Posted on 05/26/2009 5:56:11 PM PDT by LiveFreeOrDieUSA
Sunlight fills the bedroom. It's past 8 a.m., and it's cold. Why didn't the alarm go off? The bathroom lights are out. The house is without power. The battery-operated radio plays nothing but static. The phone is dead. What on earth has happened?
In fact, what happened was not on Earth. It was above it. A nuclear weapon has detonated high over North America, an explosion so far up that neither the flash nor bang disturbed anyone slumbering in darkened bedrooms across the United States. Electrical systems and computers from New York City to San Francisco cease to function. City streets turn into chaos. Fires break out, and no communications are available to send trucks to fight them. The sick and injured perish in overwhelmed, energy-sapped hospitals. Survivors, unable to fill their gas tanks, slowly walk away from the dead zone, unsure where to go or what they will find.
This scenario may sound like the plot of a science-fiction movie, but Bill Graham, former science adviser to President Reagan, says it's a realistic portrayal of what would happen to the United States after a massive electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage.org ...
News about 50 years old...
Not wanting to be a kill-joy, but I think US infrastructure is a bit tougher than a single nuke in orbit.
russia? china? france?
A nuclear explosion in space will only release prisoners in the Phantom Zone.
This is a theory without a good test. I think the impact of a EMP nuke would destroy some electronics and electrics but not most, and maybe not even more than few percent. I’ve worked in places where we had some much smaller pulses, yet much closer up. Didn’t lose anything except for some CRT browning, and in some places didn’t take and special precautions.
You can argue about the impact, but there is no doubt that China has or got the technology to build both a neutron bomb and an EMT device. Many pieces of equipment..civilian and military are tested to EMT specs, but no one really knows what the impact might be.
This is one reason a “star wars defense is needed”..even a small nuclear power might figure out how to do this..like N. Korea.
Also, they have identified what it would require to harden our grid against EMP or solar "influence"... and it's not a lot. Not that the O will spend a dime for that...
None of my firearms are computer operated. Trust me, they will work.
Oh goodie, I’ll have a chance to test all my Y2K food!
/sarc
I think we should test this hypothesis...over Iran.
Not only that, from what I have read it would take more than a Hiroshima-type fission weapon to do real damage. It would take at least a thermonuclear/fusion device to inflict measurable harm to the contintal US, something with a megaton-class yield. NK and Iran are nowhere close to having that capability.
Our power grids are pretty fragile. A few years ago, tree branches in Ohio blacked out the entire Northeast from Ontario to NYC. EMP will fry them.
Anyone interested in this possibility should read “One Second After.” A VG quick read about a community in the US during the year following an EMT attack.
Several countries probably have the capability. I doubt any have the capability of doing it without being able to tell where it came from.
The question is, who has the capability, and doesn't care about the retaliatory strike from the SLBMs that's going to come right after it?
But Obama is president now. Everyone loves us.
The messiah will protect us by being nice to terrorists.
“Not wanting to be a kill-joy, but I think US infrastructure is a bit tougher than a single nuke in orbit.”
No the opposite is true. The more high tech we have become, the more vulnerable to EMP we are. We have known about the effects of EMP since high altitude tests were done in the early 60s in the Pacific. The “Teak” test was, I believe, over 500 miles away from Hawaii, but when this “in space” explosion occured it blew out power in Hawaii. This was the more rugged technology of that day. By the 70s the concern over EMP had grown so that a DoD publication in the late 70s said that a 1 megaton burst 200 miles above the continental U.S. would blanket the entire mainland with EMP that would be extremely disruptive. That was in the “transistor” days. Now that we are in the micro transistor times the danger is much, much greater. That same burst would paralize the entire 48 contiguous states. There would be zero communications, no power, no internet, nada. Only EMP shielded equipment would survive. This would be some military things, that’s about it.
Such an EMP attack would probably precede a conventional one.
Are you sure they don’t have that capability?
“I think we should test this hypothesis...over Iran.”
____________________________________________________
Haha, there is nothing to test there, just tents and goats?
Well, we shall see (or hopefully not). I think you will be surprised by our recuperative power. If not, I will light a lantern.
“Anyone interested in this possibility should read “One Second After.” A VG quick read about a community in the US during the year following an EMT attack.”
This community in the story is actually MY little town. Even more powerful to read about this from that perspective.
Bill Forstchen, the author, lives here and is a professor in military history and technology.
From the article:
The former deputy administrator for NASA now chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States From Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. In July 2008, Graham testified before the House Armed Services Committee on the commission’s latest report. Only a handful of the committee’s 60 members showed up for the hearing.
I can picture Obama kneeling before Zod.
I’m thinking it would be bad but not so bad as to bring about the destruction of America. Some folks would die as a result of not having electricity but I think things would begin to return to normal fairly quickly.
Probably so. Paralyze, then pulverize...
:look to our strengths. We are surrounded by huge natural barriers. We are rich in intrinsic wealth. An invasion would end in catastrophe for the invader. We might suffer, but they will die by the millions (assuming they could get them here at all).
i believe most systems have been rad hardened by design for quite some time now, military anyway...
“I’m thinking it would be bad but not so bad as to bring about the destruction of America. Some folks would die as a result of not having electricity but I think things would begin to return to normal fairly quickly.”
______________________________________________________
Its not as simple as you think. Hospitals, Gas Stations, Stores, Water, everything will be knocked out. And the EMP will be folowed by a real Air-to-ground nuclear attack.
Our real enemies lie within our borders.
Then you’re talking about an outright nuke attack which is a far cry from an emp.
Very good and absolutely scary as hell to contemplate.
Bingo!
That's what those who worry about an EMP forget. To destroy a large area of American territory, the nuke must detonate high in space... and we would know who launched the missile. A nuke over the US is cause for retaliation by Strategic Command.
A 25-megaton nuclear airblast only has a viable destruction radius of about 30 miles. After 20 miles, "Residences are moderately damaged. Commercial buildings have sustained minimal damage. Twenty-five percent of the population between the [20 and 30 mi radii rings] are injured, mainly by flying glass and debris. Many others have been injured from thermal radiation -- the heat generated by the blast. The remaining seventy-five percent are unhurt."
A 20 mile radius (1256 sq mi) barely covers the state of Rhode Island (1212 sq mi). Exactly how does that equate to eliminating entire nations?
And again, that is for the biggest nukes. Pakistan has, as its largest nuke, a few 36-KILOton nukes. That means they need 695 such nukes just to make this small impact of a 30-mile radius with an airblast. (Hint: they don't have 695 of them. Estimates say 30-55 total.)
Further note: A 1-megaton surface blast has an effective radius of about 7 miles. The Pakis need about 28 of their top nukes to match just that. Again, the earth doesn't crumble away when these things go off. With a global total of only 5000 megatons, we can barely fully-evaporate Texas (266,000 sq mi), and that's only if we space the nukes out perfectly. The globe won't even have a divot the size of the Grand Canyon if we, as a global community, go all-in against the Lone Star folk.
The Russian’s Tsar Bomba was designed to be a 100 megaton yield but was tested at 50 megatons. Even at 100 megatons it would have only taken out an area the size of a couple of counties. Fallout would be the biggest killer.
The TV show ‘Jericho’ also covered this. ‘One Second After’ is pretty much the same as Jericho when it comes to the loss of power.
Agreed. And if anyone doubts it would get bad, all you have to do is look at what happened in NOLA after Katrina. That scene should scare every single American.
Do we have an electrical engineer to comment?
Field strengh decreases by the square of the distance. In addition, the grid is not a perfect antenna and would only absorb a fraction of the EMP pulse. In addition, there are multiple ground safeties designed to take lightening pulses to the ground.
Although I have no doubt an air burst would take out regional power, I’m not sure a N. Korea sized nuke exploding in space has the ability to take out the entire U.S. grid.
Anyone here familiar with the math?
No way does one EMP blast hobble the entire United States. Maybe 10-20 powerful EMP blasts would
Yes, I read it. I still don’t look at anything quite the same way. Even if the possiblity is remote, it makes sense to at least try to be prepared.
The take away for me was that when things go haywire, like after a natural disaster, we tend to think in terms of hours, days, unfortunately even weeks, for life to get back to normal. Consider the possiblity of years.
Yep, just check all my personal home defense devices (while cleaning them) … not a chip in the bunch. Nor are the self-contained projectiles associated with them computer controlled. Guess I’m safe. ;-)
“Why does every idiot...”
_________________________________
You’re talking about an explosion close to the ground. We’re talking about space buddy. The equivalent of hitting the broadside of a barn... with a rock.
I think you are pretty much correct. I am an EE and have been following this for quite a while. I don’t think small things like computers will get hit, but even if they do no one will care. The problem is that power transmission will be out for a long while. It will destroy the power transformers and other components that support the grid along with some generator facilities. Transformers take a long time to manufacture and replace. I would think in a large EMP event it could be up to a year to get the grid up.
While we are replacing the transformers we will have no electricity, which means no refrigeration. We would be back to the 19th century. This is something hard to imagine in a large city, however, I think it is very real. It will make 9/11 a walk in the park.
At the last IEEE annual meeting I brought this up with a few scientists. The subject of the meeting was the smart grid. There are lots of people pushing spending on the smart grid. At the same time there seems to be very little understanding of EMP and how dangerous it is. The response I got was that if this happens we are screwed.
It is possible to rework the system, at a cost, to protect the grid. Who would pay for the upgrade? Power systems are utilities or privately owned. I hate to say it but this will have to happen before anyone will pay attention. In the mean time as the guy said, we are screwed.
Give up, America!
Quit!
You cannot exist if we have even ONE nuke!
So you have 2400 big warheads and a few thousand small ones- we will defeat you with merely ONE!
Give up, don’t fight, surrender to our EMP threat!
Your puny technology is useless! Don’t build defenses!
(believe our propaganda!)
This is why my Ham radio, computer, and 1200 watt TEOTWAWKI generator live in a Faraday cage.
The US nuclear forces are hardened to resist EMP and submarine launched nukes would be immune to EMP. We thus we could massively retaliate against any nation that perpetrated such an attack against the US. However, the current occupant of the White House might just as well surrender.
It would take out a BUNCH of satellites. No GPS. (No DirecTV.) The military and the rest of us rely heavily on satellite communications these days.
Some power disruptions would be a big problem for city folks and the unprepared.
EMP would certainly be part of an assault against CONUS, but I can’t imagine who would have the balls to start something like that. I know that our nukes are EMP-hardened, so the counterstrike would be massive.
In any case, it pays to be prepared with good stores and self-defense options.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.