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Kart and Old Sarge, what are you two doing? Don't you remember the long article I put on here explaining the difference between a solar flare magnetic pulse and an EMP attack and the difference in the damage of the two?

Don't you remember the scientific tests experts did of trucks/cars/ambulances when they bombarded them with electromagnetic pulses? Those were performed for the Commission on EMPs the government did in 2008 or 2009?

I know both of you read that - have you dumped scientific evidence and gone back to no cars will run crap and an EMP from a solar flare and an attack are the same?

Do you want that article put back on here for the truth or is it okay for people to freak out with wrong information. I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous.

Cars will run whether it is a solar flare EMP or an attack EMP.

I watched that long meeting those three men had.

Henry Cooper, who lead strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union under President Reagan, and who now heads High Frontier, a group pushing for missile defense.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry has served on the staffs of the EMP Commission, the Strategic Posture Commission, the Commission on the New Strategic Posture of the U.S., the House Armed Services Committee and the Central Intelligence Agency. He is the Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security for the Congressional Caucus on EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) that endeavors to carry on the work of the EMP Commission. He is also the Director of the United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, an advisory body to Congress on policies to counter weapons of mass destruction.

Cooper and Woolsey got their “scientific” information from the fiction book, One Second After, both of them talked about it. They also don't know the difference between the effect of a solar flare and an EMP attack.

However, Dr. Peter Fry was on the Commission and he knows the truth. He didn't correct these other two. Fry knows cars will run. The experts tested those vehicles for Fry and the others on that commission. I'm sure Fry didn't want to embarrass the other two men because they were so wrong.

Briefly, so I don't post the whole thing again, an EMP from a solar flare goes in a straight line from the sun and we will know where it is going to hit. It goes directly into the electric grid. If you have a device plugged into the wall, it's fried. If it not plugged into the wall, it's fine. Cars will run. During the test, a few cars stopped running and started again when turned on. On the ambulance, a computer stopped and started again when turned on (it wasn't plugged into the grid). Everything directly fed/connected by the grid will be fried. It's called straight line damage.

An EMP attack damage is regional. The region it explodes over is affected and takes out power. The height of the explosion also determines how far away it will damage. It's more an umbrella damage and not a straight line damage. If one happens over the west coast, at some distance the damage stops and it never gets to the east coast. The cars tests were specifically done to see the damage in this case. None happened except for a brief stop for some and they started again. Cars will run.

RFEngineer, you seem to know more about this than others.

“Briefly, so I don’t post the whole thing again, an EMP from a solar flare goes in a straight line from the sun and we will know where it is going to hit. It goes directly into the electric grid. If you have a device plugged into the wall, it’s fried.”

Thanks for the compliment, but please let me correct something here:

The EMP from a solar flare is caused by charged particles traveling at a high rate of speed hitting the geomagnetic field and displacing it. when a magnetic field is displaced, it generates a voltage in wires that directly cross that magnetic field.

So your assertion that anything plugged in will be “fried” is incorrect.

Let’s put it to scale: A Nuclear EMP E-1 pulse electric field may rise to 50,000V/m (that’s volts per METER) from 5kHz to 1000MHz

A solar flare of Carrington class may rise to 30 V/km (that’s volts per KILOMETER). so this is why electronics (say a TV) will be unaffected - there is simply not enough induced voltage from a solar flare to impact it. However, let’s say you’ve got a power line that is 1000km long - that will create a DC offset in a transformer of 30,000 Volts - High voltage transformers are linear devices, and highly optimized. An offset of 30,000 volts will saturate the transformer every half-cycle. what happens to the energy in saturation? It dumps to heat. the heat, if not dissipated, quickly builds up and may melt windings or boil off cooling oil. Eventually (even quickly) go “boom”.

Also, during the saturation condition, harmonics are created on the grid - this will cause grid instability - it COULD cause transient voltages in places (but surge protection devices that are standard these days can easily deal with this). Chances are, all plugged in electronics will be just fine in a solar flare.

So a solar flare cannot damage electronics directly. There may be failure modes where transient voltages could be propagated that may damage electronics if there are no surge protection devices in your transformer, meter, main service panel, or on a power strip.....if you are that unlucky, it COULD happen - but is unlikely to be widespread.

Now lets talk about the EMP commission testing on cars.

You are correct in your reading of the report. What is not known is how actually representative of an EMP pulse the test range they used was. the true answer is we simply do not know how vulnerable our elecctronics are to an EMP - but......we DO know that semiconductors are trending to faster processors, which are dimensionally smaller, that means that over time electronics become more vulnerable to a nuclear EMP event.

Anyway.....that’s out there for discussion.

Personally if they don't have the grid up in a year then it's pretty much 'Mad Max' for most of the country. If you think of the chaos that results with the power being out for weeks due to a Hurricane then multiply that buy the whole country. It will turn 'dog-eat-dog' pretty fast. Remember the near riots from the gasoline lines during Sandy? Well the nearest gas station working could end up being hundreds of miles not tens. But the lack of clean water and working sewers will kill the most in MHO.

In fact most any SHTF over such a wide area is pretty much a bend over situation. My goal is to survive two growing seasons. Anything beyond that would take more resources and skills than I have. I hope that I don't discourage people from prepping, and I know my answer disappoints those who believe that I see myself as Mel Gibson, but to quote another movie icon: "A man has to know his limitations."

I agree. Cars may may not be impacted. The bigger concern should be whether a part or a gallon of gas will be available two weeks later. My concern is the power and manufacturing and power sector which is all interconnected. The economic impact of a Carrington Event to our economy is not something that should be not taken lightly, and unfortuneately our government is sticking its head in the sand, rather than preparing necessary contingency plans, and systems to address it.