“but I suspect that we can harden against them without much trouble -”
My understanding is that power companies have lobbied hard against regulations designed to force them into hardening against EMP. The reason is, any dollar spent that does not bring in a dollar-plus is wasted. The fact that no such EMP event has ever happened is taken to mean that no such event could happen. (This is called normalcy bias.) Therefore the money is wasted.
Since there has been no national leadership on EMP, meaning a significant political force, like a senate committee or the President, the lobby groups have been successful in stopping any significant legislation.
If EMP has the President’s ear then I am very happy. Even mother nature could send us back to the stone age with a burp from the sun.
“This is called normalcy bias.”
Tell me about it. It’s like the FBI intercepting a plan to train terrorists to fly airplanes, so they can take over jets and fly them into buildings.
The FBI reaction: “You’ve got to be joking, they would all get killed doing a stunt like that. Will never happen.”
...and so 9-11, brought to you by ‘normalcy bias’.