Trump's bogus use of cyber threats to prop up coal

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

When it comes to cyber attacks, the campaign meddling in 2016 that led to indictments of 12 Russian military intelligence operatives this month was just the tip of the iceberg. Ukraine knows how much more serious it can get. One month after the U.S. election, hackers — likely operating with the approval, if not at the direction, of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government — shut down the grid supplying power to thousands of Ukrainian business and homes on a bitterly cold winter night. The lights went out across Kiev, and the proverbial warning lights flashed red for homeland security experts in Washington.

The threat of a similar attack targeting U.S. power utilities no longer is theoretical. Knowing that cyber weapons can be deployed with low cost, high impact and plausible deniability, Russia, Iran and North Korea have become much more aggressive in recent years. In March, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security released details of “a multistage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors” targeting the U.S. power grid and other critical infrastructure. As assistant secretary of Department of Defense (DoD) for Homeland Defense and Global Security, and later as chief of staff at DoD, part of my job was to ensure the military was taking aggressive steps to protect the American people from such attacks. Now, more than ever, we need to raise our game.

But rather than focus national efforts to combat the very real threat that cyber poses to the U.S. power grid, President Trump, citing national security — and the threat of cyber attacks in particular — is proposing to spend billions of dollars to bail out economically uncompetitive coal and nuclear plants. The administration claims that the power plants at issue are critical for energy resilience, a claim disputed by companies that actually operate the grid and the president’s own appointees at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

If the goal is to mitigate the cyber threat, the plan makes no sense. Bailing out uneconomic power plants would do nothing to improve cyber security for the energy sector. In fact, it wouldn’t even improve cyber security at the subsidized plants themselves. Meanwhile, it would siphon off much-needed resources from the real work of protecting our energy grid.

http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/398758-trumps-bogus-use-of-cyber-threats-to-prop-up-coal

[SWBTATTReg]

1. I imagine if you are protecting power plants and so forth, how the power is generated ...

has nothing to do w/ cyber security...power is power, distribution is distribution, a generator is a generator, regardless of the power you use.

All I care about is that I get power when I need it, economically. So far, the economics of the situation has mandated that:

coal is dirty, so don't use as much;

nuclear, has a pretty bad history of being disposed of properly when finished/aged off;

natural gas, 1/2 as dirty as coal, so better;

solar and wind, a renewable resource, having a constant source of wind and/or sun is issue here, also, battery technologies need to improve;

Regardless of what rump does, the overwhelming market choices dictate what's going to be used. The Koch brothers want natural gas, rump wants coal, so who do you think going to win?