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Forget Climate Change: EMP Attack On Power Grid Could Kill 9-In-10
Investor's Business Daily ^ | May 12, 2014 | IBD EDITORIALS

Posted on 05/12/2014 9:26:01 AM PDT by raptor22

Vulnerability: Expert testimony before Congress on Thursday warned that an electromagnetic pulse attack on our power grid and electronic infrastructure could leave most Americans dead and the U.S. in another century.

That dire warning came from Peter Vincent Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.

He testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event could wipe out 90% of America's population.

Most people's eyes might glaze over upon mention of the committee name, the title of the hearing — "Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP): Threat to Critical Infrastructure" — and the general subject of EMP. But it is a real threat and not the stuff of science fiction.

Some attention has been paid to the potential cataclysmic effects of a natural phenomenon such as a massive solar storm, an event that has occurred in America's horse-and-buggy era when it did not matter.

Today an electromagnetic pulse event would be devastating. It wouldn't need a solar storm, just a solitary nuke detonated in the atmosphere above the American heartland. We would envy the horse-and-buggy era.

"Natural EMP from a geomagnetic superstorm, like the 1859 Carrington Event or 1921 Railroad Storm, and nuclear EMP attack from terrorists or rogue states, as practiced by North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2013, are both existential threats that could kill 9-of-10 Americans through starvation, disease and societal collapse," the Washington Free Beacon quoted Pry as saying.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; US: District of Columbia; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: electricgrid; emp; northkorea; nuclearjihad; nuclearterror; nuclearterrorb; peterpry; petervincentpry; powergrid; pry
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To: sand88

“We have a greater chance of a Carrington Event occurring.

That one could keep a fella up at night! We’ve had two CME in the past several years that could have wiped out the Earth and they were not that far from our orbit.


41 posted on 05/12/2014 10:13:31 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Are!)
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To: ssaftler
However, what would be the secondary effect if all power went out in an area from Buffalo to Chicago?

It would be dark, for a while, if it happened at night. Likely some areas into the next night.

Would the rest of the U.S. Power grid try to compensate for the loss, taxing the grid to the point where other sites start to collapse, with a domino effect of taking the whole system down?

If it went down, there is no load to pick up. The connecting lines are limited to their capacity, the relays are not going to let too great a power pass. If the protective relays are not working, the line is down and no power passes.

Or would the grid have the intelligence to automatically break off the parts of the country that drop, preserving the integrity outside the primary area?

Yes, the dark areas would be limited. Possible to be large for a while, but not unlimited.

42 posted on 05/12/2014 10:15:28 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Sasparilla

great advice - useful in any power outage.

I was ‘out’ for 19 days in the ICE STORM of 1998 - and 5 days this last Christmas - enough to lose refrigerator foods.

re Faraday cages - would a box wrapped in copper screen that could set over a PC work - and or to include cell phone? - to preserve them until such time as the grid might go up again?

Also - I have refused to allow the ‘smart’ meter to be installed on my home - they, at least, can’t track which appliances/make/usage of same I use....and maybe ??? a bit harder to control my access?

Even so, the old meter is on the outside wall a foot from my inside wall - head of bed. I understand that it still omits EMPs - tho’ at a much lower level than the Smart meters???

Would a piece of copper screening between the meter and head of my bed interrupt the EMP’s? (I’m an old great gramma and my bed is far to heavy for me to move to another wall.)


43 posted on 05/12/2014 10:19:15 AM PDT by maine-iac7 (Christian is as Christian does - by their fruits)
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To: servantboy777
Oh good grief!!

Keep the masses all stirred up and in a state of fear.

Machiavelli in the Prince advised to keep your people under control put an enemy at the city gate even if you have to pay for him yourself. Still an operative political strategy.

44 posted on 05/12/2014 10:24:37 AM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: maine-iac7
Avian flu, suitcase nukes, WMD’s, Swine Flu, New Ice age, Glogal warming, Climate change, polar vortex, sea level rise, EMP attack, Hole in the Ozone, Asteroid near miss, Fracking causing earthquakes, acid rain, Antibiotic resistant SUPER strains...on an on an on.

Don't you realize, this is an attempt to keep folks from seeing the real issues.

45 posted on 05/12/2014 10:26:14 AM PDT by servantboy777
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To: raptor22

Since so many democrats are dependent on the State for survival we can assume many more democrats will die in an EMP attack.

Maybe that will motivate democrats to get off their butts and deal with this issue.


46 posted on 05/12/2014 10:33:35 AM PDT by GOPJ (Want to keep your doctor? Remove your Democrat Senator. - - Freeper Balding_Eagle)
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To: maine-iac7
QUOTE: ...while turning loose their 'private army' now trained to shoot dogs and people at will, from children to old ladies.

I reckon the people will start shooting back, and that "private army" won't be intact long.

47 posted on 05/12/2014 10:35:13 AM PDT by jimmyray
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To: Pearls Before Swine

I doubt you would need to reconfigure cars. Its not like the initial EMP would redamage them. Just replace the bad circuits and start them up.

The biggest problem would be with banking and people who rely on delicate electronics to work. They would be SOL for quite a while, before new electronics arrived.


48 posted on 05/12/2014 10:37:43 AM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: thackney
As an electrical engineer, specialized in power systems, I strongly doubt a single nuclear explosion would be more than a localized event.

Correct .. it would take 3 explosions.

However, I'm sure there are must simpler ways to topple our house of cards.

49 posted on 05/12/2014 10:41:32 AM PDT by The Duke ("Forgiveness is between them and God, it's my job to arrange the meeting.")
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To: raptor22

50 posted on 05/12/2014 10:41:56 AM PDT by SandRat (Duty - Honor - Country! What else needs said?)
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To: The Duke

I doubt 300 would destroy the all the nations electrical equipment past the point to return to use.


51 posted on 05/12/2014 10:42:47 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Pearls Before Swine

There is a huge difference between a time when people and a society was living without electricity, versus a modern suddenly losing electricity.

Before electricity, everything could get done, agriculture, food distribution, factories, the individual had everything he needed as well and the store shelves were stocked with all his needs, from lanterns and oil, to candles, and horse harnesses, the chemicals to glass his eggs.

The home was built and equipped for a non-electric world, and the use of horses, we don’t have all that today, we don’t own those things and they aren’t even made anymore in many case, or in tiny numbers in others, there is no agriculture or distribution system, or plants, that doesn’t depend on electricity.

If the farmer lost electricity, as did everything that comes to him, seed, fuel, pesticides, irrigation, harvesting, and everything that goes from him, then we would lose the growing season and the next, and who knows when it end.

What would it take after a few months of being shutdown and fallow, for the local supermarkets to rehire, and restock, and become supermarkets again?

Our hardware stores carry hammers and nails, but they don’t carry non-electric sewing machines, and horse plows.


52 posted on 05/12/2014 10:42:56 AM PDT by ansel12 ((Ted Cruz and Mike Lee-both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Comm as Ginsberg's importance fades)
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To: Kartographer

ping


53 posted on 05/12/2014 10:43:47 AM PDT by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
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To: Peter ODonnell

Fear Talk—someone wants a great deal of money from the Government. No one knows how an EMP attack would work? Its like Nuclear war. Ever think that any nation who did this would be burned to a crisp? Our subs would NOT be effected and would launch all they have at any suspect nation (or any enemy nation we think had a part in the attack). I believe it would be scattered—Inner cities would go “Mad Max” but most of the nation would survive—out losses would be maybe 10 or 20% tops. But the source of the attack would lose 90% of their people. America would become feared and respected. We would rebuild a new America—a Not so PC America.


54 posted on 05/12/2014 10:45:02 AM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: raptor22

an EMP attack from us on another country would NOT have nearly the same disastrous impact- so we cannot threaten M.A.D. for EMP attack

Most other countries could more easily go back to third world lifestyles- they mostly are already


55 posted on 05/12/2014 10:50:19 AM PDT by Mr. K (If you like your constitution, you can keep it...Period. PALIN/CRUZ 2016)
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To: Pontiac

It has happened before in human History. And the results were so thorough that our modern science can’t seem to find the cause of the vanishing act. What killed off the Easter Islanders? What happened to the civilization which built Gobekli Teppe? etc.


56 posted on 05/12/2014 10:52:29 AM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: Pontiac; All

you opine: “All of the unburied dead would generate huge amounts of CO2 and methane as the bodies decomposed. “

Never fear. they got that covered - redistributed HUNDREDS of thousands of these all over the country - at FEMA camps. I know long haulers who have seen these stacked by the thousands on flatbeds being transported. Each will hold multiple bodies. (Does anyone do research?)

these are basically casket liners - the caskets fit INSIDE them before burial - HOWEVER, what would the CDC need for hundreds of thousands of them - actually - with ANY of them? And why has the CDC changed the covers form the normal casket liners - which are rounded, like a casket, to flat? the video tells you why.

They would surely be great for multiple, quick burial of massive amounts of dead bodies. eh wot?

this is a good introductory video for the uninformed. There’s many more available for those who would like to be informed of what is now going on ‘in your face’’ - ‘

Again - this is only ONE site of such stockpiles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zSDdm-SHI


57 posted on 05/12/2014 10:52:35 AM PDT by maine-iac7 (Christian is as Christian does - by their fruits)
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To: Pearls Before Swine

it would be way more than months- just to get parts to reconfigure trucks would be hard, with little communications to organize and then ship parts


58 posted on 05/12/2014 10:53:04 AM PDT by Mr. K (If you like your constitution, you can keep it...Period. PALIN/CRUZ 2016)
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To: thackney; raptor22; DoughtyOne; aegiscg47; Sasparilla; sand88; maine-iac7; CodeToad
Whether a Carrington Event occurring , or a singular nuclear blast 60 miles overhead
or even multiple warheads, or three separate attacks on West Coast, the Heartland, and the East Coast would have an effect on the electrical distribution .
As I recall it was last December that we learned of an attack on a sub-station on FreeReport :
"The Complex 'Military-Style' Raid on California Power Station Spooks U.S.,Saturday, December 28, 2013"
and the FED kept it quiet from 1 AM attack on April 16 , 2013 until the event was publicized on 12/28/13 .
I believe that a Carrington Effect or nuclear EMP would be devastating to fuel production , food production and distribution, transportation ,
, water purification and distribution ,all electronics and communications.
The fact that this incident at the PG&E Metcalf power substation, southeast of San Jose was almost successful in creating a cascading power failure
is of concern , just as much as the attack being kept quiet for 8 (eight) months by the government .
Fear mongering ,.. no , ..I doubt it !
59 posted on 05/12/2014 10:56:32 AM PDT by Tilted Irish Kilt (Political Correctness is Tyranny .. with manners ! Charlton Heston)
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To: CommerceComet
If the single missile is in anyway tracked or identifiable to a sovereign state, 10 of 10 are likely killed in the nuclear retaliation which the U. S. returns. The threat of EMP on electronics has been known for decades and sensitive U. S. military assets have been protected for years

But if the false flag scenario is let loose - i.e. our own powers that be lets the EMP loose - no one to intercept...the usurper in charge has signaled - a couple-three years ago - that possibility, which seems to hint that it's on the agenda to present the 'need' for Martial Law - he said the 'the U.S. could withstand a nuclear event..."

60 posted on 05/12/2014 11:00:17 AM PDT by maine-iac7 (Christian is as Christian does - by their fruits)
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