March 24, 2020—Unanticipated COVID-19 Grid Vulnerabilities!

Little public attention has been paid to the vital role of electricity in assuring America’s ability to confront the growing COVID-19 pandemic — and to assuring viable operations of the electric power grid through this stressful time. Not only are there external threats to our ability to assure this capability, the pandemic itself could cause cascading failure of the grid, leading to numerous fatalities.

One recent public media exception was from Peggy Noonan, who wrote speeches for my favorite President, Ronald Reagan. Click here for her March 21-22 Wall Street Journal article, “We Need Time to Absorb All This.” About halfway in, she most definitely correctly stated:

“There are a million warnings out there on a million serious things. We add one: Everything works — and will continue to work — as long as we have electricity. It’s what keeps the lights on, the oxygen flowing, the information going. Everything is the grid, the grid, the grid.” (Emphasis added)

But she did not discuss further her very important, absolutely correct, observation. Rather, she seemed dedicated to the idea that we should stay calm while the “powers that be” take care of the dangerous COVID-19 pandemic, as Americans always have dealt with major challenges — in war and peace.

Then, after reviewing her recent personal trials getting medical treatment during the current crisis, she ended by stating, “I just want to get out and help in some way. Isn’t that what you feel? We all just want to pitch in.”

That’s certainly the right spirit, to be sure. And it no doubt reflects how every American feels. In keeping with that spirit, note that the first step to solving any problem is to define the problem and what is needed to deal with it.

Click here for last week’s message that focused on the threat to America that might be posed by external forces that take advantage of our COVID-19 status — e.g. from a major cyber-attack, possibly including EMP effects, intended to take advantage of our then weakened condition.

I warned that even though the Iranian people are suffering from the on-going pandemic, the Mullahs (as Shiite “true believers”) might choose to attack us to hasten the return of the Mahdi and usher in their anticipated global Caliphate.

They could choose this time to attack us, the “Great Satan,” while we are focused on dealing with COVAD-19, which originated in Wuhan, China and is rapidly spreading to industrialized nations dependent on reliable electricity.

That possibility might also apply for them considering attacks on the “Little Satan” Israel. Click here for yesterday’s Jerusalem Post report that Israel’s Comptroller has warned that Israel is unprepared for COVID-19.

While keeping this danger in mind, today’s message focuses on perhaps an unrecognized national vulnerability of our electric power grid: The potential degradation of our sources of electricity due to the loss of those key individuals who man the nation’s operations centers and manage the nation’s electric power grid.

And this vulnerability exists even without the intrusion of Iran and/or Iran’s allies — Russia, China, and North Korea—all of whom would prefer that we would just go away.

This quite real concern reflects the fact that these essential operations centers are manned by relatively few highly qualified individuals who may be at increased risk during our current efforts to respond to the growing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consider the following figure of an operations center responsible for major grid operations. Lots of electronics, but only a few highly trained people to manage those electronics.

Lest you think I am just making up this concern, click here for a March 20, 2020 Reuters article, titled “U.S. power industry may ask key employees to live at work if coronavirus worsens.” Good idea to be prepared.

To be sure, the major power companies around the nation are well-aware of this concern and are seeking to deal with it. For example, Duke Energy with whom we are partnering in our Lake Wylie Pilot Study is spending $50-56 Billion over the next five or so years to improve the resilience of their grid infrastructure to all threats. Click here for an interesting October 17, 2018 Advanced Energy article discussing Duke’s efforts to improve the “Smart Grid” in North Carolina.

In our Lake Wylie Pilot Study to harden the grid in York County against the EMP threat, we have worked together for the past five years to determine how to assure Duke’s electricity can make its way through a hardened York County Distribution Grid primarily owned and operated by Rock Hill Utility and York Electric co-op companies. Click here for my most recent major discussion on March 3, 2020 of that important project, which also highlighted the lethargic dysfunctional Washington bureaucracy that is not supporting such affordable efforts to harden the grid, based on applying lessons we learned decades ago in protecting our most important military systems.

Returning to the focus of today’s message, I’m certain Duke Energy leaders and engineers are working to address this COVID-19 threat to their grid infrastructure. At least in the case of York County, I’m confident that Duke will make every effort to provide needed electricity to support the critical infrastructure supporting the citizens of Rock Hill and the rest of the county. But that is not sufficient to assure confidence that electricity will be transferred to all critical operations of York County (e.g., water-wastewater, emergency management, communications, etc.)

That success depends on viable operations of the Distribution Grid, most of which is the responsibility of Rock Hill Utility and York Electric co-op companies. And that includes the critical role of their operations centers, which depends on key individuals. And as in the case of hardening South Carolina’s grid, dealing effectively with the COVID-19 threat is a complex challenge for the 46 counties of South Carolina, requiring a coordinated effort by Duke Energy, Dominion Energy and Santee-Cooper Power companies and some 46 utility and co-op companies.

Across the nation, there are over 3000 energy companies whose operations are critically important to all Americans. Keeping a sufficient number of operators safe to accomplish this task while experiencing the growing COVID-19 pandemic throughout our nation is indeed a major challenge.

An important paper has been drafted by Tom Popik, Founder and President of The Foundation for Resilient Societies — “Preserving Operational Continuity for Utility Control Rooms During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” I am joining Dr. Alan Nichols, who is playing a key role in our Lake Wylie Pilot Study, in co-authoring with Tom this important message to all Americans about the challenge we are confronting. It will be posted later today on the Foundation’s webpage: www.resilientsocieties.org (Click here for a direct link to our article.)

This paper also has been scrubbed by several experts and authorities in the public and private sector, and reflects the best available information dealing with a key vulnerability posed by this potentially disastrous pandemic, for which I fear we are unprepared. And we are not yet experiencing the consequences of the bgunfolding still unappreciated threat. To help make this point, consider Figure 1 of this important report, repeated below.

For those who are not familiar with or have forgotten about logarithms, when the logarithms of daily cumulative COVID-19 cases are plotted against a linear progression of days, a straight line equates to an exponential growth.

So, on March 17^th the U.S. COVID-19 logarithm of cumulative cases (Red) was about the same as was Italy’s (Green) on March 3^rd, only two weeks earlier. And now, a few more days later, Italy’s large (and still growing) number of fatalities have been making news, and “we the people” are collectively waking up to the threat to us, even while congress dawdles in its dismal “business as usual” alleged deliberations to deal with the growing medical and economic consequences of COVID-19.

Just to bring more focus on these timelines, click here for a March 21, 2020 Breitbart News article by Alana Mastrangelo, reporting four days ago that nearly 800 Italians had died from COVID-19. And click here for Shane Harris’ concurrent Washington Post article entitled, “Italy’s coronavirus death toll feeds fear of what lies ahead in Europe and the U.S.” To be sure, and in my opinion justifiable fear.

Italy’s total population is about 60 million — as compared to ours of about 330 million. As reported in our Foundation for Resilient Societies study, a model developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects that COVID-19 could infect between 50% and 65% of all Americans — say 150 million Americans. Reports last evening indicated that over 40,000 Americans have already been exposed to COVID-19. What will it be in another ten days or so?

So … are we prepared? A sobering question in view of our above suggested exponential COVID-19 growth rate … and I suspect that a competent answer is not reassuring.

As discussed in depth in the Foundation for Resilient Societies report, when the COVID-19 peak hits, continuous isolation of healthy control room operators (“sheltering in place”) could be essential for maintaining electric grid reliability — and we need to assure required support for such operations. Even so, at an epidemic peak with a third or more of our total population infected, we may need what might seem to be extreme measures to continue the nation’s needed electric power, especially if the pandemic extends into the operation centers.

Our observations and suggestions in the Foundation’s report are not exhaustive — surely utility managers and systems operators are thinking of a variety of ways to maintain continuity of control room operations. But our brief review of the issues should inform our readers of a very serious problem, and encourage them to make preparations for an extensive shutdown of many conveniences we have become accustomed to enjoying.

Two weeks from now we could be where Italy is now — at least in a proportionate sense. So, I urge you to take steps to shelter in place — possibly without the benefit of continuous electric power. Several Governors have wisely directed their constituents to stay home. No doubt assuming they have the continued benefits of electricity, of course. Imagine life without it.

Click here for Justin Coleman’s March 22, 2020 The Hill article accurately titled, “FEMA administrator: Shortage of health-care supplies a ‘global problem.’” President Trump assigned Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Peter Gaynor to lead the nation’s effort to prepare for and deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, so this is an authoritative warning.

And Administrator Gaynor on last Sunday’s ABC’s This Week called the shortage of health-care supplies “a global problem” as the coronavirus outbreak around the world increases demand. While promising to “try to meet every need in the nation,” he added a word of caution, “the supplies that governors are looking for are the same supplies that every other country in the world is looking for, so this is a global problem.”

This is a very real problem that will persist for an unknown period — but likely for months. But we Americans are resilient; we shall prepare and prevail over the coming challenges.

Bottom Lines.

As we hunker down to maintain the safety of our families and all we hold dear, we should remember Peggy Noonan’s comment, “Everything works — and will continue to work — as long as we have electricity. It’s what keeps the lights on, the oxygen flowing, the information going. Everything is the grid, the grid, the grid.” (Emphasis added)

And we must not forget that our adversaries can exploit these global pandemic dangers, even while they themselves are under its threat. Some may even be prepared to accept the consequences to take advantage of our apparent, growing vulnerabilities.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst! And pray for deliverance.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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