It happened at 4am on Saturday 2nd April. A BMW, stolen perhaps, was driven too fast and failed to take the corner. As a result it crashed into the telephone junction box, sending it flying for several yards, and smashing its contents to smithereens.

Approximately 400 households woke up later that morning to discover that they lacked a landline telephone connection, and also lacked the internet service supplied in the same way. They woke up the next day to find that both services were still lacking; and did so again on the Monday, and the Tuesday, and each day that followed, until service was finally restored late in the afternoon on Tuesday 12th April, almost 11 days after the initial outage.

It may seem a small matter, and of course in many ways it is – especially against the backdrop of a brutal war in Ukraine, a cost of living crisis, an energy emergency, and so many other global problems. So why do I bother mentioning it here?

I do so because lessons should be learned. In my case, perhaps the lesson I should learn is to join the 21st century, cease sharing a smartphone with my wife, pay for one each, and make sure that each one has a generous monthly data allowance. Had that been the case when the BMW hit the junction box, life in the Hodgson household might have gone on as before – I could have learned from the kind advice offered to me about setting up a wi-fi hotspot from my smartphone and using Bluetooth to connect my laptop to it. As it is, however, I was receiving texts from my smartphone provider after a few short days telling me that I was getting close to exceeding my monthly data allowance (though I was less than halfway through the month). Having learned how to set up the wi-fi hotspot, I discovered that there was no point doing so, since any use of the laptop in this way would rip through the small amount of smartphone data still available to me, in no time.

Perhaps I should also buy a TV licence (though the jury’s still out on that one). My wife and I haven’t missed mainstream TV at all, not least since there is so much to watch on You Tube. However, You Tube viewing is dependent on the internet, so when we lost the internet, we also lost our limited TV entertainment. Perhaps we have too many eggs in the internet basket.

So much for me. The bigger lessons should be learned by our politicians, and those who would dictate the UK’s energy policy. Fortunately, it was the telephone and internet that was denied to me (and to around 400 other households) for just over a week and a half, and not our electricity supply. However, as I pointed out in Capability Downi, the UK’s electricity supply is vulnerable to storms, and when it encounters problems, customers can be denied electricity for prolonged periods. When that happens, more than minor inconvenience is encountered. UK industry (what’s left of it) and other businesses can grind to a halt. Shops, with electronic tills, cease to be able to serve customers. Electric vehicles will be left powerless. Homeowners potentially find themselves left with no ability to heat their homes or to cook. People who rely on mobile ‘phones (an increasing proportion of the population), and who don’t use landlines, will soon find their ‘phones running out of charge. Of course, their internet connection will have failed, so they will have no ability to communicate with anyone other than their immediate neighbours (verbally), or by writing letters and resorting to the postal service again.

It isn’t just storms that can create havoc for the electricity network. Increasing reliance on offshore wind turbines leaves supply vulnerable to bad actors. If it takes BT Openreach eleven days to mend a broken junction box in good weather in an accessible urban location, how long might it take the authorities to mend a power cable linking offshore wind farms to the mainland, if the cable has been deliberately severed in several places by a hostile submarine? In the middle of winter? What of an attack (physical or in the form of cyber warfare) on the National Grid?

We shouldn’t pretend that such things are in the realm of fantasy.

On 22nd March 2022 an articleii appeared on the BBC website under the heading “The three Russian cyber-attacks the West most fears”. It told us that:

Ukraine is often described as the hacking playground of Russia, which has carried out attacks there seemingly to test techniques and tools.

In 2015 Ukraine’s electricity grid was disrupted by a cyber-attack called BlackEnergy, which caused a short-term blackout for 80,000 customers of a utility company in western Ukraine.

Nearly exactly a year later another cyber-attack known as Industroyer took out power for about one-fifth of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, for about an hour.

The US and EU named and blamed Russian military hackers for the attacks.

The article went on to try to reassure readers that:

…no cyber-attack against a power grid has resulted in an extended interruption of power supply. Executing cyber-attacks on complex engineering systems in a reliable way is extremely difficult and achieving a prolonged damaging effect is sometimes impossible due to in-built protections.

I hope that confidence is justified. Personally, I’m not entirely reassured.

A denial of electricity supply is problematic now. How much worse will it be when we are all forced to drive electric cars, to heat our homes using heat pumps, when gas cookers have been replaced by electric ones, and when coal fires and multi-fuel stoves (aka log burners) have been banned?

No doubt the Government would insist that they are already onto this issue, and that the recent publication of “British Energy Security Strategy”iii shows that they are taking the issue seriously. A 38 page document, which contains perhaps 25 pages of “hard” policy planning (some of which strikes me as borderline fantasy), doesn’t convince me either. Yes, the Government will argue that they are seeking to diversify our energy sources – new nuclear, offshore wind, low carbon hydrogen (yeah, right), “jet zero and green ships”, carbon capture (yeah, right) to allow us to utilise our own oil and gas. However, this really misses the point. Everything is aimed at diversifying the sources of energy that will create the electricity we are all to rely on for pretty much everything. It’s a strange type of diversification that still puts all the eggs in one basket – electricity in this case.

Just as I now need to think long and hard about how I might ensure continued telephone and internet service next time a BMW takes out the local junction box, the powers that be need to wake up, grow up, and think much more seriously about energy security in the UK. How will our lives be if the National Grid fails us, especially if it does so in the middle of winter? It doesn’t matter if such a failure is caused by accident or on purpose. If we don’t have electricity, and we need electricity for pretty much everything, then we’re right royally stuffed.

Endnotes

i https://cliscep.com/2021/12/02/capability-down/

ii https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60841924

iii https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1067835/british-energy-security-strategy-web.pdf

102 Comments

  1. anybody who thinks gas boilers for heating will be replaced by heat pumps any time within the next 20yrs is just dreaming (IMHO).

    but we do seem have a lot of dreamers in charge.

    Like

  3. Oh, b*lls. My proof-reading skills obviously aren’t what they were. Thanks for spotting it. I will edit it later.

    Like

  4. “On 22nd March 2022 an article appeared on the BBC website ….”

    Gotta love Aunty’s:

    “Nearly exactly a year later ….”

    Guess the redundant adverb? 🤣🤣🤣

    Like

  7. I’m a bit late in spotting this, from the beginning of March:

    “Satellite cyber attack paralyzes 11GW of German wind turbines”

    https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/03/01/satellite-cyber-attack-paralyzes-11gw-of-german-wind-turbines/

    “German wind turbine operators have reportedly been confronted with a fault in the satellite connection of their systems. Dominik Bertrams, MD of wind farm operator Tobi Windenergie Verwaltungs GmbH, yesterday announced on Twitter the remote monitoring and control of thousands of wind turbines had failed.

    With the outage having occurred between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Thursday – when the Russian army invaded Ukraine – Bertrams suspected a cyber attack by Russian hackers. The reason for the failure has not yet been clarified.

    It would appear unlikely, however, Russian hackers directly targeted German wind turbines. Commenting on the incident to the Handelsblatt business newspaper, a spokesperson for the German Wind Energy Association said the disruption was due to the failure of the KA-Sat communication satellite belonging to Viasat. An article in weekly news magazine Der Spiegel stated the US military’s military communications services also run through Viasat satellites.

    Those reports would suggest failure of the wind turbine control systems could be the collateral damage from a cyber attack on a primarily military target.”

    Still, whether they were a primary target or (perhaps more likely) suffered collateral damage, policy makers should take note.

    Like

  8. This is what it’s come to:

    “National Grid will pay households to shift electricity use to avoid blackouts
    Scheme encourages customers with smart meters to use less energy at peak times and reduce carbon emissions”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/27/national-grid-will-pay-households-to-shift-electricity-use-to-avoid-blackouts

    “National Grid plans to reduce the risk of blackouts this winter by paying consumers to use less electricity at peak times, it has emerged.

    The electricity network operator is racing to set up a scheme that will enable households with smart meters to choose to cut how much energy they use when supplies are low.

    Initial proposals drawn up by National Grid’s electricity system operator (ESO) say that households could be paid up to £6 a kilowatt hour in credit instead of paying out 28.34p a kilowatt hour, The Times reported.

    The move comes as the government looks for ways to secure extra energy supplies this winter and limit usage by consumers.

    The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, hopes to broker further deals to extend the life of Britain’s last remaining coal-fired power stations through the winter, after keeping West Burton A in Nottinghamshire in operation.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put further strain on already stretched energy supplies. Ministers are concerned that – in a worst-case scenario – Britain could experience rolling blackouts this winter….”.

    And that’s before we all have to use heat pumps and electric ovens and drive electric cars…

    Like

  9. “Nord Stream attacks highlight vulnerability of undersea pipelines in west
    Julian Borger
    on the HMS Queen Elizabeth
    As Norway steps up seabed security, experts say underwater cables carrying world’s internet traffic are also at risk”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/29/nord-stream-attacks-highlight-vulnerability-undersea-pipelines-west

    Yes, oil and gas pipelines and internet cables may be at risk. But surely so are the interconnectors between the UK and Europe and also the HVDC cables between the UK mainland and windfarms. Why no mention of them?

    Like

  10. “Damaged cable leaves Shetland cut off from mainland”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-63326102

    Communications to Shetland have been completely shut down after a subsea cable was damaged.

    Police have declared a major incident after the south subsea cable between the islands and the mainland was cut.

    The force said phones, internet and computers were not usable and that officers were patrolling to try to reassure residents.

    Repairs to another cable connecting Shetland and Faroe are ongoing after it was damaged last week.

    Like

  12. “Naval expert warns on ‘increasingly probable’ offshore wind farm terror drone strikes
    Study by Polish Navy officer Tomasz Chyła urges use of air defence systems and patrol vessels to guard against sabotage in wake of Nord Stream gas pipeline strike”

    https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/naval-expert-warns-on-increasingly-probable-offshore-wind-farm-terror-drone-strikes/2-1-1362956

    Offshore wind farms are “increasingly probable” targets of terrorist attacks – for example by aerial or submarine drones – and defence systems are urgently needed to protect them as critical national infrastructure, a Polish study warns.

    The sabotage explosions at the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea in September and the “current geopolitical situation” have highlighted the threat to offshore wind projects, lieutenant commander Tomasz Chyła, an expert at the Ignacy Lukasiewicz Institute for Energy Policy in Rzeszów and lecturer at the Polish Naval Academy, said in an analysis of the issue.

    Like

  14. Bill, I think there are cogent arguments for and against Nordstream having been sabotaged by any of Ukraine, Poland, Russia, or USA. Whoever did it, the fact of its sabotage makes a nonsense of UK politicians claiming that things like offshore wind energy enhances our energy security. On the contrary, it increases our vulnerability.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Thanks Mark. It is today – or at least Ian Rons is. Toby Young wasn’t as critical yesterday, saying “Seymour Hersh’s piece is worth reading in full.” Or maybe Young now feels he wasn’t so clued up yesterday! Meanwhile Steve Mc’s pinned tweet points to Independent Video Evidence Confirms Key Part of Sy Hersh’s Report on the Attack on Nord Stream 2 by Larry Johnson. After showing the YouTube video that is claimed to corroborate one part of Hersh’s story, Johnson writes:

    There still are some people in the intelligence community who are patriots and are alarmed by Biden’s lawless behavior. I imagine that the Biden Administration will launch a witch hunt for the intelligence officers who alerted Sy Hersh to this story. According to the Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war on another country. Joe Biden has usurped that authority and carried out an act of war against a NATO ally (Germany). The potential ramifications of this act include the heightened risk of the U.S. starting a shooting war with Russia.

    Strong feelings all round. But that’s as it should be. The debate is good.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. It’s not often you see Steve Mc use the phrase "herring farts" in a tweet exactly the same minute that Geoff Chambers does the same in one of his. More to learn every day 😉 And if you look back at the chain of Steve’s tweets he accepts that Hersh may have some details wrong, perhaps because his source deliberately muddied the water to protect himself (or herself).

    Liked by 1 person

  19. “UK-Norway gas pipelines face threat as Russia vows ‘punishment’ for Nord Stream leaks”

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1733341/uk-norway-gas-pipeline-threat-russia-punishment-nord-stream-leaks

    Britain’s critical energy supplies could be under threat, as Russia has threatened retaliation against the West over the alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline leaks.

    Last year, a number of leaks were discovered in both Nord Stream 1 and 2, both of which could transport massive quantities of natural gas from Russia to Germany through undersea pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Experts believe that the leaks were most likely sabotage, with the US and Russia both blaming each other for the act. Now, Kremlin, officials have said that the world should “know the truth” about the sabotage.

    They noted that those who were found responsible for the leaks should be “punished” after an investigative journalist accused US Navy divers of blowing up the pipelines with explosives.

    In a blog post, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cited an unidentified source, which was dismissed by the White House as “utterly false and complete fiction”.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised Mr Hersh’s post, saying the story deserved more attention.

    He told reporters: “The world must find out the truth about who carried out this act of sabotage. This is a very dangerous precedent: if someone did it once, they can do it again anywhere in the world.”

    The Russian mouthpiece called for “an open international investigation of this unprecedented attack on international critical infrastructure”, adding: “It is impossible to leave this without uncovering those responsible and punishing them.”

    Russia has repeatedly accused the West of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines, as last October, Moscow’s Ministry of Defence accused Royal Navy personnel of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, an assertion that London said was false.

    Following this accusation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia is considering what “further steps” should be taken, raising fears that the UK’s energy could now be at risk.

    Given these threats, experts fear that Russia could use “retaliate” by targeting Western undersea pipelines and cables, which could be devastating for the UK’s energy security, the country relies on exports from Norway for 60 percent of its gas…

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised Mr Hersh’s post, saying the story deserved more attention.

    I can’t help agreeing with Peskov there. Jeffrey Sachs wasn’t the only one pointing to the eerie silence from the US MSM two days after the article. (Later they also discuss another very little covered matter: what the former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has recently revealed about the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations being kyboshed by Washington in March 2022.) But the situation in Germany is apparently different now, according to a German friend of Alexander Mercouris, who says people are discussing the Hersh piece. Right at the end of that video Mercouris moots the idea that the breakdown between Olaf Scholz and his defence minister (and leader of the German Greens) Annalena Baerbock could perhaps have been exacerbated because she got advance warning of the operation and he didn’t. The Telegraph’s Olaf Scholz furious after minister ‘went behind back’ over Ukraine tanks has a different, but possibly consonant, take on the disharmony. It is to me striking how warlike the traditional anti-war and anti-American German Greens have become.

    Like

  21. “Putin attempting to sabotage North Sea energy assets, Netherlands warns”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/20/ftse-100-markets-live-news-uk-house-prices-eu-energy/

    Russia has been secretly collecting intelligence to sabotage Netherlands’ North Sea energy infrastructure.

    A Russian ship collecting intelligence on energy infrastructure was discovered at an offshore wind farm in the North Sea, according to the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MVID).

    Dutch marine and coast guard ships escorted the vessel from the North Sea before any sabotage effort was successful, said Jan Swillens, MVID’s head general.

    He said: “We saw in recent months Russian actors tried to uncover how the energy system works in the North Sea. It is the first time we have seen this.

    “Russia is mapping how our wind parks in the North Sea function. They are very interested in how they could sabotage the energy infrastructure.”

    Critical offshore systems – including internet cables, gas pies and windmill farms – have become the target of Russian sabotage operations.

    Dutch intelligence agencies MIVD and AIVD, in a joint report published today, said: “Russia is secretly charting this infrastructure and is undertaking activities which indicate preparations for disruption and sabotage.”…

    Like

  24. It has always struck me as strange that anyone could suggest that further investment in renewables is an investment in energy security. The only crumb of comfort is that it is a climate change denier’s myth that these windfarms are visually obtrusive, and so the Russians will have the devil’s job finding them.

    Liked by 2 people

  25. This will supply energy security?

    “LionLink: North Sea power line to connect wind farms to UK”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65375943

    A huge electricity cable project in the North Sea could provide green power to 1.8 million UK homes in plans announced by the UK and Dutch governments.

    It would connect to offshore wind farms and transfer electricity between the two countries.

    European nations are under pressure to fulfil climate promises to end reliance on fossil fuels and to improve energy security.

    The deal was announced on Monday at an energy summit in Ostend, Belgium.

    The power line, called LionLink, is being developed by the National Grid and Dutch electricity network TenneT and could be running by the early 2030s.

    The government claims LionLink will carry 1.8GW of electricity, giving it the largest capacity of any cross-border electricity line in the world.

    An existing cross-border connection between Germany and Denmark carries 0.4GW.

    “We are bolstering our energy security and sending a strong signal to Putin’s Russia that the days of his dominance over global power markets are well and truly over,” said UK Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps.

    The reference to Putin is particularly ironic given the BBC article I linked to two comments above, which was headlined “Ukraine war: The Russian ships accused of North Sea sabotage” and which claimed:

    Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and communication cables in the North Sea, according to new allegations.

    The details come from a joint investigation by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

    It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea.

    They carry underwater surveillance equipment and are mapping key sites for possible sabotage.

    Like

  26. “Viking Link joins UK and Denmark power grids for first time”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-66235081

    This whole story is a puff piece for renewables:

    An electricity link between Denmark and the UK has been connected for the first time, the National Grid said.

    The 475-mile (765km) high-voltage Viking Link cable joins Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire with Jutland in Denmark.

    When it is completed, the two countries will be able to share enough green electricity to power up to 1.4 million UK homes, the utility company said….

    Weasel words – “up to”.

    …’Huge benefits’
    Ms Sedler, National Grid’s managing director for interconnectors, said: “As countries begin to integrate more offshore wind generation into their energy systems, interconnectors will become critical for transporting clean and green energy and helping to manage the intermittent nature of renewable sources.

    “Interconnectors bring huge benefits to the UK, acting as clean energy super-highways, allowing us to move surplus green energy from where it is generated to where it is needed the most.”…

    Nowhere is the cost of laying the cables – a 4 year project – mentioned, nor is the slightest recognition of the vulnerability of the cable to action by bad actors, and how this potentially reduces rather than enhances UK energy security.

    Like

  27. “Attack on energy network a major risk, UK register says for first time”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/03/attack-on-energy-network-a-major-risk-uk-register-says-for-first-time

    …In its first update for three years, the risk register…ranks an attack on the UK’s infrastructure, such as its energy network, with a “significant” impact as 5% to 25% likely within a two-year period, disclosing this as a major risk for the first time. This category includes Russia deliberately disrupting energy supplies in Europe, or terror attacks on utility networks, nuclear facilities or fuel supplies….

    Which is one reason among many why it’s not a good idea to render our energy system so heavily dependent on lots of underwater cables, for instance.

    Like

  28. Just maybe someone should have thought of this before starting to poke the Russian Bear.

    I’m becoming more and more convinced that the Governmental right and left hands are completely divorced from each other.

    Like

  29. Perhaps it’s not the Russians we have to worry about so much as the Biden regime blowing up Russian pipelines transporting gas to Europe? It’s not like that’s even a ‘risk’ anymore is it?

    Like

  30. Today my wife and I met up with members of her family for a mini-reunion at a cafe in a village east of Carlisle. While we were there, a power cut occurred – fortunately for us, after we had been served with hot food.

    The consequences, even for a small homely business such as that were immediate and obvious. Hot drinks and hot food could no longer be served. They could only continue to serve cold food and drinks for as long as the hot water in the tanks lasted for staff to continue washing their hands and washing up crockery and cutlery. The tills were down. In a small cafe that wasn’t a problem, as they totted up on a piece of paper what the customers owed. But paying was a problem. The card payment reader wouldn’t work because it relied on a signal from the phone mast, and that went down with the electricity supply. Fortunately I am an old-fashioned type who always prefers to use cash anyway, so we had no problem paying.

    It’s the blindingly obvious issues with UK’s policies that jump out from this. As we recklessly “decarbonise”, meaning first that pretty much everything becomes dependent on electricity and second that electricity becomes less and less reliable because it is to be generated (in much larger amounts) by unreliable and unpredictable “renewable” energy, the problems should be obvious, The little cafe we visited today managed to cope. But supermarkets are dependent on their till readers scanning prices, and are massively dependent on payment by card. They would grind to a halt. So would banks (the branches that remain open in Broken Britain, anyway). So would garages, where car servicing and fault diagnosis are increasingly dependent on electrically-powered machines. So would many other businesses.

    It’s time to stop, take stock, and think again.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. And bang on cue we learn about the unreliability of wind as a means of producing electricity:

    “SSE needs more wind to boost power output
    UK energy company’s renewables arm produces about one-fifth less power for homes and business than expected”

    https://www.ft.com/content/a67e712b-6cca-448a-b5d2-ff5bf3ed3b39

    UK energy group SSE is banking on windy weather over winter after its renewables arm produced about one-fifth less power for British homes and businesses than expected since April. 

    The FTSE 100 company said output from its fleet of wind turbines and hydropower stations was 19 per cent lower than planned during the six months to the end of September due to adverse weather conditions….

    Like

  32. “Sweden investigating damage to Baltic undersea cable”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67138269

    An undersea telecoms cable connecting Estonia and Sweden has been damaged, the Swedish government has announced.

    Civil defence minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said the cable was damaged but not completely destroyed.

    The cable is believed to have been affected at the same time as a gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was damaged earlier this month.

    Sources told the BBC Finland suspects Russian sabotage in “retribution” after the country joined Nato.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin denied the accusation, calling it “rubbish”. Finland said last week that the pipeline was likely intentionally sabotaged….

    Like

  33. “Finland recovers ship’s anchor close to damaged Baltic Sea pipeline
    Investigators seeking to establish whether it came from a Chinese container vessel and have not ruled out sabotage”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/24/finland-recovers-ships-anchor-close-to-damaged-baltic-sea-pipeline

    Finnish investigators have recovered a large ship’s anchor from near the spot where a Baltic Sea gas pipeline was extensively damaged and are seeking to establish whether it came from a Chinese container vessel.

    Finland’s central criminal police (KRP) said on Tuesday that the anchor, weighing 6 tonnes and missing one of its prongs, had been lifted from the seabed using a navy crane. Deep drag marks were found on both sides of the fractured pipeline.

    The country’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which last week said inquiries were focused on the Hong Kong-flagged, Chinese-owned NewNew Polar Bear, told reporters in Helsinki on Tuesday that the container ship was missing a front anchor….

    …Helsinki confirmed the damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline and parallel Estlink data communications cable between Finland and Estonia on 11 October, two days after operators shut the pipeline down after a sudden drop in pressure.

    Investigators subsequently said they suspected the damage was caused by “an external force” that was “mechanical, not an explosion”. The state security intelligence service said the involvement of a state actor “cannot be ruled out”….

    Like

  34. “Europe’s wind power goal hits new snag: security”

    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europes-wind-power-goal-hits-new-snag-security-2023-10-26/

    As Europe turns to renewable sources to diversify energy supplies away from Russian oil and gas, a peaceful marine scene conceals a billion-dollar security headache.

    Rising above the Baltic Sea less than 10 km (6 miles) off the coast of Denmark, 161 wind turbines spin slowly. They supply around 4% of the country’s power, sent to shore through two cable connections.

    The turbines have no barriers or surveillance.

    “Our technicians are only here until five o’clock in the afternoon, then they go home,” said Thomas Almegaard, head of operations at Nysted wind farm, co-owned and operated by Denmark-based Orsted, the world’s biggest offshore wind developer.

    “If the Russians wanted to cause damage, they could do it easily,” he told Reuters aboard a service vessel as it sailed through the wind farm.

    “We don’t do any monitoring.”

    The picture is similar across the North and Baltic Seas, Reuters found in a survey of 13 governments and interviews with a dozen lawmakers, regulators, military and industry officials. European states and companies are only now starting to monitor and secure their windfarms, the reporting showed.

    Developers like Orsted think governments should take the lead and help provide the billions of dollars needed to protect their infrastructure. But even as North Sea countries alone plan to install enough wind power for more than 100 million homes by 2030, governments are still considering how much they can spend to safeguard such offshore assets….

    Like

  35. “How wind turbines are blinding the RAF’s vital North Sea radars
    Blind spots caused by turbines pose a risk amid fears of Russian North Sea sabotage”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/03/wind-turbines-blind-rafs-north-sea-radar/

    Britain’s race to net zero risks blinding crucial radars protecting the UK from incursions over the North Sea amid fears that Russia will launch a campaign of sabotage.

    Offshore wind farms blades interfere with radar signals and there are concerns that plans for a significant expansion of turbines in the North Sea by the end of the decade will cause problems for the Royal Air Force (RAF).

    The Ministry of Defence has spent £18m over the past three years trying to stop wind farm blades from scrambling radar readings, the Telegraph can reveal.

    However, none of this public spending has, so far, yielded a concrete solution to the problem.

    Dangers in the North Sea are more than theoretical: a “ghost fleet” of Russian ships were spotted mapping communication and power cables in the area earlier this year, sparking fears that the Kremlin is preparing for a campaign of sabotage….

    Liked by 2 people

  36. Mark,

    Indeed. So much for energy security!

    Details of the invitation to tender for Phase 3 can be found here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/over-14-million-available-for-windfarm-mitigation-for-uk-air-defence-phase-3

    You will note that, despite the repetition of net zero rhetoric in the invitation, and the breezy optimism expressed (pardon the pun) the contract doesn’t expect the money spent to result in a solution, only mitigation. Hence the title of the project: “Windfarm Mitigation for UK Air Defence: Phase 3”.

    Note also that, whilst the RAF can’t bring itself to propose the cancellation of the Government’s offshore windfarm plans as a potential solution, it had no such compunction when it came to dealing with a private submission:

    “Plans for two 18m-tall wind turbines in the heart of the Fens have been refused because of their potential to cause disruption to a surveillance radar at RAF Wittering, an air force base 35km away.”

    https://www.theplanner.co.uk/2018/04/13/appeal-pair-private-wind-turbines-could-disrupt-raf-radar-35km-away

    So we have double standards but also an organisation charged with defence of the realm accepting the degradation of national security as a given.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. “Europe’s grid is under a cyberattack deluge, industry warns
    Cyberattacks against the energy sector have spiked. The sector needs to speed up, chief officials say.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/energy-power-europe-grid-is-under-a-cyberattack-deluge-industry-warns/

    Thousands of cyberattacks have inundated Europe’s energy grid since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a top industry leader is calling for help as officials and researchers fret that not nearly enough is being done.

    “The crooks are becoming better by the day, so we need to become better by the day,” Leonhard Birnbaum, the chief executive of E.ON, one of Europe’s largest utilities, said in an interview. “I’m worried now and I will be even more worried in the future.”

    Birnbaum has reason to fret. A recent report from the International Energy Agency found the average number of cyberattacks against utilities each week more than doubled between 2020 and 2022 worldwide — with 1,101 weekly attacks registered last year. In the EU, companies scrambled to hire cybersecurity experts in the month following Moscow’s assault on Kyiv, the report noted, indicating “utilities were not fully prepared.”…

    …A recent report by Europe’s cybersecurity agency ENISA also showed the energy sector ranked below sectors like transport, health care, banking and the wider ICT sector in terms of what IT spending went into cybersecurity.

    The problems are inevitable, Birnbaum argued, pointing to 1 million generators feeding into E.ON’s German grids alone.

    “The best protection against being attacked in the cyberspace is being analog,” he said, but that’s “just not an option,” given new grid networks “can only be operated, maintained, managed in a fully digital way.”…

    Like

  38. Maybe if the British Army spent less time spying on its own citizens who question government policy and more time counteracting foreign cyber threats, our energy infrastructure might be more secure:

    “Obtained after a months-long Freedom of Information battle with the Cabinet Office, the documents appear to show personnel from the information warfare unit dedicated time to managing the Government’s reputation rather than tackling foreign threats – such as analysing the response to fines for breaching lockdown on social media.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12791297/Ministers-accused-cover-revealed-shadowy-army-unit-DID-spy-British-critics-Covid-lockdown-policies.html

    Like

  39. MP’s China security fears over North Sea wind project

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-68788530

    “An MP has raised security fears over a Chinese firm’s involvement in North Sea windfarm developments.

    The SNP’s Stewart McDonald said handing a major part of Scotland’s renewable energy sector to an “entity from a hostile state” would not be in the UK’s economic or energy interests.

    Mingyang Smart Energy Group was given “priority status” in offshore projects.

    The Scottish government said it was a decision by the industry and foreign firms undergo “rigorous due diligence”.

    Mr McDonald told BBC Scotland he had concerns about involving Mingyang.

    He said: “We are handing over such important capability to the net-zero transition to an entity that comes from an authoritarian and hostile state at a time when the European Union and other countries are going in a different direction.

    “Just this week the EU launched its anti-trust investigation into Chinese turbine manufacturers.

    “This very company that’s going to be setting up here in Scotland was declined by our Norwegian neighbours recently for a similar project.”

    Mingyang was listed among eight priority projects in the Strategic Investment Model scheme for international developers to build wind farms on the North Sea.

    It is China’s largest wind turbine firm and sells a range of “typhoon resistant” turbines.

    It plans to supply support equipment to North Sea wind farms.…”

    Like

  40. “Undersea ‘hybrid warfare’ threatens security of 1bn, Nato commander warns

    Underwater infrastructure vulnerable to Russian threats, says V Adm Didier Maleterre, after suspected sabotage of gas pipelines”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/16/undersea-hybrid-warfare-threatens-security-of-1bn-nato-commander-warns

    “The security of nearly 1 billion people across Europe and North America is under threat from Russian attempts to target the extensive vulnerabilities of underwater infrastructure including windfarms, pipelines and power cables, a Nato commander has warned.

    V Adm Didier Maleterre, the deputy commander of Nato’s Allied Maritime Command (Marcom), said the network of underwater cables and pipes on which Europe’s power and communications depend were not built to withstand the “hybrid warfare” being pursued by Moscow and other Nato adversaries.

    “We know the Russians have developed a lot of hybrid warfare under the sea to disrupt the European economy, through cables, internet cables, pipelines. All of our economy under the sea is under threat,” he said….

    Liked by 1 person

  41. “Glasgow traffic light faults due to Power spike”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ggnz6296do

    Glasgow city council has warned of traffic light faults in the city following a power spike.

    The council said the spike happened in the early hours of the morning.

    At least 68 sets of traffic signals are currently out of operation.

    Drivers have been asked to approach lights with caution as it may take some time to restore all signals.

    Like

  42. “Europe on high alert after suspected Moscow-linked arson and sabotage

    Security services say spate of fires and infrastructure attacks could be part of systemic attempt by Russia to destabilise continent”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/europe-on-high-alert-after-suspected-moscow-linked-arson-and-sabotage

    Security services around Europe are on alert to a potential new weapon of Russia’s war – arson and sabotage – after a spate of mystery fires and attacks on infrastructure in the Baltics, Germany and the UK.

    When a fire broke out in Ikea in Vilnius in Lithuania this month, few passed any remarks until the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, suggested it could have been the work of a foreign saboteur.

    Investigators have already alleged potential Russian involvement in an arson attack in east London, an inferno that destroyed the largest shopping mall in Poland, a sabotage attempt in Bavaria in Germany and antisemitic graffiti in Paris.

    While there is no evidence that any of these incidents across the continent are coordinated, security services believe they could be part of a systemic attempt by Moscow to destabilise the west, which has backed Ukraine.

    They point out that after the cold war, foreign intelligence operations consisted of spies and their handlers, but in the era of social media, vandals can be hired, leaving few connections to other attackers as pay-as-you-go saboteurs paid a few hundred euros or in cryptocurrency.

    Such is the emerging concern that these hybrid attacks could be the work of Russia that the issue was raised at a summit of foreign and defence ministers in Brussels this week with Dutch, Estonian and Lithuanian security officials all warning of national vulnerabilities.

    One minister, who asked not to be named said, they were deeply worried about “sabotage, physical sabotage, organised, financed and done by Russian proxies”.

    I am far from convinced by this story – after all, it’s very convenient to be able to blame everything that goes wrong on a foreign bad actor, since such claims are plausible and difficult to disprove. The irony, of course, is that Russia (and others) has/have the capacity to cause untold damage to undersea cables on which the UK is becoming increasingly dependent for its electricity supply, and as we plough forward seeking to electrify everything we do, that becomes a bigger and bigger problem. It doesn’t seem the best move if we are concerned about energy security, as we should be.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Mark – well Donald Tusk seems like an unbiased source for this “story”

    as soon as an article says “One minister, who asked not to be named said, they were deeply worried about “sabotage, physical sabotage, organised, financed and done by Russian proxies”

    I have doubts – why would he/she not want to be named ?

    As to your final point in the comment above

    “In Brussels on Tuesday, the Dutch defence minister, Kajsa Ollongren, said Russia was “trying to intimidate” Nato countries, making EU member states vulnerable.

    “Yes, we are vulnerable. I think all of us are. We have vital infrastructure. We have seabed infrastructure, we have electricity supplies, water supplies, we’re vulnerable to cyber-attacks. We are seeing now in several European countries that Russia is trying to destabilise us and also to intimidate us.”

    Like

  44. Cables laid on the ocean floor between continents are known as undersea or submarine communication cables. They transmit a bulk of information and provide users with instant internet access, phone calls, and television transmissions. While the idea of storing information and data on the cloud ” has integrated with nearly every major information storage interface, “the cloud” actually exists underwater.

    Like

  45. “Offshore wind farms are extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks”

    https://nationalsecuritynews.com/2024/06/offshore-wind-farms-are-extremely-vulnerable-to-cyber-attacks/

    Offshore wind farms located in the North Sea are becoming increasing vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to a new report.

    Wind farms located in remote areas rely heavily on digital connections to communicate with land-based systems. But many are equipped with out-dated technology and lack proper security measures, according to a report from the Alan Turing Institute Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (CETaS).

    Anna Knack, lead researcher for CETaS and report author, said: “As offshore wind becomes a larger part of the UK’s energy supply, it is essential that more is done to protect it from disruption and cyberattacks.”…

    …The concerns about cyber attacks extend beyond wind farms as the entire renewable energy sector is becoming a growing target for malicious actors, such as terrorists and hostile states. The report warns that successful cyber attacks could lead to power outages that could disrupt key services.

    It is estimated that by 2050, global power systems will be 70% reliant on variable renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and tidal. As these renewable energy sources are connected to the power grid, it creates more ways for attackers to get in and cause disruptions.…

    Liked by 2 people

  46. Re the above, it’s interesting that Kathryn Porter in the article to which I just now referred on the Net Zero thread notes how interconnectors are vulnerable to physical disruption by accident or deliberate sabotage.

    Liked by 1 person

  47. Perhaps insisting that we electrify everything isn’t such a great idea:

    “Slow recovery from IT outage begins as experts warn of future risks

    Fault in CrowdStrike caused airports, businesses and healthcare services to languish in ‘largest outage in history’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/19/microsoft-windows-pcs-outage-blue-screen-of-death

    Services began to come back online on Friday evening after an IT failure that wreaked havoc worldwide. But full recovery could take weeks, experts have said, after airports, healthcare services and businesses were hit by the “largest outage in history”.

    Flights and hospital appointments were cancelled, payroll systems seized up and TV channels went off air after a botched software upgrade hit Microsoft’s Windows operating system….

    ...As recovery continues, experts say the outage underscored concerns that many organizations are not well prepared to implement contingency plans when a single point of failure such as an IT system, or a piece of software within it, goes down. But these outages will happen again, experts say, until more contingencies are built into networks and organizations introduce better back-ups.

    In the UK, Whitehall crisis officials were coordinating the response through the Cobra committee. Ministers were in touch with their sectors to tackle the fallout from the IT failure, and the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said she was working “at pace with industry” after trains and flights were affected….

    Liked by 2 people

  48. Mark: The outage seems to have been caused by a single C++ coder at CrowdStrike. The testing environment was clearly abysmal. In a surprise twist (but not to me) Steve McIntyre has long been interested in the company.

    Crowdstrike, the pro-Ukrainian “cybersecurity” corporation, which was purporting to provide cybersecurity to DNC while DNC emails were being hacked in May 2016, is responsible for a global tech outage that has grounded flights and businesses. h/t @hyg9384 There was a defect in Crowdstrike update. Question: how many hacks have caused as much damage as Crowdstrike’s.

    Prior to its attribution of DNC hack to Russian intelligence agencies, Crowdstrike was merely one of several dozen mid-tier cybersecurity firms. Its market value increased to billions following the DNC hack (which occurred on its watch) and its blaming of Russia for the hack. https://nytimes.com/live/2024/07/19/business/global-tech-outage

    for anyone interested in backstory to Crowdstrike, I’ve written about them for years https://x.com/search?q=crowdstrike%20(from%3Aclimateaudit)&src=typed_query&f=live

    — https://x.com/ClimateAudit/status/1814263619061727303

    On a lighter note I tweeted “You have to laugh” pointing to this prankster coder

    Just finished up my first day at CrowdStrike. Got to push a quick fix to prod before logging off for the day. Looking forward to a long weekend!

    — https://x.com/danielwithmusic/status/1814194841196351691

    Others were complaining “Too Soon” !

    Liked by 1 person

  50. Richard; a chum who works in IT raised another aspect of this shenanigan. How/why were so many companies vulnerable to this erroneous update?

    He is on the warpath in his own outfit, asking why was the update not tested and checked before being pushed out across their global system. Apparently they have machines set up specifically to act as “guinea pigs”, isolated from their main systems, but this was not done.

    Liked by 2 people

  51. MikeH: I moved my development work from Windows to Mac in 2005. This means I have nothing to offer except astonishment. It seems to be a terrible blunder from CrowdStrike, in making a change to a driver, which has to be privileged code in Windows, from Microsoft and then many companies.

    There isn’t the same kind of problem it seems with the Mac or Linux. But I think that’s due to much more rigorous testing of drivers, reading some of the Linux guys on X.

    Like

  52. “The CrowdStrike Global Outage Shows the Serious Dangers of a Centralised, Digitised World”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2024/07/21/the-crowdstrike-global-outage-shows-the-serious-dangers-of-a-centralised-digitised-world/

    …It should be noted that while the perils of centralisation with a physical single point of failure are obvious to all but technocratic politicians and civil servants…

    You can say that again!

    …Escaping the headlong rush in to a new Soviet Union where nothing works and officialdom absolutely refuses to acknowledge the fact must be at the forefront of our minds when looking to the future, but today’s news itself can be summarised in a much shorter fashion. Whilst one can feel sorry for those whose travel was disrupted, it is a wonderful feeling to jump to the front of a queue in a shop and pay a satisfied cashier with cash, whilst a seething mass of trendy woke-folk, who consider cash and even freedom itself to be outdated concepts, look on.

    Liked by 2 people

  53. “The Strongest Solar Storm in 20 Years Did Little Damage, but Worse Space Weather Is Coming

    Years of careful planning helped safeguard against last weekend’s severe space weather, but we still don’t know how we’d cope with a monster event”

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-strongest-solar-storm-in-20-years-did-little-damage-but-worse-space/

    For years, we have been warned about impending doom from the sun. If pointed in our direction, powerful eruptions of radiation and plasma from our star can strike our planet to supercharge Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field, effectively hitting a global “reset” button on much of our modern technology. A sufficiently intense bombardment could raise a geomagnetic storm that would push satellites out of orbit, short out submarine cables that suture together the Internet and plunge the world into darkness with massive blackouts from collapsed power grids….

    https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240702-beyond-the-northern-lights-how-solar-flares-spill-out-across-the-solar-system

    …”Things really seem to be picking up right now,” says Mathew Owens, a space physicist at the University of Reading in the UK. “I think we’re about at solar maximum now, so we may see more of these kinds of storms in the next couple of years.”…

    …This particular cycle, cycle 25, appears to be “significantly more active than what people predicted”, says Müller, with the relative sunspot number – an index used to measure the activity across the visible surface of the Sun – eclipsing what was seen as the peak of the previous solar cycle. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in the US had predicted a maximum monthly average of 124 sunspots a day in May, but the actual number was 170 on average, with one day exceeding 240, according to Müller.But the exact cause of the Sun’s 11-year-long cycle and its variabilities remains a bit of a mystery.

    That science isn’t settled, then!

    Liked by 1 person

  54. “What lies beneath: the growing threat to the hidden network of cables that power the internet”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/09/what-lies-beneath-the-growing-threat-to-the-hidden-network-of-cables-that-power-the-internet

    ...That the data that powers financial, government, and some military communications is traversing cables not much thicker than a hose pipe and protected by little more than the seawater above them, has in recent years become a cause of concern for lawmakers across the world.

    In 2017, Nato officials reported that Russian submarines had stepped up their surveillance of internet cables in the north Atlantic and in 2018, the Trump administration sanctioned a Russian company that was alleged to have provided “underwater capabilities” to Moscow, with the aim of monitoring the underwater network.

    A Russian attack on undersea cables would cause “significant damage to our economy and to our everyday lives,” Jim Langevin, a member of the US house armed services committee said at the time.

    The targeting of internet cables is a weapon that Russia has long held in its arsenal of hybrid warfare. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Moscow severed the main cable connection to the peninsula, gaining control of its internet infrastructure, enabling the Kremlin to spread disinformation.

    Global conflicts have also been shown to have unintended, disruptive effects on internet cable systems. In February, Iranian-backed Houthi militants attacked a cargo ship in the Red Sea. The eventual sinking of the Rubymar was likely responsible for severing three undersea cables in the region, which disrupted a significant portion of internet traffic between Asia and Europe.

    The US and its allies have also expressed serious concern that adversaries could tap into the undersea cables to obtain “personal information, data, and communications.” A 2022 congressional report on the issue highlighted the increased potential of Russia or China to access the undersea cable systems.…

    Critical though the internet is, so is electricity, and yet Ed Miliband apparently thinks we make our energy supply more secure by increasing its reliance on interconnectors. Sheer folly.

    Liked by 1 person

  55. “Beautifully hackable”

    https://irinaslav.substack.com/p/beautifully-hackable

    …Wind and solar installations (and EV chargers, and batteries) have more links than a power plant, because they are scattered all over the place, meaning they have more potential access points for hackers. And EVs? Every EV is an access point. And so is every EV charger. Ditto smart meters. The transition is nothing if not exciting...

    Liked by 2 people

  56. “How the North Sea is next ‘weak point’ for Russian aggression

    Defence chiefs identify subsea cables helping the flow of information as a risk while Putin’s regime fuels sabotage fears.”

    https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/politics/6581041/north-sea-cables-russian-luke-pollard/

    Vital national infrastructure in Scottish waters is at risk from Russian aggression, the new armed forces minister claims.

    Luke Pollard identified data-carrying subsea cables in the North Sea and Atlantic as a potential weak spot which could cause major economic damage if targeted.

    He outlined the changing nature of conflict in a briefing on the next defence review, spending pressures and emerging risks from Vladimir Putin’s regime.

    “Most people think our data goes via satellites, the vast majority of the date goes via undersea cables,” he said....

    Of course, it’s not just data, hugely important though that is – increasingly our energy supply is dependent on subsea cables too.

    Liked by 1 person

  59. More evidence , I suggest, of the inappropriateness of relying heavily, for our energy security, on offshore wind farms and sub-sea cables:

    “Russia on mission to cause mayhem on UK streets, warns MI5”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8e15yr1gwo

    Russia’s intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate “mayhem on British and European streets”, the head of MI5 has said, as he warned the UK faces the most “complex and interconnected” threat it has ever seen.

    There has [sic] also been 20 Iran-backed plots since 2022, the director general Ken McCallum said.

    He said the complex mix of terror-related threats and threats from nation states meant that MI5 had “one hell of a job on its hands”.…

    Like

  60. “The Town in Australia Run Entirely on Renewable Energy Where a Single Storm Left the Population Without Power for Days”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2024/11/04/the-town-in-australia-run-entirely-on-renewable-energy-where-a-single-storm-left-the-population-without-power-for-days/

    …Is this a sign of things to come for Britain? Yes, but with the proviso that the costs will be astronomically higher, the consequences and complications of the engineering issues magnified, and the political fallout utterly catastrophic when people start discovering they have to sit in the dark, eat cold food out of lifeless refrigerators and shiver through a winter’s night.

    The Broken Hill experiment shows that Net Zero is pie in the sky where pigs fly. We can make plenty of use of renewables but 100% will never happen bar some unforeseen technological revolution. Certainly not by 2030.

    Liked by 2 people

  61. “Russian ‘spy ship’ being monitored after spotted in Irish Sea”

    https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/24726459.russian-spy-ship-monitored-spotted-irish-sea/

    The research and intelligence vessel, Yantar, was spotted ‘loitering over underwater infrastructure in the Irish Sea off the Isle of Man’ on November 14, according to the Navy Lookout on X.

    It is being monitored by a P-8A aircraft….

    …The Golovko was accompanied by Yantar and supporting tanker Vyazma.

    All three had been tracked by the Norwegian Navy before British forces took over.

    Luke Pollard, Minister for the Armed Forces, said: “Our adversaries should be in no doubt of our steadfast determination and formidable ability to protect the UK.”

    It is understood this is the second time in three months the Royal Navy and RAF have detected Russian ships and aircraft within a week of each other.

    Like

  62. “loitering over underwater infrastructure in the Irish Sea off the Isle of Man“

    “Our adversaries should be in no doubt of our steadfast determination and formidable ability to protect the UK.”

    Well that reassures me.

    Like

  63. “Undersea cable between Germany and Finland severed”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dl4vxw501o

    Germany and Finland say they are “deeply concerned” after an undersea cable linking the countries was severed.

    The rupture of the 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable – which is being investigated – comes at a time of heightened tension with Russia.

    The two countries’ foreign ministers said in a joint statement: “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”

    Damage to pipelines in the Baltic Sea has raised fears of sabotage in recent years....

    Liked by 1 person

  64. “Germany suspects sabotage behind severed undersea cables”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dl4vxw501o

    German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said damage to two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea looks like an act of sabotage and a “hybrid action”, without knowing who is to blame.

    A 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany was severed in the early hours of Monday, while a 218km internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island stopped working on Sunday.

    The incidents came at a time of heightened tension with Russia and Pistorius said “nobody believes that these cables were cut accidentally”...

    Liked by 1 person

  65. “Wire cutters: how the world’s vital undersea data cables are being targeted

    Carrying 99% of the world’s international telecommunications, the vulnerable lines are drawing nefarious interest”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/22/wire-cutters-how-the-worlds-vital-undersea-data-cables-are-being-targeted

    …A typical global submarine cable map is a stark visual representation of the connectivity of the world and its vulnerability to disruption. These cables facilitate trillions of dollars’ worth of financial transactions a day, carry sensitive government communications, deliver voice calls and transmit data around the internet.

    Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security thinktank, says undersea cables are vital to the global economy and are therefore of clear interest to any state wanting to cause trouble.

    “If you look at the amount of global data that goes through these cables, the ramifications of sustained damage are quite significant,” he says.

    However, given the sheer amount of cables around the world’s seabeds, a truly damaging attack would require sustained and very public action. One advantage of one-off attacks such as the Baltic Sea incident is their plausible deniability, says Kaushal. Nonetheless, he says, the economic threat behind an attack means they can still send a “potent diplomatic signal”....

    Of course, it’s not just data cables. The UK government, in its search for energy security, is making us ever more reliant on undersea electricity interconnectors. Genius.

    Liked by 2 people

  66. “Swedish PM says Baltic sea now ‘high risk’ after suspected cable sabotage

    Regional leaders meet after undersea telecoms cables severed, while Chinese ship remains at anchor nearby”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/27/swedish-pm-says-baltic-sea-now-high-risk-after-suspected-cable-sabotage

    The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said the Baltic sea is now a “high risk” zone as he met Nordic and Baltic leaders days after a suspected sabotage attack on undersea cables.

    The Swedish prime minister declined to speculate on who may have been responsible for the severing of two fibre optic telecoms cables in the Baltic last week. A Chinese ship – the Yi Peng 3 – that sailed over the cables about the time they were severed has remained anchored in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark since 19 November.

    China’s foreign ministry has denied any responsibility in the matter….

    Liked by 1 person

  67. “‘Russia can turn the lights off’: how the UK is preparing for cyberwar

    Moves made to prepare country for utility outages as malicious technological threats intensify”

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/03/russia-can-turn-the-lights-off-how-the-uk-is-preparing-for-cyberwar

    …Last week a British minister outlined the potential consequences of Russia’s already active cyber-operations spilling into more serious areas. “Cyberwar can be destabilising and debilitating. With a cyberattack, Russia can turn the lights off for millions of people,” said Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster….

    Perhaps they’re right to concentrate on cyber attacks. Russia is very good at these. However, we’re making it easy for them at every level by making ourselves dependent on interconnectors, whether between the UK and foreign countries or sub-sea cables connecting wind farms offshore or on islands remote from the demand centres. It’s disappointing that this risk isn’t mentioned. Are they unaware of it?

    Liked by 1 person

  68. Further to the above, if I were a cynic, rather than a humble sceptic, I wouldn’t be surprised to find power cuts (due to failures in renewables) being falsely blamed on a Russian cyber-attack. Who’s to prove otherwise?

    Like

  69. I looked for this story on the BBC website without success:

    “Finland-Estonia power cable hit in latest Baltic Sea incident

    The Finnish electricity grid’s head of operations says sabotage can’t be ruled out”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/25/finland-estonia-power-cable-hit-in-latest-baltic-sea-incident

    An undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia broke down on Wednesday, Finland’s prime minister said, the latest in a series of incidents involving cables and energy pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

    The Finnish electricity grid’s head of operations, Arto Pahkin, told the public broadcaster Yle that sabotage could not be ruled out.…

    Like

  70. The BBC has it now, albeit very belatedly:

    “Finland investigates Russia ‘shadow fleet’ ship after cable damage”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr56l7prj2mo

    Finnish police are investigating whether a Russian ship was involved in the sabotage of an electricity cable running between Finland and Estonia.

    The authorities said on Thursday that they believe the anchor of the Eagle S, a tanker registered with the Cook Islands, may have damaged the Estlink 2 cable, which became disconnected on Wednesday.

    The vessel is thought to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet”, which is made up of ships that carry embargoed Russian oil products.

    It is the latest in a series of incidents in recent years, in which underwater cables in the Baltic region have been either damaged or severed completely.

    Fingrid, the operator of Finland’s national grid, said Estlink 2 remained out of service but that the damage “did not endanger the operation of the electricity system” in the country.

    Repairs are expected to take “several months”.

    “From our side we are investigating grave sabotage,” said Robin Lardot, director of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)....

    Liked by 1 person

  71. “The EU has threatened to impose further sanctions against Russia as a result of the incident and said it was “strengthening efforts to protect undersea cables”

    So a ship drops anchor & hits the seabed as it needs too & the electricity cable gets damaged.

    What a farse. The narrative “Russia bad” rolls on.

    Like

  72. dfhunter,

    Under Putin, Russia is bad. Not the Russian people, who remain cowed by a totalitarian system. What is interesting, though, is that the earlier Guardian report didn’t rush to blame Russia (despite the location of the damage), saying instead this:

    ...Suspicions rapidly fell on the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3, which according to tracking sites had sailed over the cables around the time they were cut.

    Sweden said on Monday that China had denied a request for prosecutors to conduct an investigation on the vessel and that it had left the area….

    The reality, which really needs to be taken on board by UK policy-makers, is that there are lots of bad actors out there, and we shouldn’t be making it easy for them. Instead, UK energy policy seems to be designed to do just that. So much for energy security.

    Liked by 1 person

  73. “Sixty-mile drag mark found near damaged Baltic Sea cable, says Finland

    Electricity cable link to Estonia was damaged on Christmas Day in suspected Russian act of sabotage”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/finnish-investigators-into-suspected-sabotage-find-100km-trail-on-baltic-sea-bed

    Finnish investigators say they have found a seabed trail stretching almost 100km (about 60 miles) around the site of an underwater electricity cable that was damaged on Christmas Day in a suspected act of Russian sabotage.

    The ship under suspicion of causing the damage, a vessel called the Eagle S flying the flag of the Cook Islands, is believed to be part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, used for transporting Russian oil products subject to embargos after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    “Our current understanding is that the drag mark in question is that of the anchor of the Eagle S,” the police chief investigator, Sami Paila, said on Sunday. “We have been able to clarify this matter through underwater research,” he told the Finnish national broadcaster Yle.

    The apparent act of sabotage damaged the Estlink 2 electricity cable connecting Finland and Estonia. The cable will take months to repair, which could lead to increased electricity prices in Estonia over the winter. It is the latest in a series of suspicious incidents involving damage to underwater power and communications cables….

    Like

  75. “Nato launches new mission to protect crucial undersea cables”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gx74d06ywo

    Nato has launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year.

    Nato chief Mark Rutte said the mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”, would involve more patrol aircraft, warships and drones...

    …Undersea infrastructure is essential not only for electricity supply but also because more than 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, Rutte said, adding that “1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) of cables guarantee an estimated 10 trillion-dollar worth of financial transactions every day”.

    In a post on X, he said Nato would do “what it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and all that we hold dear”.

    There has been an uptick in unexplained damage to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic in recent months.…

    Liked by 1 person

  76. Never fear UK – Prime Minister sets out blueprint to turbocharge AI – GOV.UK

    Worth a read – liked this partial quote – “Build a brand new supercomputer with enough AI power to play itself at chess half a million times a second. This is part of the plan to increase compute capacity by twenty-fold by 2030 – supercharging our capacity to power AI products.”

    Well if plays games that quick, it might get bored waiting for humans & make up some new games, like “what happens when the lecci is stops”.

    Like

  78. “Royal Navy submarine was authorised to surface close to ‘spy ship’”

    https://cumbriacrack.com/2025/01/22/royal-navy-submarine-was-authorised-to-surface-close-to-spy-ship/

    …Speaking in the House of Commons today, the Defence Secretary John Healey gave MPs more information about the Yantar which is currently in the North Sea.

    “Let me be clear: it is a Russian spy ship, used for gathering intelligence and mapping the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure,” the Minister told Parliament. “For the past two days, the Royal Navy has deployed HMS Somerset and HMS Tyne to monitor the vessel, every minute, in our waters, and I have changed the Royal Navy’s rules of engagement so that our warships can get closer and better track Yantar.”

    It is the second time that Yantar, a 354ft 5,736 ton ship with a crew of 60, has entered UK waters in recent months.

    Mr Healy went on to set out how the ship was also closely watched and was detected loitering over UK critical undersea infrastructure in November…

    Liked by 1 person

  79. “Latvia investigating ‘significant’ damage to undersea fibre optic cable

    PM says damage is probably result of external influence and vessel suspected of involvement is under investigation”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/26/latvia-investigating-significant-damage-to-undersea-fibre-optic-cable

    An undersea fibre optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, probably as a result of external influence, Riga has said, adding that its navy had dispatched a patrol boat to inspect a vessel suspected of involvement.

    Two other vessels in the area were also subject to investigation, Latvia’s navy said.

    “We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant,” the Latvian prime minister, Evika Siliņa, told reporters after an extraordinary government meeting.

    Latvia was coordinating with Nato and the countries of the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances, she said separately in a post on X.

    Nato said last week it would deploy frigates, patrol aircraft and naval drones in the Baltic Sea to help protect critical infrastructure and reserved the right to take action against ships suspected of posing a security threat….

    Like

  80. “Putin’s secret weapon: The threat to the UK lurking on our sea beds”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-3036d1db-da99-49b3-9d64-272472095d4a

    …Nato believes Russia is also waging another war, an undeclared one, something called ‘hybrid warfare’ and that the target is Western Europe itself, with the aim of punishing or deterring Western nations from continuing their military support for Ukraine.

    Hybrid warfare, also called “grey zone” or “sub-threshold” warfare, is when a hostile state carries out an anonymous, deniable attack, usually in highly suspicious circumstances. It will be enough to harm their opponent, especially their infrastructure assets, but stop short of being an attributable act of war.

    “Deep-diving submarines can sever cables at depths which make repairs extremely difficult,” says Dr Sidharth Kaushal, senior research fellow in sea power at the Whitehall-based Royal United Services Institute (Rusi). “They can also tap sensitive undersea cables.”

    “In a conflict with Nato”, says Dr Kaushal, “damage to infrastructure at sea along with the targeting of infrastructure ashore would be a key part of Russia’s overall war effort, aimed at gradually eroding popular support in the West”.

    The BBC article concentrates on this:

    Carrying data and electricity between countries in microseconds, Europe’s undersea cables are vital arteries

    But there are other undersea cables, called interconnectors, and the UK is increasingly dependent on them to keep the lights on. They can be cut too. This, Mr Miliband, is not what energy security looks like.

    Liked by 1 person

  82. I remember making a half flippant remark on another post about this a few years ago (can’t recall which post), along the lines of Russian subs with big shears at the front.

    Seemed far fetched at the time, but now I wonder!!!

    Like

  83. It almost seems to be commonplace now:

    “Sweden investigates suspected sabotage of undersea telecoms cable”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5nydr9rqvo

    Swedish police have been investigating the suspected sabotage of an undersea telecoms cable in the Baltic Sea, connecting Germany and Finland.

    A series of undersea cables and gas pipelines have been damaged in suspected attacks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, prompting Nato to launch a monitoring mission in the sea last month.

    The Swedish coastguard has dispatched a research vessel to the east of Gotland, which is the country’s largest island and the reported location of the latest breach.

    Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said the government is aware of the cable break and added it “must be seen in the context of the current serious security situation”….

    Wait until its energy interconnectors….in the middle of winter.

    Liked by 1 person

  84. “Britain depends on Norway for energy. Some Norwegians want to cut us off

    Tensions in the Nordics are rising as residents begrudge the cost of keeping Europe’s lights on”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/23/britain-depends-norway-energy-some-want-to-cut-us-off/

    A long and interesting article for those who can access it, but I think these couple of key paragraphs are worth posting here:

    ...“A lot of the political parties in Norway are thinking of cutting the cables,” says Eimund Nygaard, the chief executive of power and telecom firm Lyse in Stavanger, a city on the country’s southern coast. “The nationalism we see on this is quite scary.”

    In Britain, Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, would be wise to pay attention….

    [The cables in question being interconnectors to other European countries, including the UK].

    Liked by 1 person

  86. “China could blackmail Germany via wind turbines, report warns

    A government-backed analysis seen by POLITICO argues Beijing could remotely shut down wind farms unless Germany bans its suppliers.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/china-could-blackmail-germany-via-wind-turbines-government-linked-report-warns/

    ...The report, which the German defense ministry commissioned, argues Beijing could purposefully delay projects, harvest sensitive data and remotely shut down turbines if given access to wind farms. It also advises the country to stop an existing wind project using Chinese turbines from going ahead.

    “When using systems or components from Chinese manufacturers … given the political situation, it can even be assumed that such a slowdown or even disruption would be deliberately used by China as a means of political pressure or even as an instrument of economic warfare,” reads the report, prepared last month by the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies think tank. 

    “A destabilization of both the political system, the business model of German industry and social cohesion cannot therefore be ruled out due to a lack of or insufficient planning security in the energy sector,” it adds.

    The analysis comes amid growing concerns related to critical infrastructure risks in Europe. Since 2022, at least six separate incidents of suspected underwater sabotage have taken place in the Baltic Sea...

    Liked by 1 person

  87. Can’t help but wonder what the UK boots on the ground promise in Ukraine would mean for our energy security/via interconnectors.

    Like

  88. “Russian warship tracked near British waters”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y2gepnjgdo

    The Royal Navy has released images of a Russian warship which it tracked sailing near British waters….

    …Boikiy is one of several Russian vessels to have been tracked sailing near the British coast in recent months….

    …The operation comes two weeks after the navy monitored five ships, including three merchant vessels, as they sailed for a Russian Baltic port from Syria….

    …Western nations have often tracked Yantar operating in European waters and they suspect part of its mission has been to map undersea cables….

    Liked by 1 person

  90. Mark – partial qoute from your link –

    “These cables are often no thicker than a garden hose where they lie across the seabed, and while they are generally sheathed in protective armour, they remain vulnerable. According to the Recorded Future analyst Matt Mooney, between 100 and 200 cable outages occur every year, mostly because of accidental damage from anchors and fishing trawlers. Yet, Mooney said the pattern associated with the cable fault events that have occurred in the Baltic Sea in the past 15 months makes it unlikely that none of them were intentional.”

    Must admit from that & pic Underwater cables in the Mediterranean Sea. Photograph: Alamy

    seems they are very exposed to anchors and fishing trawlers.

    Like

  91. “Heathrow fire lays bare Britain’s alarming exposure to single points of failure

    We are woefully unprepared for the security threats coming from our enemies”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/21/heathrow-meltdown-lays-bare-britains-alarming-exposure-to-s/

    …The underlying problem is that while Britain’s political class has been absorbed in a culture of decadence and complacency since the Second World War, in which open borders, the erasure of national differences and trust in the universality of democratic values have been seen as the only way to an enlightened future, the Russians have carried on wishing us harm. So have the Chinese, the Iranians and many others.

    Free from the democratic encumbrance of having to change governments every few years, our enemies – yes, let’s name them – have been embarking on a decades-long plan to dominate the world’s resources and destabilise the West.

    What has been our reaction? To put Beijing in charge of great swathes of our telecommunications and nuclear energy sites, allow it to purchase influence in our universities and parliament, welcome it into the WTO, relax our guard on Russia and be shamefully slow to defend points of vulnerability like our vital undersea cables, which continue to bare their throats to Moscow’s knife.…

    Liked by 1 person

  95. Quite simply , this is why it’s crazy to electrify everything:

    “Massive power cut in Spain and Portugal causes traffic light outages and train cancellations”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t

    …Public transport has been disrupted, with passengers evacuated from trains and traffic lights also affected.

    In Madrid, many businesses, shops and restaurants were plunged into darkness. Internet service was also affected.…

    Like

  96. By curious coincidence, the Guardian chose today to publish this:

    “How a solar storm could lead to a US nuclear disaster worse than Chornobyl

    Solar storms as intense as a 1921 superstorm have the potential to cause a nightmare scenario – and we are unprepared”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/28/solar-storm-nuclear-disaster

    ...When a solar storm’s electrically charged particles envelop Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms that generate electric fields in the ground, inducing electric currents in power grids. Solar storms as intense as the 1921 superstorm have the potential to cause a nightmare scenario in which modern power grids, communication systems, and other infrastructures collapse for months. Such a collapse of power grids would likely also lead to nuclear power plant accidents, whose radioactive emissions would aggravate the overall catastrophe.

    Scientists estimate that solar storms powerful enough to collapse portions of modern power grids for months may hit Earth more often than once in a century. In July 2012, a solar superstorm, estimated to have been more intense than the New York Railroad storm, crossed Earth’s orbit, missing the planet by one week’s time.

    The east coast states, upper midwest, and Pacific north-west have geological characteristics – not predominant in other regions of the United States – that increase the vulnerability of power-grid infrastructures to solar storms. Unfortunately, the majority of the commercial nuclear power plants in the United States are located in east coast states and the upper midwest, two of the US regions that are most vulnerable to solar storm-induced blackouts.

    In a months-long blackout, nuclear plants would lose their supply of offsite electricity, which is necessary for their safe operation. Emergency diesel generators, which provide backup electricity, are designed to power cooling pumps for a number of days – not months. No nuclear plant in the United States has ever lost offsite electricity for longer than a week. In 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that an extreme solar storm could collapse power grids and potentially lead to reactor core damage at multiple nuclear plants….

    It may well be the usual alarmist nonsense at which the Guardian excels, but if there’s anything in it at all, it’s yet another reason not to rush to electrify everything.

    Like

  97. “Britain is wide open to Russian undersea sabotage

    Critical gas pipelines, power lines and data cables are the “soft belly of British security,” ministers have been warned.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-russia-sea-gas-pipeline-russia-power-experts/

    …That’s the stark warning from defense and energy experts ahead of the country’s major strategic defense review, expected next week.

    They warn that critical gas pipelines, power lines and data cables are the “soft belly of British security” — leaving the country exposed to potentially “catastrophic” sabotage at the hands of Russia or other enemies….

    Liked by 1 person

  98. “UK ‘woefully’ unprepared for Chinese and Russian undersea cable sabotage, says report

    CSRI finds China and Russia may be coordinating ‘grey zone’ tactics against vulnerable western infrastructure”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/15/uk-woefully-ill-protected-against-chinese-and-russian-undersea-cable-sabotage

    China and Russia are stepping up sabotage operations targeting undersea cables and the UK is unprepared to meet the mounting threat, according to new analysis.

    A report by the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI) analysed 12 incidents in which national authorities had investigated alleged undersea cable sabotage between January 2021 and April 2025. Of the 10 cases in which a suspect vessel was identified, eight were directly linked to China or Russia through flag-state registration or company ownership.

    The involvement of “shadow fleet” commercial vessels in these incidents is consistent with China and Russia’s broader “grey zone” strategy – a space between war and peace – which aims to coerce adversaries while minimising opportunities for response, the report claims.

    The patterns of activity – such as the involvement of Chinese vessels in suspicious incidents in the Baltic Sea, and Russian vessels near Taiwan – suggest possible coordination between Moscow and Beijing on undersea cable attacks, it says.

    It is estimated that up to 99% of intercontinental data transmission takes place through submarine cable systems, playing a vital role in civilian and defence infrastructure. Without undersea cables, much of the economy – from international banking and cloud computing to virtual communications and global logistics – would cease to function….

    Given that last paragraph, I understand the article’s focus on data transmission cables, but ignoring the risks associated with our increasing dependence on sub-sea electricity cables is wilful ignorance, IMO.

    Liked by 2 people

  99. A small risk to energy security in the scheme of things, but this is yet another aspect of problematic renewables that weakens the oft-repeated claims about energy security:

    “Windfarms in England hit by wave of copper cabling thefts

    Experts says organised criminal gangs could be behind spate of incidents over past few months”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jun/23/windfarms-in-england-hit-by-wave-of-copper-cabling-thefts

    Copper thieves have been targeting England’s onshore windfarms, and security experts say organised gangs could be behind the crimewave.

    At least 12 large windfarms across Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Humberside, Northamptonshire, North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire have fallen victim to cabling thieves in the past three months….

    ...“The current state of offending is exceptional and unlike anything I’ve seen,” said Richard Crisp, an intelligence analyst at DeterTech. “We would typically expect to receive about four reports per year. It’s also noteworthy that those reports were typically of isolated single turbines, whereas in 2025 they have all been of large windfarms, operating multiple turbines.”

    In one instance, the towers of three turbines within a single windfarm were broken into, which Crisp said underlined the scale of the criminality and the organised nature of the heists.

    The spate of thefts has emerged as windfarm developers prepare to invest in new projects in England after the Labour government lifted a ban on such proposals last year. The government hopes to double the number of onshore windfarms by the end of the decade to help create a virtually carbon-free electricity system by 2030.

    A source close to the affected windfarm owners – which have not been made public – said it was understood that thieves broke open the doors found at the base of wind turbine towers, which are used for maintenance work.

    The offenders have appeared undeterred by the fact that the turbines were operating at the time of the thefts, which suggests a high level of confidence and familiarity with the infrastructure….

    [Note to Guardian – while the planning rules in England until the Labour government changed them made it easier for a windfarm to be prevented by objections, there never was a “ban”. To suggest that there was is disinformation].

    Liked by 1 person

  101. “Cable damage disrupts internet services in Orkney and Shetland”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j9p4d7njxo

    Internet and phone services in Orkney and Shetland have been disrupted because of damage to a subsea cable.

    Shetland Telecom said the Shefa-2 cable between Orkney and Banff sustained damage at about 03:00.

    The switchboard at Balfour Hospital in Kirkwall is currently down, with patients asked to call a mobile number instead.…

    Like

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