FASTER, PLEASE: ‘Project Spartacus’ aims to save electric grid from nuclear, solar attack.

After years of shrugs over concerns about the potential calamity an attack on the nation’s electric grid would cause, government and business leaders are joining to map a path to protect and maintain the system that powers everything from cellular phones to nuclear missile bases.

At a potentially game-changing three-day summit, government and business leaders gathered just outside Washington’s I-495 beltway this week to come up with quick fixes to protect the grid and address the larger issue of the impact a long shutdown would have.

“This is one of the conversations of our age,” said Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, who heads the Air Education and Training Command and Air University, which sponsored the summit.

“As we move into the digital world, the digital network world, the 21st century, as we are held to be accountable to defend our economy, our government, our sovereign soil and our people, this dependency becomes part of our conversation,” he said in an interview.

Kwast has created “Project Spartacus” to address an electromagnetic pulse type attack of the grid, either from an enemy or terrorist group or solar storm. At his summit, 40 national organizations and 150 governmental officials met in the largest official EMP meeting of its kind.

The mostly classified summit wasn’t called due to any new threat from four likely users of an EMP weapon — Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — but because there is greater attention to the issue as Americans, business and government becomes more and more dependent on electricity to power even their social connections.

I don’t want to live in a Bill Quick or William Forstchen novel.