I’m pinging a combined Prepper/Threat Matrix list.
According to my read of the article, this is a simulation, like a military CPX, and these 150 companies will not be physically shutting off the grid.
But who knows what they’ll feel empowered to do...
After 4 days without power - most large American cities would be in the MadMax Zone...
So good of the Times to bring this to everyone’s attention.
Osama Obama picked the perfect time to declare his “war on coal”,the fuel responsible for almost half the electricity generated in this country.
The first priority would be to ensure that the NSA could spy on the survivors.
Sarge —
the NYT almost gets it right but doesn’t. See the excerpt below:
“protect equipment against an electromagnetic pulse, which could come from solar activity or be caused by small nuclear weapons exploded at low altitude, frying crucial components.
An attack using an electromagnetic pulse is laid out in extensive detail in the novel “One Second After,” published in 2009 and endorsed by Newt Gingrich. In another novel, “Gridlock,” published this summer and co-written by Byron L. Dorgan, the former senator from North Dakota, a rogue Russian agent working for Venezuela and Iran helps hackers threaten the grid. In the preface, Mr. Dorgan says such an attack could cause 10,000 times as much devastation as the terrorists’ strikes on Sept. 11, 2001.”
The article speaks of a nuclear detonation at *low* altitudes generating EMP that damages the grid. Wrong mostly, but right (see SREMP below). HIGH altitude 40+ KM is the best method. The bad guys have to get it up there, but the most modeled EMP attack is high altitude.
Refer to this article http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm and how the most damaging pulse - the HEMP - is generated via the Compton effect induced by a high-altitude burst. A low altitude burst does indeed produce a powerful EMP, called Source Region Electro-magnetic Pulse [SREMP], which is powerful locally, but the extent and permanence of the damage pales in comparison to a high altitude 40 - 40 KM) HEMP.
There are two pulses generated (some prefer to describe 3 pulses, E1-3, but E2 is akin to lightning in its effects and is not anticipated to act as a killer pulse) by nuclear EMP - the HEMP is VERY short duration, with nanosecond rises in voltage/induced current, and lasts about a millisecond. THIS (E1) is what fries the digital circuits of the modern era. The second pulse (E3) is longer duration and induces powerful voltages/currents in the long ‘antennae’ of the power grid, rail lines, etc. Together the two are electronically and even physically disabling to electronic and electrical infrastructure.
Furthermore, solar wind EMPs should only generate the ‘long wave’ EMP, (E3 and perhaps some E2) and pose little threat to any unplugged and moderately shielded electrical/electronic gizmos. One can easily protect your stuff from a solar storm EMP, and we should have days if not plenty of hours to prepare.
One Second After is of course more of a SOCIAL essay/novel - ‘lord of the Flies’ in the 21st century on a large scale. Gridlock is more about thwarting a different attack vector. The outcome is the same — a failure of civility within 9 days.
See also http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp/toc.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/mctl98-2/p2sec06.pdf
http://empcommission.org/
http://www.futurescience.com/X5DNA/X5DNA.html
Too few people know the extent of the problem.
ping
We have a whole house generator installed with enough propane for about a month.....tested it out during Hurricane Sandy. Also have a backup generator which runs on gas.
I’m not as worried about terrorist doing it as I am our own government doing it and blaming it on terrorist, but alas our government would have become the terrorist.
Read “The Harbinger” by Cahn
Here’s a link to a satellite tracking website that currently shows the track of KMS 3-2, a North Korean satellite that makes several passes over the US daily. If it contained a nuclear device, it would likely detonate when it is over Kansas or Minnesota.
http://www.n2yo.com/passes/?s=39026
Since the The Old Gray Whore only whores for elite liberals... I wonder if there’s something else to this...
Forget electricity try losing your water supply.
A year ago they shut our water off at the drop of a hat for 4 days straight. we were freaking out.
Imagine how long a new civil war would last when the gov shuts our water, electricity, natural gas, gasoline, internet, cell phone service off.
Not too long i would imagine.
We are F’ed...
The notion that ANY PART of our power grid is subject to failure/sabotage by some dumbass with a USB port/chip/disc or any such piece of krap is disgusting and smacks of lazyass incompetence of the highest order. It’s one thing to use the internet and related equipment to MONITOR operation but controlling a grid this way is beyond stupid. Controlling generation and switching by anything other than HANDS-ON , EYES-ON action is criminal.
In an earlier career part of my job was devising drills to simulate failures/casualties in nuclear power plants. The first thing that would have been corrected/eliminated as a possible problem would have been the chance that operation could be affected by something happening from outside the “wire” or “hull”. Lawsuits and jail time are too good for the clan of geniuses that have built these weaknesses into our systems.
Hydro-power in a bucket: http://knowledgeweighsnothing.com/how-to-build-a-hydroelectric-generator-free-pdf-plans/
(No, I haven’t tested it. Yet.)
bfl
pfl
pfl
Have you seen this old book called “Alone In The Wilderness”?
It’s in PDF format.
http://ia600300.us.archive.org/17/items/aloneinwildernes00knowrich/aloneinwildernes00knowrich.pdf