by Michael Salla, Ph.D.
April 9, 2009
Honolulu Exopolitics Examiner

from TheExaminer Website

On April 8, a front page article was published in the Wall Street Journal on the dangers posed by cyber-spies to the U.S. electrical grid.

According to senior intelligence officers who spoke with the Journal,

“Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system.”

No action has been taken so far to disrupt the electrical grid by China, Russia and other involved countries. In a time of war or national crisis, however, the electrical grid could be severely disrupted by foreign entities disrupting the electrical grid through the internet.

Solar activity in 1999.

Photo: SOHO

The possibility of cyber-attacks is considered very real by some sources.

Missing entirely from the Wall Street Journal article, however, was any mention of a more likely threat to the electrical grid. A threat that led a prestigious panel of scientists with the National Research Council issuing a report in January 2009 warning of a catastrophic electrical grid failure – giant solar storms around 2012.

Under the Bush administration, $17 billion was dedicated to dealing with cyber-security and keeping U.S. computer systems running in the event of an attack. The Obama administration is considering whether to increase this under a comprehensive 60 day cyber-security review to be completed next week. Cyber-spies undoubtedly pose a threat to the U.S. electrical grid.

They pale into insignificance, however, when compared with the threat posed by massive solar storms bombarding the Earth around 2012 as Solar Cycle 24 peaks. Focusing on possible cyber attacks on the electrical grid is wholly inadequate and even a distraction to the very real threats posed by Solar Cycle 24. Solar storms have been acknowledged by scientists to pose a genuine threat to the U.S. electrical grid.

A March 23 article by Michael Brooks of The New Scientist, graphically outlined how millions of American lives would be risk. As we approach 2012, a comprehensive strategy is urgently needed to deal with large scale disruptions to the electrical grid for weeks and even months at a time.

The Wall Street Journal report follows just a week after new legislation was introduced into Congress to deal with cyber threats.

A Bill titled The Cyber-security Act of 2009 seeks,

"the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cyber-security defenses against disruptions, and for other purposes. In addition the Bill enables the President to "declare a cyber-security emergency and order the limitation or shutdown Internet traffic.”

It would be up to the President to define a “cybersecurity emergency” which among other aspects of the proposed legislation has already sparked strong criticism.

As possible threats of cyber attack against the electrical grid are debated, and legislation introduced to counter such threats, it’s worth pausing to consider what may be happening behind the scenes with the real threat posed by solar storms – as National Research Council scientists warned in their 2009 report (Severe Space Weather Events - Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts). Among the most significant problems discussed in the New Scientist article was the threat to electrical transformers that would be fused and destroyed by solar plasma hitting the Earth.

Reports are emerging that action has already been secretly taken to deal with the threats posed by Solar Cycle 24.

According to a popular internet website, Project Camelot, the wife of an electrical engineer revealed that her husband had a secret assignment to come up with a solution to the transformer problem posed by a major electromagnetic event in three to four years time.

She wrote:

My husband is an electrical engineer for a national power company. He has just been told that they are expecting an event in the next 3-4 years that will render every transformer in the world useless. They are desperately trying to find a solution to the problem. If they don't, the entire global electrical system will go down.

The engineer and wife decided to remain anonymous. Though the claim is unconfirmed, it is consistent with the 2009 National Science Council report about a major electrical grid failure associated with 2012 and the destruction of transformers world wide.

According to Daniel Baker, chair of the space science committee responsible for the report:

"We're moving closer and closer to the edge of a possible disaster."

What gives the report even more urgency is NASA's announcement on December 16, 2008 of a giant hole in the Earth's magnetosphere that will allow up to 20 times the normal rate of solar plasma to enter the Earth.

 

Massive Solar Storms
by NationalGeographic
October 25, 2007

from YouTube Website

Step inside the eye of a solar storm and the measures scientists take to predict them.

I revealed in an earlier article on 2012 Solar Storms, that a radically new power supply and distribution system based on “zero point” or “new energy” was feasible and could be quickly put into production.

A number of non-governmental initiatives are underway to support inventors wanting to develop new energy generators. These include the New Energy Movement, the New Energy Congress and the Orion Project, all of which are privately funded and seeking public assistance.

These private efforts need to be supplemented by a massive federal government investment in new energy technology and infrastructure that makes the current electrical grid system redundant. That is the best safeguard to any widespread threat to the electrical grid system – whether posed by foreign cyber-attack or future solar storms.

President Obama needs to urgently fund a Manhattan size project to develop and supply American families, businesses and essential services with new energy generators independent of the electrical grid over the next three years. That will cost vastly more than the $17 billion for cyber-security to maintain U.S. computer and electrical networks.

Developing a strategy based solely on cyber-attacks on the electrical grid,

• is at best inadequate

• or, at worst, a distraction to the real threat to America’s electrical grid system.