“Before we reach that point, or near that point, I see a grid-down reset to Alas, Brave New Babylon.”
That was a perfect short story. Perfect. It took into account the true human response and the most probable scenario of chaos.
Taking down the grid is easy enough to do. EMP is the furthest thing from my mind and I have professional experience in that field. I am far more worried about human interference against the grid that can take it down. That is EASY to do. No science fiction required, just a bunch of ragheads and simple tools of the trade.
Or just a bunch of pissed off anybody’s who all thought, “Screw them city folks. We starve so they can have electric? I don’t think so.”
"Contrary to popular Internet legend, EMP isn’t this “destroy all thing electronic and electricalâ€. heck, if it were, you wouldn’t survive (your very heartbeat relies on electrical impulses). EMP may disrupt something but it doesn’t destroy it unless it is connected to very long wires that can absorb the pulse over very long distances. EMP lasts a few milliseconds and it over. It doesn’t hang around forever like those on the Internet claim. It is a very brief electrical pulse that is actually very weak."
Let me quote a few things from this excellent page on the Russian EMP tests:
Other known effects of Test 184 were that it knocked out a major 1000-kilometer (600-mile) underground power line running from Astana (then called Aqmola), now the capital city of Kazakhstan, to the city of Almaty. Some fires were reported. In the city of Karaganda, the EMP started a fire in the city's electrical power plant, which was connected to the long underground power line. The shielded electrical cable was buried 3 feet (90 cm.) underground.Note it was a "shielded electrical cable".
The geomagnetic-storm-like E3 component of the EMP (also called MHD-EMP) can easily penetrate into the ground. The E3 component of the Test 184 detonation (caused by the movement of the Earth's magnetic field) began rising immediately after the detonation, but did not reach its peak until 20 seconds after the detonation. The E3 pulse then decayed over the next minute or so. The E3 component only affects equipment connected to long electrical conductors.Note, the E3 impulse from that test lasted 80,000 milliseconds. ;-)
If the United States W49 warhead used for the Starfish Prime test had been used in Test 184, the E3 component would have been more than 5000 nT/min in the Karaganda region. According to recent studies, a disturbance in the present-day United States of 4800 nT/min would likely damage about 365 large transformers in the U.S. power grid, and would leave about 40 percent of the U.S. population without electrical power for as long as 4 to 10 years due to the loss of large transformers that would have to be custom-built (many in other countries, especially if power was not available for the two U.S. plants that are able to make these transformers).Now, imagine several such weapons (or even larger ones) detonated within a few nanoseconds of each other to blanket the entire US.
While the major risk may be solar storms, nuclear EMP is a very real threat - especially if done by sneak attack.
"EMP may disrupt something but it doesn't destroy it unless it is connected to very long wires that can absorb the pulse over very long distances."
From Wikipedia:
The E1 pulse is the very fast component of nuclear EMP. E1 is a very brief but intense electromagnetic field that induces very high voltages in electrical conductors. E1 causes most of its damage by causing electrical breakdown voltages to be exceeded. E1 can destroy computers and communications equipment and it changes too quickly for ordinary surge protectors to provide effective protection against it, although there are special fast-acting surge protectors that will block the E1 pulse.The oft-quoted value for E1 is around 50,000 V/m. That means a 4-inch iPhone antenna would generate around 5,000 V. Bye-bye iPhone.
Of course, anything plugged into electrical outlets would fare far worse.