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Structure & interdependence

The Argentine energy system is a network of physical nodes that depend on one another, and that dependence is the first layer of the attack surface. The topology is published: an attacker does not need to break into control systems to know what to hit. This layer draws it for the two networks that hold the country up, gas and power, from open data.

Toggle the layers at top right. Gas: nodes and segments from the transmission-network snapshot. Power: high-voltage lines ≥220 kV colored by voltage level, and generation sized by installed capacity. Sources: the gas snapshot and the Energy Secretariat's datasets.

Two networks, one system

Gas and power are not separate sectors: they are a coupled machine. Gas feeds thermal generation, generation drives the high-voltage grid, and that grid feeds the compressor stations that push the gas back out. The map draws that circuit with 76 pipeline segments, 221 backbone lines (133 of them at 500 kV, the spine that keeps the interconnected system in sync), and 52 plants sized by capacity, from Yacyretá to Atucha to the thermal plants around Buenos Aires, which are what load it.

An attack that cuts one link can force another offline that the attacker never looked at. That is systemic coupling: a fault propagates across networks no one runs as one, and it only becomes visible when you look at the whole.

Why topology, not load

An earlier version colored the gas segments by utilization. That figure, from the same snapshot, carries known errors, with segments reading above 100%. Rather than show a doubtful number, this layer shows only the topology: what connects to what. Cascade impact is the next reading over that same structure.

Limits of this layer

  • The coordinates of refineries, LNG terminals, and upstream hubs are approximate and public. There is no asset inventory and nothing that is not already published.
  • The gas-network snapshot is a fixed-date photo and does not include the newest transmission segments (the reversal and expansion around Perito Moreno / ex-GPNK). The network shown is the one in force up to the snapshot, not today's.
  • The power layer shows the backbone transmission and generation by MW; the capacity of the large conventional plants, which the official dataset omits, comes from a curated list of public figures.