Sabotaging 9 Of The 55,000 US Electrical Grid Substations Could Cause National Power Loss And Darkness

From The Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack: Federal Analysis Says Sabotage of Nine Key Substations Is Sufficient for Broad Outage" by Rebecca Smith:

The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

The study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, people familiar with the research said.

A small number of the country's substations play an outsize role in keeping power flowing across large regions. The FERC analysis indicates that knocking out nine of those key substations could plunge the country into darkness for weeks, if not months.