Researchers use blockchain to increase electric grid resiliency:
Although blockchain is best known for securing digital currency payments, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using it to track a different kind of exchange: It's the first time blockchain has ever been used to validate communication among devices on the electric grid.
[...] "This framework gives us a totally new capability to rapidly respond to anomalies," Borges Hink said. "In the long run, we could more quickly identify an unauthorized system change, find its source and provide more trustworthy failure analysis. The goal is to limit the damage caused by a cyberattack or equipment failure."
The approach uses tamper-resistant blockchain to spread configuration and operational data redundantly across multiple servers. The data and equipment settings are constantly verified against a statistical baseline of normal voltage, frequency, breaker status and power quality. Equipment settings are collected at frequent intervals and compared to the last good configuration saved in the blockchain. This allows rapid recognition of when and how settings were changed, whether those changes were authorized, and what caused them.
[...] This kind of monitoring requires processing a vast amount of information. The blockchain uses a cryptographic method called hashing, where a mathematical computation is performed on the bulk data to represent it as numbers in the blockchain. This saves energy and reduces the space needed to store data. The blockchain processes thousands of transactions per second for each intelligent grid device, validating the contents.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21, @12:37PM (3 children)
While tfa mentions that this requires significant processing power to implement, it doesn't talk about any lag added to the power grid control system.
Lags often drive oscillation...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21, @01:24PM (2 children)
My interpretation from a quick reading of this is that this isn't being used for real-time control, but to verify that the system state hasn't been messed with. So they can look at current system settings and see if anything has been deliberately changed that isn't reflected in the ledger.
(Score: 2) by crm114 on Wednesday December 21, @04:25PM (1 child)
My impression as well. It is for the postmortem.
Stuff happens. (people shoot at substations, squirrels stuff nuts in weird places, seagulls land "inappropriately") IMHO blockchain is used to prove it was a squirrel, seagull, or 'person with a rifle' vs a premeditated "cyber attack."
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 21, @07:17PM
Blockchain is great for postmortem analysis, and proof of work would be beyond silly in this application.
>squirrels stuff nuts in weird places
My grandmother's house had a poorly insulated transformer on the pole. About once a year, she'd hear the loud bang of the circuit breaker blowing on that transformer, wait several hours for the power company to come reset it, and in the following weeks she'd note a new three legged squirrel running around the yard.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 21, @11:41PM (1 child)
"If using blockchain increased the efficiency, imagine how much *not* using blockchain could increase efficiency!"
I'm far from an expert on this stuff...so when they say "we did this with blockchain", does that basically just mean they hashed the tarball and put it in version control, then synced all their clients?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by captain normal on Thursday December 22, @04:26AM
In my estimation, when I hear something like "tamper-resistant blockchain", I'm thinking they are taking about building this out of fairy dust or unicorn shit. There is no such thing as a program or machine made by man that can'i be hacked.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 22, @12:30AM (1 child)
You would think they could squeeze another buzz word in there somewhere?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday December 22, @05:23PM
I know, right? I was one square away from having a winning buzzword bingo card!