" In calling on the Pentagon and President Trump to move quickly to protect the grid,
the experts testified that an explosion of a high-altitude nuclear bomb delivered by a missile or satellite
"could be to shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period,
leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans." The utility companies and the military can argue whose responsibility it is to shore up the grid and make it impervious to EMP/ solar flares
But I wouldn't want to wait for the government to make that determination - considering the current Congressional stalemate.
That says it all !
I have nothing more to add !
90 % my foot.
I believe that tax reform should include an individual deduction for hardening personal assets against EMP and full corporate and pass-through expensing for hardening business assets and infrastructure against EMP, including transmission lines, transformers, etc.
Remember before 9/11, power plant sub stations had cyclone fencing. After 9/11, they built walls around them. Uh, hellooo, walls make is easier to slip in and do harm without anyone seeing them.
Hello!
One Second After.
They’ve known about this threat for DECADES and the lame dimocratic presidents did NOTHING.
And now it’s up to Trump to fix the whole thing?
” In calling on the Pentagon and President Trump to move quickly to protect the grid, . . . . . . .
___________________________________________________________
I am really reluctant to get into this but feel I must.
The threat of EMP is way overblown. Yes there is certainly a real threat and the US, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Russia and soon N.Korea have developed weapons to maximize the effect of an EMP blast.
The military can do nothing to reduce the effect of such a blast but the power companies have already started doing things to help.
I fear that most don’t know much about what an EMP is so I would like to discuss it a little and perhaps make some not quite so afraid.
EMP stands for ElectroMagnetic Pulse. An electromagnetic pulse is exactly what is generated by a lightening strike. During thunderstorms if you have your AM radio on you can hear those pulses if they are within several miles of you. If those pulses or lightening strikes that cause the pulses are more than a few tens of miles a way you are unlikely to hear them on the radio. A nuclear blast caused EMP would be hundreds of times stronger than the lightening strikes but would likely be many times farther away also, distance in this case is your friend.
EMP’s cause a couple of problems. First, the wires that cross the country in our power grid will act like a transformer and electricity from the pulse will be induced into to those wires. Unfortunately the wires can greatly enhance the distance problem, in other words an EMP 50 miles away might not bother us except that it might induce a high voltage into our electrical grid and then transfer that voltage to our homes and businesses. Before the spike in voltage gets to our homes and businesses however it will have to go through a transformer at the utility company. These transformer are big and heavy and for the most part not made in this country any more, China makes them cheaper so the US transformer shops for the most part are out of business. All that being said, our electric utilities since learning about the potential of an EMP have installed “drains” on most of the grid transformers and soon will likely have them on all of them. The drain is a device that carries current above a predesignated voltage directly to ground without going through the transformer. When it does not go through the transformer it does not get to us. In the process of saving the transformer it saves us too.
Now the drain is a solution for long line problems but if there are many of these blasts then areas more directly under the blast will have local lines downstream of the big transformers that will carry the over voltage spike to local transformers. Most of them may not have over voltage protection, though they will have over current protection. The over current may save the transformer but not the equipment in our homes and businesses. Electronic equipment will be especially vulnerable, the effect will be like having a lightening strike just outside your window.
There are still things that can be done to minimize the effects of such a strike. We will likely have warnings that missiles are headed our way. Smart people will disconnect from the grid and unplug anything they can.
Your car won’t likely be affected unless it is VERY close to the blast, if that is the case I don’t think I would be worrying about the EMP but the blast itself.
For many people, much of their electronics will be ruined. Motors will not generally be affected but most of our refrigerators and heating systems these days have electronics that could be affected. A person who wanted to prepare for this might build a simple Faraday cage in their basement or garage to store stuff in until after the threat. Most refrigerators and freezers have a metal skin that should protect the electronics in them but there is no guarantee. It would be very wise to have a generator that will keep your refrigerator/freezer working and run the fan on your furnace or have another source of heat. It won’t do any good to have a generator though if you don’t have a lot of fuel. Most people could get by running a generator a few hours a day.
In the worst case, many systems in a large area could be affected. If the water company can’t pump water we all have a problem. The water company however usually has generators that will run the pumps.
Gasoline stations, at least some of them, could be affected so that they couldn’t run their pumps until a generator is brought in.
It could get pretty sticky before we were back to normal. Eating, drinking and staying warm could be a big problem for many people and the Government can’t really help a huge number of people.
If we lose water a lot of people will die within a couple of weeks after they exhaust all the liquids in canned goods they can get their hands on. Many more will fall ill due to drinking dirty water.
I have to somewhat discount the EMP scare because an EMP would have virtually no effect on the military and the US would respond in a much greater way. North Korea and Iran may not care about this but everyone else does if they are in their right mind.
I don’t call myself a prepper, BUT I have food, water and energy to last a long time. I won’t depend on the government but I will be unlikely to share with neighbors until I can assure my family will be fed. With 9 kids and 24 grand children it is an important consideration.