@jesced I was not aware of the blackouts happening In Venezuela. Nor was aware that some are claiming sabotage via EMP using an aircraft. The amount of power capacity an aircraft would have to have onboard would be insane to do anything to powerlines. Now I'm not an engineer so I may be wrong but just sounds very wild, and does not make sense to me.
And yes "air gapped" systems are needed. Having critical systems accessible by the internet is a huge concern and should be firewalled at the very least.
Sounds like to me poor maintenance of the turbines and not enough redundancy. Sucks you and surrounding neighborhoods had to deal with that. And hopefully due to these blackouts now the people of Venezuela can point out the weak link in the infrastructure and demand it fixed.
I know this post is from awhile back but just now saw it. It was well written and I learned alot about the issue. Thanks for taking the time to write this out.
Posted using Partiko Android
@solominer I agree on what you said about the magnitude of the EMP needed to affect high-voltage power lines. That's going to need a pretty substantial power source, especially considering we're talking about a non-nuclear EMP here. Also, the government says the supposed aircraft actually hovered over the lines in order to emit the "electromagnetic waves". Hovering would mean either a helicopter or a drone, and I don't know how feasible it would be to deliver the EMP without affecting the electronic systems of the aircraft itself. I'm not an engineer either, so I admit I could be way off here.
But the main issue with which I agree is that the root of the problem is really a lack of maintenance and redundancy. Hydroelectric power is great, but it's always good to have backup. Theoretically we have some backup capacity in our thermoelectric power plants, but those aren't functioning due to lack of maintenance too. But there is something I've been saying for over 15 years... We live in the tropics. So, where are the investments in solar power? We receive enough sunlight all year round to be independent of both thermo and hydroelectric.
@jesced
Yeah a helicopter sounds fishy, I think the turbines probably overheated and caught on fire due to poor maintenance. Which may surge lines and blow them out before it fully fails.
Solar is great but its hard to capture the un-used power it and keep it in storage. Batteries are not very efficient and its probably why solar has not caught on for large scale uses. Many small projects its fine for but when you deal with cities the amount of batteries you would need would be impossible.