Electromagnetic Pulse: An Avoidable Disaster

GOPUSA ^ | January 4, 2005 | Paul M. Weyrich

[Kerfuffle]

Am I correct in recalling that you don't really need a nuke to create a major EMP bomb? Wasn't there an article in Popular Mechanics awhile back saying that any power could cobble together an effective conventional EMP device with about $600 worth of parts?

[1066AD]

The soviets defended their use in avionics of vacuum tubes in a semiconductor age by saying they were immune to EMP effects, others said it was merely soviet inability to keep up with the technology race :)

[Stashiu]

Bingo!

EMP would have serious implications. Could do a lot of economic damage, at the least. Hmmmmmmmmm, isn't that what Al Qaida aims to do?

[blackdog]

I used to EMP harden the navy and armed forces equipment. Even computers. Most navy vessels are hardened above the waterline by gear I made.

If any nation can explode a nuclear burst over America at a high altitude, my same sentiments regarding understating the obvious still apply here. Or do I need to explain that what is placed aloft still follows physical laws. What's going on here is a justification for nuclear war lite, like some beer commercial. It's not an appropriate retaliation to nuke Pakistan or Iran if they only nuke us in a first strike above 60,000 feet? When does it really count? 40,000 feet?

No folks, hardening ourselves against an EMP nuclear born burst is like claiming wearing a condom does not mean you raped someone. Sorry to be crude........

[Radioactive]

I love fried chips.

Except when they are in my electronic gear.

You are right, but I was thinking that when a missile would be launched, we could shut down any machines that use electronics and then the EMP would not have any effect.

Burrying the fibre optic cables and power lines would prevent a lot of problems like we had when the power went out a year ago.

[RobRoy]

I think I am gonna create a "We're all gonna die!!!" ping list and put everyone on it.

Then I'll charge people ten bucks to remove them.

I'll retire in a couple of weeks...

[Stashiu]

I don't get your point or follow your logic.

I'm on meds and confused.

[Centurion2000]

One scenario outlined by the EMP Commission predicted that a blast over Chicago, where 70% of our country's total power generation occurs, would instantly impact cities as distant as New York and Washington, D.C.

Once again, thank God Texas has its own power grid.

[zek157]

I think we are talking 2 2 different things. Of course we would make glass if anyone hit us with a high altitude burse. That's a given.

Question is what the EMP would do to society. The military is hardened. Commercial grid and communication are not and would take much time to get back online.

[azhenfud]

"There has to be something, within Constitutional bounds, that they can do about this."

They need to pass a law prohibiting the detonation of nuclear devices in US airspace without permission then throw billions of $ at it to see it's enforced.

[blackdog]

A non-nuclear EMP is only good for about a 500' radius, or 250 feet from the epicenter. A ground based nuke blast will not knock out too far due to surface geography. It will just kill and poison everyone for a few hundred square miles immediately and then do it residually for another decade to boot.

I find these arguments over this to be ludicrous. What is so confusing about zero tolerance and assured destruction of any state setting off any WMD on our soil or over our airspace? Explaining that we need to do this or that to minimize damage to us is only making a confusing statement to the world. By doing this we are really saying "If you nuke us we will nuke you back, but if you nuke us above 50,000 feet we might not"????

Please people!

[Redcloak]

HAH!! And people said that I was nuts for investing in wind-up computers!

[tfecw]

Your correct that you don't need a nuke for an EMP blast.

I'm not sure how easy it is to make though. I *think* it's not something McGuiver could piece together with bleach, baby powder, crushed light bulbs, and a sixer of beer though. I thought it was pretty complex stuff. I wouldn't say its out of the realm of the Russians or Chinese or any other Major country who'd want one. Then again with the age of the Internet and France collaborating with terrorist..who knows.

[azhenfud]

Yes.

[backhoe]

"Am I correct in recalling that you don't really need a nuke to create a major EMP bomb? Wasn't there an article in Popular Mechanics awhile back saying that any power could cobble together an effective conventional EMP device with about $600 worth of parts?"

http://www.softwar.net/emg.html
Explosive Magnetocumulative Generator Warhead

[blackdog]

They wanted to run utility lines near my house, which is also an airport. Once they considered that as an aviation hazard, they had to run them underground for about 500' if they decided to run them near me, they rerouted the proposed lines to elsewhere. Underground transmission lines are entirely cost prohibitive.

[Blueflag]

Actually this is a nightmarish scenario, not an inconvenience scenario.

No water pressure. No sanitation.
No food deliveries.
Food supply spoils in situ.
Starvation is widespread.
Any civil disturbance or crime is unstoppable by the un-armed/; un-organized/ un-trained.
No medicine.
No law enforcement of the ability to call them or dispatch them.
No information exchange.
No medicine.
NOTHING civilian works except mechanical tools.

Lord of the Flies sets in.

Safest place to be in the civilized world would be a local military installation.

[MD_Willington_1976]

You don't need a nuclear bomb to create an EMP, you do not even need to detonate a nuclear bomb over a city for EMP, you can detonate a nuclear bomb in space and it will do the same thing.

These weapons are based on the Compton effect.

A non nuclear EMP source can be made out of a modified existing electronics technologies.

HPM, High powered microwave, focussed beam EMP weapon.

FCG, Flux compression generator bomb (Popular Mechanics EMP article)

[G.Mason]

"A nuclear explosion over Chicago, for example, could plunge a large portion of our country into darkness, with electricity lost for days, even months, perhaps in some places years. All computerized activity in the region would cease. The culprit: High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse."

Oh the horror!

Let us all crawl on our bellies like snakes, worrying about "Nuclear Winter".

I thought that doper Carl Sagan died. Did Edwards get him back on his feet?