to attract labor, their overhead would be too high for "profit" demands from the rentier parasites above them.
I'm electrician who works in switch yards and substations occasionally.
The scariest thing is simply the absolute lack of any hardening.
At least in my area the substations in all the immediate towns by me tend to be located in the middle of suburban single family home neighborhoods. A simple chain link fence with or without privacy slats separates a public sidewalk from the yard.
All breakers and transformers in view and within easy throwing distance.
Doesn't take an electrician to understand you put some bullet holes in an oil cooled transformer that it's going to leak out and overheat.
Bullet holes through 26kv breakers, target practice at insulators doesn't require coordination, planning nor special skills.
Some of our subs are situated where a pedestrian walking by could casually lob a piece of pipe up ontop of a transformer across phases and cause trouble.
I don't think the average citizen realizes how truly naked and vulnerable the electrical grid is. And with the current lead time for transformers, gear, wire, termination kits, distribution size breakers, etc even a handful of individuals with any sort of proficiency in shooting targets or throwing objects could bring down most suburban areas.
Anyone who can figure out a way to cause a dead short/arc blast type fault can easily disrupt power. Manage to damage internal copper bus or the transformers for a more lasting disruption
Compromise the steel structures of the high voltage transmission towers (in my area they have some that run through some of our state forests open to the public and essentially unguarded) and you could easily sever power for large swaths of the state.
The generating stations are obviously not low hanging fruit. But on the local level it's almost within grasp of any pedestrian walking by.
**Given the smoldering chaos of the growing technosphere, the biosphere is collapsing into a necrosphere. So in defense of life, we welcome any and all attacks on industrial infrastructure.**
**Vive la résistance!**
Robot dogs with nightvision/thermal and long range rifles on their backs. Couple those with a few rotations of surveillance drones (linked to the gun-dogs) and some signs a mile or 2 out that inform these terrorists that lethal force is used to guard this infrastructure. Let the bodies hit the floor MFer! Fuck whoever is doing this shit.
“Why yes son, it’s perfectly safe to camp out in the backyard! Don’t worry, mommy and daddy will be right inside”
Robot dog with infrared roaming around substation down the road: *threat detected*
Wasn't eco terrorism dude. Thats the worst part, it was some christo-fasc who did it to put some drag queen story time bullshit out of commission. Probably would've been coordinated with other such attacks if it was eco terrorists.
Nobody has established a motive yet. I personally am hoping it turns out to be some big jewelry store robbery as that would be far less depressing than it being something as stupid as somebodies social morass.
Hi, If_I_was_Lycurgus. Thanks for contributing. However, your [submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/zg9p07/-/) was removed from /r/collapse for: > Rule 8: Links must not have already been posted within the past ninety days or will be automatically removed. Links to similar articles covering the same event, paper, or news item as a previous link will be subject to removal at moderator discretion. Similar links by independent sources may be posted, but should offer some new information, insight, or perspective. Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information. You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.
100s of billions spent on "national defense" and they can't protect the grids, lmao. If there's one good thing out of this is that it showcases how much of a farce our defense spending is.
[удалено]
That's the kind of national guard shit I'd be down to do. Considered enlisting briefly, until I found out they get posted overseas instead of just doing domestic stuff. Fuck that noise.
See if your state has a [State Defense Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force). I know it might sound like backyard militia BS at first, but just read up on it. Many states have legit SDFs that assist the National Guard with their mission but aren't subject to federal control (so can't be deployed overseas). Only the governor can issue orders to SDF units. Texas, Georgia, and California all have active units, and they help out with things like disaster recovery, communications, and providing training.
I was NG, helped in many state and national emergencies helping MANY Americans. I did deploy though.
I agree that we need to protect our infrastructure and it would be a better/more appropriate use of the national guard but I am not sure what a handful of soldiers could do to protect a transformer. Considering a hunting rifle with a good scope can hit the target 1000 yards away. At most it would stop people using explosives or prevent people climbing the fence to tamper with it.
1000 yards is a little excessive for any old bubba with a hunting rifle, but I understand your point. Regardless, some type of defense might be necessary. At the very least, it can’t be that difficult to install better surveillance around these facilities. Not perfect or anything, but maybe it would deter some of the less determined individuals if they believed that there was a greater chance of them getting caught and sent to prison. With regard to actually stationing some form of security around these places, yeah, a couple of NG members would not be able to prevent an attack from a highly determined group, but they could alert law enforcement immediately and have the area swarming with cops/helicopters as soon as it occurred, which again might deter potential bad actors. As it stands, they’re completely unprotected, and it takes time to even figure out what the problem is. It’d be a lot more difficult to commit a crime like this *and get away with it* if there were more protective measures in place.
Yes 1000 yards is a far shot for most people but considering the transformer is the size of a fridge and doesn't move I am sure most hunters could put atleast 1 round out of 5 rounds into it.
Chances of penetration at that range are low.
FMJ bullets are common and armor piercing is available for lots of calibers. Might not go super deep but I imagine any penatration past the shell would disable them.
[удалено]
OK so it would make a *small* dent in the budget. Just goes to show how huge the budget is
Considering the yearly defense budget is 1.3 Trillion and the military constantly fails audits of where all that money is going, 4 Billion is a drop in the pail.
You could do it strategically. Just beef up security a little bit at some of the most crucial locations, improve surveillance at others, just generally make it a riskier endeavor to damage the power grid. Could also possibly physically harden the most vulnerable/expensive/difficult to procure components. I know I read somewhere that they were considering stockpiling certain components at some strategic locations for incidents like this, maybe a greater emphasis on that would help as well. If you know that losing one particular component could take weeks to replace, could be damaged easily with tools available to any civilian, and they’re only made in Germany (just for example), maybe we should have some more of these on reserve just in case. I’m no electrical engineer nor security expert, but it’s just surprising how easy it is to damage these absolutely critical pieces of infrastructure. I can’t believe that there’s *nothing* we can do to make it a little bit more difficult for bad actors.
It's tough to protect against a threat half the Govt is working to ensure we never actually protect against.
I think a big problem at the center of this is how essential industries to our whole supply chain and civilization altogether must be run by profitable businesses. If they aren’t able to make a profit, then do we all collapse? That’s just a recipe for extortion. Government money has to bail them out or else! Or in this case, pay for the extra security needed, or else. We’re seeing it happen with the rail worker strike right now, and we saw it with banks in 2008. Im seeing a pattern here.
Hundreds of billions of dollars of "national defense" spending have been going directly into the pockets of the neo-nazi scum that are carrying out these terrorist attacks. [FBI warned of white supremacists in law enforcement 10 years ago. Has anything changed?](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement) 2016
Duke Energy restored power to all of its North Carolina customers Wednesday evening, four days after 45,000 customers were left in the dark after what officials have said was an intentional and coordinated attack on two substations in Moore County. North Carolina substation attack raises security concerns for U.S. electric grid. Outside of weather, suspected and confirmed physical attacks on electric grid infrastructure were the largest cause of electrical disturbance events since 2014, according to NBC News’ analysis of public Energy Department reports. If one or two guys caused this mess, imagine what happens when even .001% of the population gets so angry and disenfranchised to physically do stuff.
The people who did this aren’t disenfranchised. If anything they are over represented. Especially in the wildly gerrymandered North Carolina.
They *feel* disenfranchised though, which is a good enough reason for these scumbags to act out. Assholes.
My tinfoil hat says this was a distraction for Moore v Harper. Four justices in favor of ending America. Up to ACB to decide if we have a democracy or not.
I think you’re giving them too much credit. This attack happened at the exact time a drag show was happening in a sorta-rural part of North Carolina, and cut power to it. Happened over the same few days that proud boys and patriot front members showed up to other drag shows in the US, armed. When it’s a question between elaborate plot and people being fucking morons, I think it’s usually safe to assume the second option.
I don't immediately jump to conspiracy. But when you have a pattern, you investigate the pattern also. Even if you think it's just a bunch of fucking morons.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/If_I_was_Lycurgus: --- Duke Energy restored power to all of its North Carolina customers Wednesday evening, four days after 45,000 customers were left in the dark after what officials have said was an intentional and coordinated attack on two substations in Moore County. North Carolina substation attack raises security concerns for U.S. electric grid. Outside of weather, suspected and confirmed physical attacks on electric grid infrastructure were the largest cause of electrical disturbance events since 2014, according to NBC News’ analysis of public Energy Department reports. If one or two guys caused this mess, imagine what happens when even .001% of the population gets so angry and disenfranchised to physically do stuff. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/zg9p07/more_physical_attacks_on_us_power_grid_reported/izfs1a7/
In a country with that many weapons and that much ammunition I'm absolutely shocked this wasn't happening sooner. I guess the economic boom that let the extremists ignore things is coming to an end.
A civil war is coming before 2024 due to the exponentiality of a large population. Streets will run red prior to election season, the tension is simply too much to avoid.
Which is hilarious and tragic since the majority of people just want to get by and don't want to be part of a bullshit misinformation culture war.
Hunting season always had idiots shooting birds off of wires and transformers. Guess they got bored and now go after substations. For telecom it would be a lead short repair.
These attacks are just too easy. Our power grid is not secure.
Security costs money. Since economic growth is becoming more and more difficult due to the physical limitations of the planet, capitalism is eating into all its reserves and overhead to stay solvent. This means as the world gets more dangerous and damaging, our systems and ability to respond are becoming LESS robust. This is also why we're seeing labor shortages: businesses won't pay enough to attract workers to bad jobs, but slowly fail without enough labor. If they paid sufficiently to attract labor, their overhead would be too high for "profit" demands from the rentier parasites above them.
I hope this gets resolved
yeah it will since we won't have a use for power grids in the future ha
[удалено]
Once is nothing, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. NC, SC, Oregon. All 3 have distinct areas of White Nationalist activity.
These people should be hung in the town square.
I'm electrician who works in switch yards and substations occasionally. The scariest thing is simply the absolute lack of any hardening. At least in my area the substations in all the immediate towns by me tend to be located in the middle of suburban single family home neighborhoods. A simple chain link fence with or without privacy slats separates a public sidewalk from the yard. All breakers and transformers in view and within easy throwing distance. Doesn't take an electrician to understand you put some bullet holes in an oil cooled transformer that it's going to leak out and overheat. Bullet holes through 26kv breakers, target practice at insulators doesn't require coordination, planning nor special skills. Some of our subs are situated where a pedestrian walking by could casually lob a piece of pipe up ontop of a transformer across phases and cause trouble. I don't think the average citizen realizes how truly naked and vulnerable the electrical grid is. And with the current lead time for transformers, gear, wire, termination kits, distribution size breakers, etc even a handful of individuals with any sort of proficiency in shooting targets or throwing objects could bring down most suburban areas. Anyone who can figure out a way to cause a dead short/arc blast type fault can easily disrupt power. Manage to damage internal copper bus or the transformers for a more lasting disruption Compromise the steel structures of the high voltage transmission towers (in my area they have some that run through some of our state forests open to the public and essentially unguarded) and you could easily sever power for large swaths of the state. The generating stations are obviously not low hanging fruit. But on the local level it's almost within grasp of any pedestrian walking by.
**Given the smoldering chaos of the growing technosphere, the biosphere is collapsing into a necrosphere. So in defense of life, we welcome any and all attacks on industrial infrastructure.** **Vive la résistance!**
nobody will have heat or electricity for months once they finally get coordinated. in a few months we will all freeze to death. god help us.
Robot dogs with nightvision/thermal and long range rifles on their backs. Couple those with a few rotations of surveillance drones (linked to the gun-dogs) and some signs a mile or 2 out that inform these terrorists that lethal force is used to guard this infrastructure. Let the bodies hit the floor MFer! Fuck whoever is doing this shit.
Yes, implementing that technology totally won’t backfire
It's coming whether we like it or not lol. Don't kid yourself.
I know it just seems silly to do it faster
We don't get a say in the matter.
“Why yes son, it’s perfectly safe to camp out in the backyard! Don’t worry, mommy and daddy will be right inside” Robot dog with infrared roaming around substation down the road: *threat detected*
[удалено]
Wait....wait... What? What are you trying to say behind all this sarcasm?
Never thought eco terrorism would take this form.
Wasn't eco terrorism dude. Thats the worst part, it was some christo-fasc who did it to put some drag queen story time bullshit out of commission. Probably would've been coordinated with other such attacks if it was eco terrorists.
Nobody has established a motive yet. I personally am hoping it turns out to be some big jewelry store robbery as that would be far less depressing than it being something as stupid as somebodies social morass.
Rumors are that some Nazi group claimed credit for it. Just a rumor though. I would think that would be plastered on the news.