Posted on 11/30/2018 12:51:24 PM PST by BenLurkin
Lots we *do not know*.
One of the principle reasons people do not attack with EMP is *no one* really knows what will happen and how much of what technolgies will go down.
Worst case is critical components of most electrical and electronic gear is destroyed. That is a very unlikely scenario. In my friends work, only about a third of running vehicles were completely disabled, for example.
Best case is a significant fraction.
For an attacker, anything less than the entire grid being down for months is pretty bad, because of counterstrikes.
If it is worse case, yes, 90% of people on the coasts die.
The percentage of deaths drop dramatically as the damage decreases.
Leave 10% of the Country mostly intact, and the death rate plummets.
An attacker hates that much uncertainty.
Also, President Trump ran, in part, on hardening the electrical grid. I believe that work is proceeding. A little protection goes a long way, both in preserving the grid and making an attackers life much more uncertain.
Counterstrikes would be completely independent from the power grid and would certainly happen. If it weren’t for that, we’d have already been nuked.
“...so why wouldn’t you want to harden the grid when you say “One more thing. The more we shy away from building up our defense forces, the sooner we’ll see a nuclear exchange??”
Oh, I’m all for it. Convince your regional power company to make plans for rebuilding, if the local investors aren’t too corrupt for that. Some writers have misled us, when they said that the whole U.S. has one monolithic power supply. Even the components are different from one area and another.
I don’t think convincing some regional power companies to rebuild is going to harden the grid. This is a national security issue that should be addressed nationally...It is just as important as the border wall, and yet we are not asking the border states to build their walls... The grids, tho regional, are dependent on each other...If one goes down...cascading will occur.
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The greatest improvement for power companies would be to have plans, materials and components to build new power plants in some of the smaller cities. That’s a possibility, where local business and government leaders are not too selfish and lazy to bother. Finding employees for power plants in big, temporarily toxic cities might be difficult.
Don’t think anyone is opposed to that, but that is not hardening the grid except that might take some of the nuclear plants off line, and if they lose power, that would be a huge problem for the regions around them...
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Each of us should have our own plans and supplies to get by, though, to lighten the load for everyone else. That dreaded solar energy can power the right kind of freezer (Sundanzer, etc.). Gardening and home canning would work well too, for non-Malthusian folks.
Gardening, canning, solar/wind etc, great. Actually, I suspect I am more prepared than most people on this board in terms of off grid living...Believe me, I get it, but I don’t want to spend the last 25 years of my life defending off grid property and practicing off grid living because the government did not protect the citizenry—one of its main functions.
Trump is for hardening the grid; I suspect if he did not have so much da*ned resistance from the Dems, GOPe backstabbers, and media, he would have addressed it already.
“Doesn’t the military use our electric grid?
I will answer, yes they do...”
They don’t need it, though.
Actually, we need to tell them, the Russians and the Chinese that if any country does this to us, they ALL get a full scale response that destroys them as viable nations. Very much like the unannounced Russian doomsday plan in Dr. Strangelove, except we announce it. That, plus we harden up our infrastructure and put away reserves of food, etc., and also indicate our eagerness (not willingness) to work together to avoid this happening to any nation. Big carrot, big stick - and the incentive will work to reduce the likelihood of this in particular, and tensions in general. A strong and firm, but not aggressive, US is a force for great stability.
Actually, we need to tell them, the Russians and the Chinese that if any country does this to us, they ALL get a full scale response that destroys them as viable nations. Very much like the unannounced Russian doomsday plan in Dr. Strangelove, except we announce it. That, plus we harden up our infrastructure and put away reserves of food, etc., and also indicate our eagerness (not willingness) to work together to avoid this happening to any nation. Big carrot, big stick - and the incentive will work to reduce the likelihood of this in particular, and tensions in general. A strong and firm, but not aggressive, US is a force for great stability.
The Carrington Event to which you are undoubtedly referring occurred in 1859.
We would, unlike in a nuclear EMP attack, have enough warning to shut down critical infrastructure and prevent many problems. People would have to do without electricity for a few days at most, and that would be bad but not catastrophic.
A wild card would be the nuclear reactors, both here and abroad - I don’t know if they can just be shut down, especially the cooling aspect. If not then we need hardened reserve generators in place at every nuke plant, with fuel for a minimum of a month. That, for every single plant worldwide, is orders of magnitude cheaper than a single meltdown anywhere.
“What about the elderly and preemies?”
Read “One Second After.”
“People can believe it or not but if it happens it will be too late for most people to survive.”
As to your question, more than enough
There are numerous threats we face but this one pales in comparison when you consider the infetesimal chances of it actually working and doing the damage described
Forgive me for getting the date wrong. I knew it took place somewhere in the mid 1800’s. We can only guess what this would do as our technology has become vulnerable to events like that. What I am saying that we have more to worry about than man made EMP. Never underestimate the power of nature.
Define “modern”
GE and others have the ability to build and or repair turbines in the United states, in many different regions, in fact.....
“What about the elderly and preemies?”
VERY high mortality for all preemies and elderly requiring power for dialysis and oxygen. Everyone on life support dies. Everyone requiring insulin dies not long after their supply dries up or becomes ineffective due to lack of refrigeration.
Read “One Second After.”
Yes, sadly, you are correct.
It won’t just affect “snowflakes” as some here believe.
If/When SHTF, it will affect everyone to some degree :(
I read the first several chapters. I just could not finish the book because it was so sobering, depressing and frustrating :(
Frustrating because just like the border wall, relatively speaking, hardening the grid would not cost that much yet it would provide priceless dividends!
Thanks, I did. And I just picked up One Year After, and The Final Day. The 2nd and 3rd books of the trilogy for this weekend.
The yucksters on this thread would do well to do the same.
Not on the scale needed after a large or staggered EMP over Central US. Most of the power plants nationwide would be fried. (And we are talking about turbines which generate electrical power - not turbines that run jet engines to be clear here?)
I was not able to find out exactly how long it takes to make a single turbine generator, but I did learn that most of the market is currently dominated by China ...
In any event, we would need hundreds if not thousands of these devices each taking month to a year to produce - then there is the shipping, the installation, and the testing before they would come on line.
Start stocking up on bituminous coal now, it will be a very long winter and, coupled with the Super Grand Solar Minimum, very cold for the next 350 years ...
So the power goes out for a year... and nothing works... and most Americans starve to death...
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