Well, well, well. It seems that a power station attack that almost put most of Silicon Valley in the dark last year has a new cause now that the owner of the substation, Pacific Gas and Electric, has released it’s report on the incident. What could have caused almost 70% of the most famous valley in the world to go dark? It seems that the attack was executed by a couple of well trained individuals who executed a James Bond like attack on the substation under cover of darkness. According to the Wall Street Journal article outlining the attack, and its possible implications for terrorism in the United States, the attack was carried out in short order.

12:58 a.m.-Attackers cut phone lines

1:31 a.m.-Attackers open fire on substation

1:41 a.m.-First 911 call from power plant operator

1:50 a.m.-Attack ends and gunmen leave

1:51 a.m.-Police arrive and enter locked substation

3:15 a.m. Utility Electrician arrives

Luckily, the PG & E folks were able to reroute power around the site and requested that other plants located close to the valley ramp up their production. The point that should remain a giant concern though is that within less than one hour, a team of snipers were able to disable seventeen large electrical transformers with nothing more sophisticated than a couple of rifles. If this had been a large scale, coordinated attack according to Jon Wellinghoff, who was the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chief at the time, it could have plunged most of the country into darkness. According to Wellinghoff it was “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred”.

So, why are we just finding out about this now? Well, we can chalk that up to another current Administration fail. You see, last year after the incident occurred, Wellinghoff testified in front of Congress, the White House and many Federal agencies in high level closed door meetings. As time progressed with no arrests in the case, Wellinghoff became concerned  that a larger attack could be in the works. It seems that the FBI in San Francisco doesn’t agree with the former Energy chief’s concerns though.

“Based on the information we have right now, we don’t believe it’s related to terrorism,” said Peter Lee, an FBI spokesman in San Francisco. But, he added, “Until we understand the motives, we won’t be 100% sure it’s not terrorism.”

WHAT?! Yes, you read that correctly. The FBI doesn’t think that this coordinated attack on a power substation involving snipers shooting at 17 transformers in a region that is the major driver for California’s economy is terrorism. It seems that Energy officials have been concerned about the nations energy grid, and it’s openness to attack for quite some time. In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times authors Evan Halper and Marc Lifsher explain that the Utility community has been concerned over this for a long time and reported on it in 2009.

“A 2009 Energy Department report said that “physical damage of certain system components (e.g. extra-high-voltage transformers) on a large scale…could result in prolonged outages, as procurement cycles for these components range from months to years.”

Mr. Wellinghoff said a FERC analysis found that if a surprisingly small number of U.S. substations were knocked out at once, that could destabilize the system enough to cause a blackout that could encompass most of the U.S.”

And yet, the FBI in charge of investigating what looks like a trial run has utterly failed in their mission. I fell safe now, don’t you? Perhaps we should all run out and buy those generators after all.