What Makes the Power Grid So Vulnerable?

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Jonathan Monkett: The way the grid is designed, it's built with what's called an N-1 level of reliability. These sites can be pretty physically vulnerable. Companies typically try to obscure them because nobody wants to live next to one of these things.

Attacks on vulnerable electrical infrastructure are surging. The tactic — embraced by everyone from copper-seeking vandals to chaos-minded white nationalists — exposes a major vulnerability in the US power grid.

This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King.

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