From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Protecting the Electric Grid

Description: GAO reports on the risk to our electric grid from
geomagnetic disturbances coming from outer space.

Related GAO Work: GAO-19-98: Critical Infrastructure Protection:
Protecting the Electric Grid from Geomagnetic Disturbances

Released: December 2018


[ Background Music ]

[ Tim Persons: ] We don't know how much of a solar flare can we absorb
before this starts to break things here on earth.

[ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news
and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt
Oldham. For many people, checking the weather forecast is a part of
everyday life. It can help make decisions on when to go places, where to
avoid, or what to wear. And if it's bad enough, weather can kill or can
cause billions of dollars in property damage, but not all of the threats
from weather are equal and not all of them originate here on earth. I'm
with Tim Persons, GAO's Chief Scientist, and we're discussing a
technology assessment he led on risks to our electric grid from
geomagnetic disturbances from space. Tim, what are the risks from space
weather? What kind of damage could it cause?

[ Tim Persons: ] Yeah, no, thanks for having me and thanks for the
question. Space weather is sort of being tongue in cheek, sounds kind of
like, you know, tomorrow's going to be partly supernova with Haley's
Comet on the side or something like that, but it really is a serious
business. A lot of space weather involves what technically are called
coronal mass ejections, which just means large gaseous, fiery, charged
particles ejected from the sun that, at times, when they get ejected and
they're pointed towards earth, will eventually, over some period of
time, get into their earth's magnetic field, wrap around, and -- and, of
course, just on the basic physics of things, whenever charges move
around and are in motion, it induces electrical currents elsewhere. And
if it injects undesired electricity, a current in the system, then it
could blow the system, if you will. Just like if we're imaging being at
home and you blow your fuse, you got to go replace the fuse and, at the
best, it's an inconvenience, at the worst, it could shut some electrical
things down that has, of course, bad consequences overall.

[ Matt Oldham: ] So, is there anything we can do to defend against these
types of exposures or are there any plans in place to defend against
this type of exposure?

[ Tim Persons: ] The short answer is there are an array of things that
are out there. And, of course, they range from sophistication and cost
and scalability. And the other thing is just simple design, how you
design the grid, a lot of these risks are grid designed from decades ago
didn't involve, necessarily, thinking about these particular risks, so
it may be, how do we rethink this? Is there a way of, without incurring
some incredibly expensive cost of redoing the entire electrical grid,
are there ways to sort of, through design principles and tweaks, if you
will, to do that? And that just leads to your second part of the
question, are there plans? The short answer is no. It's right now we
don't know the exact risk of these things. We know that they do occur,
they have occurred, but they're frequency on the geomagnetic side has
been relatively infrequent, but when it's happened significantly, it has
had impacts, and that's the -- that's the point of this study, to look
at those risks, and [inaudible]to convey some options or thinking about
how we might be able to deal with it.

[ Background Music ]

[ Matt Oldham: ] Sounds like there's a lot of agreement on the fact that
our electric grid is vulnerable to weather coming from space, but there
is more uncertainty about how much damage a geomagnetic disturbance
could cause and how likely it is that it would cause any damage. What
can we do with the information coming from this type assessment?

[ Tim Persons: ] I think what this report could help do is layout the
policy option space that -- that our decision makers can say, you know
what, we don't know these particular things, we need to allocate
resources to answer that. Or, perhaps, we ask our regulators to consider
how you're thinking of this. All the other risks that you have to deal
with, where does this rank and what might be done about it? Obviously,
in any sort of technology space, more research and, in some cases, even
development is necessary. And I would add to that, again, you rightly
asked about cost earlier, economic considerations are -- are enormous.
We have techno fixes for things now, but they may be extraordinarily
expensive, and not worth that sense of -- of risk, and I think this is
where government can have that key leadership convening power, as well
as that how to refine the rulemaking process and risk assessment process
so that we have that -- that greater, more stable, reliable electrical
grid that we all want.

[ Matt Oldham: ] Well, last question, what do you believe is the bottom
line of the report?

[ Tim Persons: ] This is a key issue. We don't know how much of a solar
flare can we absorb before this starts to break things here on earth, so
to speak, but I, again, I think the bottom line is this is one of a
number of risks, there are ways just to think about how technology might
insert itself into this space, and I think cost is going to be an issue,
and I think there's a way to look at this holistically and come up with
-- with a way to mitigate this, among others.

[ Background Music ]

[ Matt Oldham: ] Tim Persons is GAO's Chief Scientist, and we were
discussing how to protect the electric grid from disturbances from
weather coming from space. Thank you for your time, Tim.

[ Tim Persons: ] Thank you!

[ Background Music ]

[ Matt Oldham: ] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts.

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[ Matt Oldham: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S.
Government Accountability Office, visit us as gao.gov.