SABOTAGE? YES, SABOTAGE

But one of the remarkable omissions in the copious postmortems of the New York blackout was the fact that a small band of saboteurs, any day of the week, can do as well as, or "better" than, those four strokes of lightning.

On the night of the blackout, one of the two units at Indian Point was down for routine repair, and the strong 345 kV tie to New Jersey's PSE&G was out of service because of a faulty phase regulator. Such ocurrences are routine in any system; but assuming both of these facilities intact could saboteurs induce a repetition of the July blackout?

Easily, and much longer lasting. All they would have to do is knock out two (two!) substations. (For obvious reasons, we will not give their names or locations, but they can be spotted easily enough on a map of the city's power grid.) it took 26 hours to examine and reset the circuit breakers that had tripped on July 13; how long would it take to rebuild two substations reduced to rubble?. But that specter does not alarm those who concoct scares about sabotaging a nuclear plant. (A substation does not generate power, but merely transforms and distributes it.)

What should be done about this? According to Amory Lovins, the apostle of soft-headed energy, "we could run the US just on appropriate, renewable energy technologies that are already proved, practical in New York conditions, and cheaper than their nuclear and fossil-fuel competitors;" and the New York Times published such non-news unfit to print under the heading "Resilience in Energy Strategy." What was the matter with the New York Times in the blackout? Did their presses fail to run on windmills? Did their trucks not run on chicken manure? Did their elevators not get enough power from the water wheels dipped into the Hudson? (They do practice what they preach, don't they?)

But for the realist, there is a proven and reliable way to make the New York power grid invulnerable. A police regiment guarding those two substations may not deter saboteurs; but the certainty of ineffectiveness of their actions- will. The two substations will no longer be a scary target of sabotage when they cease to be critical. The answer to sabotage is not windmills, but ample redundance in the net and plenty of spare capacity.

Meanwhile, the two substations are an invitation to saboteurs, courtesy of the activists who killed the Storm King project and all other efforts to increase Con Ed's capacity.