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