Ecoterrorists Are Coming For Your Infrastructure

Do you have a plan for distributed attacks?

Vignette 1: Drones in Syria

If you’ve been following the war in Ukraine, you’re familiar with how drone technology, from loitering munitions to first-person-view (FPV) drones to uncrewed naval systems, have completely restructured how both sides fight. For Ukraine in particular, these drone systems have proven to be a low-cost, low-casualty, high-mass approach to hitting targets that would otherwise require NATO hardware with NATO procurement timelines and NATO strings on use.

But these are still state actors—the technology has trickled down yet further. In fact, drones also played a key role in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) thunder run from their home base in Idlib to Bashar al-Assad’s power centers in Damascus. Most Western observers only saw the November-to-December 2024 rush, but HTS has been working with drones for ten years now. They’ve developed and manufactured designs in small, distributed workshops, trained operators on simulators, and built their own components with 3D printers. Even though the old-school approach of strapping a grenade to a commercial camera drone still works, even basic 3D printer and soldering skills can return increasingly effective rotary- and fixed-wing drones for ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and kinetic missions. The technology is readily available.

Vignette 2: Ghost Guns in New York

There was arguably too much talk about the now-infamous killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by random dude Luigi Mangione. Pretty quickly, people found Mangione’s Goodreads, with its glowing review of The Lorax and extended review of the Unabomber’s manifesto. That’s probably overselling Mangione’s politics, but his methods have proven more curious.

Mangione used a “ghost gun” that can be fabricated from 3D-printed polymer components and approximately $125 worth of metal parts. The result was a Glock-19-pattern firearm at a lower cost and no regulatory paperwork. Mangione may have also 3D-printed the suppressor he used, which allowed him to execute his attack without immediate alarms but also caused some misfiring issues. A quick search online suggests that the design he used was a couple of years out of date—the technology has already improved. Mangione’s manifesto described the process as “fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience.”

Vignette 3: How to Blow Up a Pipeline

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a real 2021 book by real Swedish professor Andreas Malm. It was adapted into a real movie in 2022. The book, according to the Wikipedia summary,¹ argues against the “strategic pacifism” of activists like Bill McKibben and clown parades like Extinction Rebellion. Instead, Malm argues that climate activists should change the math of fossil fuel infrastructure by kinetically adjusting their risk profiles. He specifically suggests “sabotaging” pipelines, in particular because they don’t move.

The movie adaptation eschews the documentary style you’d expect and instead goes for a heist plot in which eight plucky youth plan, implement, and exfiltrate from a plot to blow up a pipeline in West Texas. The movie very intentionally targets the hub of shale energy production and point of reference for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude. Wikipedia suggests that the movie is pretty good.

And after witnessing the broad-scale online support of Luigi Mangione, I suspect we’ll see similar online treatment for anyone who replicates this strategy.

Vignette 4: Rifles in Moore County

In December 2022, an unknown number of people shot rifle rounds into two substations in Moore County, North Carolina. Thirty to forty thousand people lost power for three-to-five days. One person died because her oxygen machine lost power. In February 2024, the FBI unsealed a warrant looking for the perpetrators. They have a getaway vehicle, but they didn’t name a suspect.

At the time, people threw out all kinds of theories about motive, from domestic terrorism to anti-LGBT “activism” to a bank heist, or something. We still don’t know. What matters is how little that attack took—long range rifles are pretty common in the United States.

Vignette 5: Fire Near Heathrow

On 22 March 2025, an electric substation serving the London Heathrow Airport caught fire. The fire cut power to the airport and 67,000 other buildings, and it took seven hours to contain. Within a few days, the airport returned to function on backup generation, but everyone in the British government is understandably scared. There will be a strongly worded report in response.

As of writing, investigators do not see signs of foul play. A friend of mine is convinced it’s adversarial action.

The Pieces Are All Here

For some morbid fun, I red-teamed an ecoterrorist attack plan of my own.

Eversource’s electric sector modernization plan (ESMP) was meant for a regulatory body we discussed in February, but it is really more of a rundown of their infrastructure deficiencies against an electrifying Massachusetts. In particular, pages 95-124 show how under-prepared the electric infrastructure of the immediate Boston metro area truly is: every substation is at capacity, several substation transformers are more than fifty years old,² and Eversource has run into permitting delays everywhere they turn.

In particular, Eversource’s East Cambridge and Somerville substations—the two that serve Kendall Square—are particularly close to maximum capacity:

These substations are notionally sized for N-1 contingencies—if the largest transformer goes offline, the substation should not lose power. However, there are some substations that don’t meet N-1 contingency, and I suspect very few that could survive N-2. Utilities don’t like geolocating their substations for obvious reasons, but the ESMP provides a blurry map of their Boston-area substations, which was good enough to find these sites on Google Earth. They’re pretty small in footprint—one is 30x25 meters, the other 20x20 meters.

I suspect that two quadcopters with drone-drop grenades would be enough to cause a blackout in Kendall Square.³ With six quadcopters, I could guarantee a blackout and hinder Eversource’s ability to respond in short order.

Ten grand for the kit, two to five accomplices, maybe a 3D printer, maybe a few grand more for torch-ready getaway cars. Map out deployment zones, practice exfiltrations, procure burner phones for the operation. Mail out a manifesto about electric utilities refusing to decarbonize, make a demand to “declare a climate emergency,” and hey presto, I’ve joined the Robin Hood/Guy Fawkes/Ned Ludd continuum of populist terrorists.⁴

Meanwhile, the lead time for substation-spec transformers is pushing four years, with input raw material prices doubling since 2020. The above plot, with its fifteen-thousand-dollar budget, could cause easily $2-5M in materials replacement costs, plus untold economic costs for the local economy, plus loss of human life—especially if nearby Massachusetts General Hospital loses power too.

What is your plan for this?

Are you going to install hard-kill air defense systems in major metro areas? How about electronic warfare jammers turning your service territory into a GPS-denied environment? Eversource recently broke ground on a planned underground substation that would confound this plan, but that’s not running electrons until 2029. Short of this depth of expense, the only promising option I’ve seen is the Anduril Anvil platform, which sends out an aerial ramming drone that knocks enemy drones out of the sky before returning home.

But what if I 3D-print a NATO-spec assault rifle instead? What if I drive a truck through the puny chainlink fence you have around your substation? What if I organize a TikTok “die-in” on your office parking lot?

Ecoterrorism is here: the motivations, the means, the public support.

We must field an answer.

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This post and the information presented are intended for informational purposes only. The views expressed herein are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of their current or previous employers or any elected officials. The author makes no recommendations toward any electric utility, regulatory body, or other organization. While certain information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, the author has not independently verified this information, and its accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Accordingly, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, timeliness or completeness of this information. The author assumes no liability for this information and no obligation to update the information or analysis contained herein in the future.

1. I don’t want to read this book—message me if you want me to torture myself for the content.

2. You can see the surface rust from Google Earth.

3. As a spicy alternative, I’ve heard that some people have mounted flamethrowers for attacking grid infrastructure.

4. This wouldn’t actually advance decarbonization, but terrorists typically do not consider strategic efficacy. Luigi Mangione has not succeeded in challenging the healthcare industry any more than Al Qaeda succeeded in liberating the Muslim world. What did happen is that a lot of women started posting thirst for a terrorist who attacked the “right” enemy. Men have enacted horrific violence for hot women’s attention since at least the Iliad, so you had better believe that the wrong people are taking notes.