By William H. Murray

This week sparked the latest round of buzz around the security of the power grid. We’ve been here before and we will be again. Civilization began with the well and the aqueduct, i.e., infrastructure. That is why we call it civilization. Get over it.

To the extent that we benefit from and rely upon any complex infrastructure, we are vulnerable to interference with and contamination of that infrastructure. Get over it.

Most of the vulnerability in the electric power grid is fundamental, not implementation induced. One can compensate for fundamental vulnerabilities but only within limits of complexity, scale, scope, and load. That is why, at least once a generation, the electric grid fails at those limits, let alone easily anticipated and compensated for misuse and abuse. Even when we compensate for the anticipated misuse and abuse, there will still be failures. Get over it.

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