I did a search and this is the most detailed description of cost, sort of broken down. Other sources that cited lower figures were just figures without any explanation, some links below. I personally know zilch about the technical stuff, just trying to discern the facts. It looks as though the lower figure is the cost of vital transformers; but to harden the entire grid would be a lot more. What exactly that hardening would consist of is beyond my ken although I might get a grasp if I read something dumbed down.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/229205059
House Homeland Security Committee adviser Christopher A. Beck told the crowd that an EMP attack would transfer the U.S. from the 21st century to the 19th. The EMP conference drew academics, researchers, government officials, and business people from all over.
So what’s the fix? Can we protect every electrical device? Every integrated circuit? Of course not. But we can protect power grid’s backbone.
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, former staff member of the congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, told Newsmax yesterday that several hundred of the big electrical transformers required to keep the electrical grid up and humming could be hardened (just as military and intelligence systems are), at a cost of $200 to $400 million.
Pry estimates that an investment of $20 billion could harden the entire power grid from an EMP attack.
If Pry’s figures are accurate, and it would only cost $400 million to harden our power grid (essentially the nerve and respiratory system of modern society) than it’s nothing less than negligence that the money isn’t being spent — at the very least to deter such an attack.
The additional $20 billion to harden the rest of the grid could be done over time. What’s important is to have the capability to recover electrical power within weeks and months, rather than years — in the wake of an EMP attack.
Weeks without power, people could survive. Months without power, too many would certainly die. But following a year without the ability to easily transport food and treat water — what would be left when the lights came back on?
Very long and detailed article, couldn’t find any figures for hardening the grid. (Maybe no one really knows??)
http://www.brucespeaks.com/?tag=emp
Snip: (scroll down a bit)
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 10:26 AM
By: Ronald Kessler
At the least, Pry says, 100 to 200 large transformers used in electrical transmission should be protected against EMP attack.
“The key for our electric power grid are these big transformers,” Pry says. “All together, there are about 300 of them. They are absolutely indispensable to the operation of the power grid. If you fry those things, there are only a couple of countries in the world that sell them for export, and it takes a year, at least, to make one of them,” Pry says.
Equally important are small computers that regulate the power grid.
“This country can’t survive for six months without electricity, let alone a year,” Pry says. “Everything else would go down after losing electric power.”
To harden those transformers against an attack would cost a mere $200 million to $400 million, Pry says. For perhaps $20 billion, the entire power grid could be protected, Pry says. By comparison, the stimulus bill costs nearly $800 billion. Yet without electricity, no one would have a job.
Yes, everything I have read about the grid going down is in relation to the large transformers. Apparently we do not manufacture them in this country and it takes about 2 years to get them so I guess they are the most important part of the grid to protect.
Bottom line it looks like the govt is not going to do anything much to harden the grid so if and when it goes down we will all be on our own for a couple of years if not more. Some people are preparing some aren’t. I would hate to try to survive for 2 years without power. It would be miserable.