One of the United States' significant vulnerabilities is our power grid. It's huge and complex, it's vulnerable to attack in any number of ways, from local attacks such as shooting up a couple of transformers to a grid-wide EMP attack. A large-scale grid failure has the potential to send much of the United States back to the mid-19th century, and we should note that there is no way we could support our current population with mid-19th century technology and distributions systems, meaning that, in the event of such a grid-wide failure, a lot of people would die of disease, starvation, figthing over supplies - you name it.

So it's a matter of some concern when we find unexpected communications devices hidden inside Chinese-made power inverters that form a part of this grid.

U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them, two people familiar with the matter said.

Power inverters, which are predominantly produced in China, are used throughout the world to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids. They are also found in batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers.

While inverters are built to allow remote access for updates and maintenance, the utility companies that use them typically install firewalls to prevent direct communication back to China.

However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said.

Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said.

Reuters was unable to determine how many solar power inverters and batteries they have looked at.

There is nothing about this that bodes well for the United States. New trade deals notwithstanding, China isn't a friend of the United States. Oh, we can do business with them, but should always check our collective wallet afterwards; it's as President Reagan said, "Trust, but verify," or as my favorite rogue uncle was fond of advising, "Trust your buddies but always cut the cards."

What might China be up to?

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It's difficult to say without more information. A communications device, as these are described, might be used to send performance information back to China. But could these devices also receive and carry out commands from China? Is there some danger that there could be an en masse shutdown of equipment containing these rogue devices? If so, how extensive could that be?

The "two people" described in the story think it could be serious:

The rogue components provide additional, undocumented communication channels that could allow firewalls to be circumvented remotely, with potentially catastrophic consequences, the two people said.

Both declined to be named because they did not have permission to speak to the media.

It would lend some credence to the claims if we knew who these "two people" were. But that doesn't mean they are wrong, or their concerns are invalid. The quickest way to take down a nation with the size and power of the United States would be to shut down the electricity. Granted, our military would still be mostly functioning, and presumably, there are backup plans for much of the federal government. But the military and the federal government don't grow and transport food. They don't refine and distribute gasoline or home heating oil.

As for the inverters in question, the world's largest supplier is the Chinese firm Huawei. If that's not a great argument for bringing as much of our industrial base as we can back to the United States, then I don't know what is.

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