The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) says the number of reported attacks is up and attackers have been targeting companies with access to the country's power grid, water filtration facilities and a nuclear facility.
"Taking down the grid for months comes as close to a nuclear attack with many weapons on the United States as anything could, " says R.
The investments will, among other things, hook up new wind farms and nuclear power stations to the electricity grid to replace traditional coal-fired power stations, and enable more liquefied natural gas imported from Qatar and elsewhere to be added to the gas network as North Sea gas supplies dwindle.
Areas that are predominantly coal or nuclear will be insulated from this to some extent because the grid can only handle so much demand with certain facilities shut down or retired.
Even with all of the production tax credits, loan guarantees and a battery of other direct and indirect subsidies, nuclear power remains the most expensive source of conventional electricity on the grid once capital costs are plugged into the equation.
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Nuclear shut down its Indian Point Unit 3 in New York due to external electrical grid issues.
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And her graph stacks the deck, because her conventional cars yielded 30 mpg, which is hardly average, and it assumes a coal-based grid, when most are a mixture of coal, natural gas and other things (including nuclear).
In addition, the new Obama nuclear "strategy" leaves it up to lawyers - including apparently those of the International Atomic Energy Agency (whose members include China, Russia and Iran) - whether the United States will be allowed to use nuclear retaliation if we are attacked with chemical weapons, deadly biological viruses or electric grid-cratering cyberwarfare.
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In all the fighting in Washington over renewable fuels, carbon emissions and the future of nuclear power, the one thing energy experts agree on is that the nation's power grid is in desperate need of a makeover.
To ensure the reliability of the electric grid after that date, TXU is planning on building 1500 megawatts of wind generation and is considering building multiple nuclear facilities, though these would not come on line by 2015 at the earliest--too late to resolve the looming power shortage.
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