Energy Security Postscript and Next Chapter

Long-time readers of the SGSB might have wondered if they'd ever see another post. Me too. After producing an average of 1+ posts per week since its inception 5 years ago, I cut way back after leaving IBM in 2013 to give myself more time to focus on consulting. And now there's a new development to report.

4 month ago I shuttered my security strategy business and began my first day on the job at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). It's one of the Department of Energy's national labs, and it's the one most squarely positioned at the intersection of energy infrastructure and national security. Let's call that energy security.

My INL title: Senior Cyber & Energy Security Strategist - may sound a little pretentious, but it pretty accurately captures what I was hired to do. If you visit the lab's home page or the INL Twitter feed it seems like nuclear energy research and related nuclear work are its dominant activities. But while nuclear energy research and fuels fabrication were its origin in the 1940's and its historic mission, with the help of its massive and remote test range that includes grid-scale transmission, distribution and communications assets, the lab I just joined does a ton of research and applied work on power and industrial control systems, Smart Grid and wireless communications, cyber and physical security and resilience, renewables, microgrids, energy storage and more.

Nuclear energy R&D, and full nuclear fuel lifecycle work (including non proliferation) will always be a significant part of that nation's requirements, and the INL mission, but nuclear energy is arguably the most reliable portion of our non fossil fuel baseload, but INL is quietly becoming something much more - and more important - than its nuclear legacy might suggest.

Without going into too much detail, the lab's customers now include not just DOE's nuclear energy organizations, but also DOE's renewables, resilience and cyber-physical security components too. DHS has become a major customer, as the lab hosts the ICS-CERT cyber security overwatch function for the US grid and other critical infrastructures, and performs other leading edge cyber and physical security roles as well. DoD is a very large customer too, for energy, security and communications test functions, rounded out by direct work with utilities and energy and telecom technology suppliers.

In short, INL in 2014 is not the lab many people think it is. While it's yet to update its image online, a visit to Idaho Falls quickly confirms that this is one of the nation's preeminent Energy Security lab resources. Nuclear energy is and likely always will be a key element, but without making much noise about it, INL has become so much more, and I'm very very lucky to be a part of it.

------------------------------

Postscript to the Postscript post: Though my blogs are in suspended animation, I continue to speak in public, and albeit more frequently and tersely, on Twitter @andybochman. As the Twitter profile reveals, I continue to work out of my home office in Boston while hitting the road most often for DC, and of course, now, Idaho.

Major SPIDERS (DOD Secure Microgrid) Update

This post just in from Mr. Harold Sanborn, Program Manager at Construction Engineering Research Lab (CERL), US Army and technical manager for the SPIDERS Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD).  I've removed most of the defense industry speak from a longer version you can find on the DOD Energy Blog.  FYI SPIDERS = an ongoing DOD distributed energy program and the acronym stands for Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security. ab

Here's Harold:

SPIDERS Phase I has finished the "history tour" as we codify and publish the lessons learned.

SPIDERS results demonstrated additional capability for Joint Base Pear Harbor Hickam, including:

• Synchronizing with the utility service power signal while pushing electricity back on to the base distribution system
• Operational viewing of other circuits in the substation in addition to the one controlled by the micro-grid, and
• Power factor improvements and the opportunity to test generators at load

Energy Security Conference Alert: IAGS' Target Energy 2013

UPDATE: Conference Cancelled ... Sorry about that.

-----------------------

What is IAGS you say? I'll answer briskly: the Institute for the Analysis of of Global Security. Teaming with NATO's Energy Security Center of Excellence, IAGS is hosting a conference called Target Energy that includes but goes well beyond cybersecurity and the grid.

For those SGSB readers whose professional lives are circumscribed by electric sector security, this is a chance to stretch a bit. Here's how the organizers describe the focus:

The cost of securing energy supplies is increasing due to threats from terrorists, hackers, activists and hostile nations. What is the impact of attacks against energy, and how can companies, organizations, and governments work with NATO to increase security?

Energy Security Update: Renewables Economics Hitting German Utilities Hard

A week or so ago I posted about an EEI report warning that many if not most utilities are ill equipped to adapt to shifting business models arising from the build-out of distributed energy generation technologies.

In what some call a vicious cycle, the more technology allows customers to partially or fully remove their loads from the grid, the fewer payers there are to support the maintenance (let alone the modernization) of the grid's vast and aging infrastructure. I also asked readers to consider the implications for cybersecurity thinking and spending in the context of these types of mounting economic pressures.

Now I've got another article for you ...

Early Conference Alert: EnergySec Call for Speakers

If you have potent ideas that could help utilities, regulators or other members of our tight-knit community, a rich vocabulary and a booming, resonant voice, are somewhat animated and can make dramatic hand gestures, then you may have a place in the line-up at the next EnergySec conference.

Here's the content of just-received email in case you didn't get or see it directly:

The EnergySec Annual Security Summit has been privileged to host some of the most intriguing, informative, technical and entertaining cyber security presentations and panels this industry has seen. But we think we can do better.

Will We Attain a More Secure Energy Future with Lasers?

You might think this is an April Fools headline, but it's not. At least I don't think it is.

From SGSB's FutureWatch desk, we bring you tales of 1.9 Gigajoules, and the potential to power all the world's grids sans fossil fuels. Bring on better electricity storage, and we may get to worry about other things in the future besides energy. There's security in that.

You may call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. See the folks at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and see what you think.

2011 (exceedingly short) Energy Security Book List

There are two new books out in the last few months I want you to know about. Whether you have time to read them, even if I am successful in getting you worked up about them, well, that's another story. So again, it's only two books, which is probably one or two more than you'll be able to get to given your current workload. But here's why you should give them a shot.

Neither addresses cyber security too much, but I consider all of this part of the broader "energy security" domain, and as such, this info is part of the foundation one needs to understand the full context of our cyber security, privacy and compliance landscape, where it's been and where it's going.

The first one is by former Austin Energy CIO Andres Carvallo, called The Advanced Smart Grid: Edge Power Driving Sustainability. Co-authored with frequent technology writer John Cooper, this book is relatively short at ~200 well illustrated pages, and is a pleasure to read. I'm going to re-use some of the laudatory words I recently posted in an Amazon review.

Before they invite you to travel with them into the future, Carvallo and Cooper do a solid job of orienting the reader with concise summaries of where the grid came from, how it's evolved over time, and as accurately as possible, how it's doing in its current state. For the many immigrants who've recently moved to energy from other sectors (like me), this is a great grounding.

The authors then look past the current climate of activity, much of it initially fueled with government grants, to a phase where business drivers alone dictate what gets deployed next. Ultimately, they begin to unveil for us a blurry but emerging vision of "the advanced Smart Grid", that's predicated on pervasive IP networking, tons and tons of data, microgrids, EVs, virtual power plants, new business models and more.

I particularly liked this point when the authors did pause for a moment on security:

As a foundational infrastructure, the Smart Grid cannot afford to get out in front of its ability to remain secure.

That's right ... what a concise way of saying so much. For me, it was well worth the time, and depending on your background and/or day job, it might be for you too.

Book number two is from one of the (if not, THE) true giants of global energy thinking over the past decades, Daniel Yergin. Best known (to me, anyway) for his biblical telling of the history and future of the oil industry in The Prize, his new book, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, expands in scope to consider all energy sources. Recently reviewed in the NYT, this excerpt seems apropos:

When it comes to assessing the world’s energy future Mr. Yergin is a Churchillian. He argues that we should consider all possible energy sources, the way Winston Churchill considered oil when he spoke to the British Parliament  in 1913. “On no one quality, on no one process, on no one country, on no one route, and on no one field must we be dependent,” Churchill said. “Safety and security in oil lie in variety and variety alone.”

... and one more thing, for which the a smarter grid is the essential precursor:

One of Mr. Yergin’s closing arguments focuses on the importance of thinking seriously about one energy source that “has the potential to have the biggest impact of all.” That source is efficiency. It’s a simple idea, he points out, but one that is oddly “the hardest to wrap one’s mind around.” More efficient buildings, cars, airplanes, computers and other products have the potential to change our world.

Sounds great, right? Well, the bad news for you travelers is that, from a weight perspective, is that it tops 800 pages, though if you get the ebook version it's as light as can be. Now reading it, or the majority of it, that's another story. If it's too much for you to consider, maybe you can wait and hope for a movie version. But I wouldn't count on it.

Happy reading!

Photo credit: Miamism on Flickr.com

Massoud Energizes U Minnesota Smart Grid Ad

Nov 22 Update: I'm speaking at the Canadian Smart Grid Summit next week in Toronto, and when I went to check for my time slot, noticed that Massoud is headlining!  See for yourself HERE.

--------------------------------------------------------------

As this Wall Street Journal video points out, the majority of TV ads for colleges shown during football halftime breaks are cookie cutter simple and formulaic.  This spot, though focuses on several recent ones which break the mold. Most notably, from the SGSB's point of view, is the one from University of Minnesota featuring long-time clean tech and Smart Grid security advocate, Dr. Massoud Amin.

Here's the WSJ piece that makes the case:



And for the full 30-second U Minn energy ad they're applauding, click HERE.

Production standards are so high and the content so compelling, you might think you were watching an IBM commercial.

Renewables Grid Giga-boost: Google and Friends Commit to Fund Undersea Wind Power

Not just offshore, mind you, but offshore and under water.  We're talking high voltage transmission lines in the deep blue sea off the USA's east coast mid section. If you're thinking this is another green jobs initiative from the current administration, you're wrong. It's the private sector doing what it does best: seeing a problem, doing some analysis, realizing it's an opportunity, and putting some skin in the game despite known and quantified risks.

Covered in all the major news outlets today, including the WSJ, this is great clean tech news as well as energy security news. Here's why:

• It's a win for renewables as it'll now be much easier and cheaper (and therefore, much less risky) to deploy big offshore wind turbines 
• It's a win for energy security as one of the most congested parts of the national grid will have more pathways and options for routing electricity, especially in the NY/NJ region
• This should help the perpetually stalled Cape Wind project get out of the blocks. If folks down south can pull off a wind infrastructure project of this magnitude, how come forward looking, business minded, PhD-educated, renewables friendly northerners have been arguing about this modest first step for 10+ years with nothing to show for it? Wind energy in Massachusetts is in danger of being OBE - overcome by current events

For me, the second point on energy security is also a boost for Smart Grid security. Absent hostile submarines with cable cutter-enabled frog men, this transmission addition will give grid operators more room to breath, even as it makes it more likely they'll be figuring out how to best manage gigawatts of new intermittent power over the next several years. We'll be relying on more technology to handle this challenge of course - here's to ensuring it's developed and deployed with security in mind: up front, built in, and by design.

Energy Security by Design

Jack's been busy making commercials for IBM's Smarter Planet campaign, describing the company's new security mantra, "Secure by Design" in the context of Smart Grid and energy systems. Click HERE to see the first one on Youtube. And it looks like the film crews indulged him with another on a topic even nearer and dearer to his true passion: FOOD security.