U.S. FOUND KILL SWITCHES IN INTEGRAL SOLAR FARM EQUIPMENT FROM CHINA
Well, maybe I have to revise my skepticism over the Huawei conspiracies. Because with all the hyperbolics about banning their phones and other devices, I thought most of it was essentially balderdash. But now there’s something a bit more tangible when it comes to thinking that maybe, just maybe, Americans need to think carefully about technology that comes from China. And why? Because a review of U.S. solar farm equipment found some things that shouldn’t be there, like kill switches. In short, a kill switch gives someone the option of killing that device on demand. It’s like a light switch someone can turn off in your house from the other side of the world.
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KILL SWITCHES WOULD ENABLE CHINA TO LITERALLY CRIPPLE AMERICA’S POWER SUPPLY
But in this case, a kill switch that blocks power production from a solar farm would turn off every light in your house, and in every house in your neighborhood, and maybe your entire city, and even possibly cause a blackout in the entire region you live in. Unfortunately, that’s not an exaggeration. So this is a bit more concerning than hacked phones or internet routing hardware. These are kill switches that would potentially enable a foreign state to literally cripple America’s power infrastructure. Yet somehow, this isn’t insanely huge headlines dominating the news ether, or turning out orange president a dark shade of red?
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WHAT ELSE DO WE STILL NEED TO FIND BESIDES THESE KILL SWITCHES? BECAUSE THERE HAS TO BE MORE
So what else could this mean? Well, it could mean that whoever has their finger on these kill switches could also control energy supplies, either in a nuanced fashion or in total. And considering how America’s power suppliers are already a functioning oligopoly, this could be a means to corner a market on futures in the short term, or even make a killing with a strategic investment in a small-scale power company. But so far, there’s not much being said about this discovery of kill switches being found in some number of power inverters, which are key components in solar energy production.
While it’s good to know that we’ve made this discovery, it makes me wonder about what else we haven’t so far. Hopefully, all our lights don’t have to go out to find out.
