Power grid security

QUANTUM PHYSICS COULD PROTECT THE GRID FROM HACKERS—MAYBE

Cybersecurity experts have sounded the alarm for years: Hackers are ogling the US power grid. The threat isn’t merely hypothetical—a group affiliated with the Russian government gained remote access to energy companies’ computers, the Department of Homeland Security published last March. In some cases, the hackers could even directly send commands to mess with hardware, which meant they could have cut off the power entirely to customers’ homes. To shut these hackers out, utility companies need better security.

One group of physicists think they have a patch: quantum-encrypted power stations.

They tested the idea this February, hauling several SUVs’ worth of lasers, electronics, and extremely sensitive detectors from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, down to Chattanooga. After a hundred-mile drive, they pulled the vehicles up to EPB, the local utility company, and hooked up their machines to some of EPB’s unused optical fiber.