Posted on 05/03/2018 8:35:00 AM PDT by rktman
“A country is going to start a nuclear war with us just to shutdown some of our electronics?”
If I (with no military or intelligence experience whatsoever) can think of the following scenario, then trained and experienced people in nations hostile to us can certainly do better: Put one of your nukes on an unmarked and/or unregistered barge or other very expendable small ship, sail it to a couple hundred miles off of the U.S. coast, launch the missile to detonate the nuke at about 50 miles above the surface, sink the boat (in 10,000 or more feet of water), and get out of the area as fast as possible. Do this off of the East Coast, West Coast and Gulf Coast - now you’ve hit all three electrical grids that we have.
That’s not too hard or imaginative, but it makes tracing the owner of said missile and nuke much more difficult. A nation intent upon totally screwing up power generation (and thus production and delivery of fuel, fertilizer, medicines, running water, etc., etc., etc.) could do so with a very reduced expectation of facing our wrath.
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I read it, wished I could get that few hours back, and did a little research and found that is was meant to create fear and drive funding for lobbyists trying to get more money for more research on the subject.
The premise is absolute total crap.
Want a legitimate worry? There are substantial security holes in some of our infrastructure that could cause some extended outages and damage and some associated chaos but not not likely anything that couldn’t be fixed in days to weeks.
Hmmmmmm - we’re in a solar minimum and it seems like this person has opted to doible down on the Sun as far as EMP dangers w/o acknowledging its affect on the climate...
“Seems to me either there really isn’t anything we can do to protect ourselves from an attack on the electric grid, or the powers-that-be don’t care if it happens (or prefer it happens).
Or we are not nearly as vulnerable as they say.”
For the power companies, there is no way to calculate any kind of return on cost of the safety measures that they KNOW will reduce the effects of any EMP event. As such, they cannot justify it without some revenue to offset those costs, or some regulatory requirements. As for pols, they are looking to the next election - these protective measures will take 10-20 years to fully implement, and won’t produce any vote-getting bang-for-the-buck like building a highway or giving some lazy bum a free phone.
Exactly - this is where self-reliance wins out again.
The ultra-large transformers that we no longer make (and there are about 400 in service here) are all custom-made and have lead times of 18 months or so...in perfectly normal times with no conflict of any note to slow production and delivery down.
The EMP Commission purposely backed off on the power of the EMP delivered to those vehicles because of bureaucratic imperative - they had to return the cars in working order. Royally phucking them up in a realistic, full power, test was not going to happen.
Highly unlikely that anyone other than a few declared nuclear powers could launch something off a ship that would be more than a nuisance (and suicide note for he attacker), and if they did there is no way it isn’t traced by satellite recon and other measures currently present on the coasts.
Lastly, there are not 3 grids-—there are 4. Texas has it’s own.
"A congressional committee report states that a large electromagnetic pulse (EMP) inundating America could cause 90% of Americans to die.
The EMP is inevitable."
An EMP, Carrigton Event of 1859, is a natural ocuring event,
with widespread effect.. it can happen again.
It's just a matter of time,
We came closest to a natural event in 2012, according to NASA, missing the earth's orbit by a week.
The nuclear bomb EMP effect was confirmed by the 1962 Starfish Prime test
which was fired 250 miles above the Pacific and impacted more than 1,000 miles away.
You can be a cynic, or a believer. That's your choice !
But I recommend you read the original news source article at AmericanThinker
You need to read up on the 3 kinds of EMP. Here’s a short explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
What those worried about EMP are concerned about is the E1 pulse, which takes place in literally nanoseconds, far faster than surge protectors can react. You are making the mistake of believing that the E2 pulse, which is most similar to lightening - and can be protected against in pretty much the same way, is all that there is to EMP. It definitely is NOT. Read the article.
The EMP generators actually produced an E1 pulse?
East Coast, West Coast, Texas - 3 grids.
As for such an attack, countries like Iran and North Korea (notwithstanding the recent thaw in relations) are masters at hiding what they are doing. Every time we catch them, they learn and get better at it. Ever here of a false flag operation? These nations practice them all the time. Are we going to try to reduce a nation to a radioactive parking lot if they are (truthfully) denying any kind of involvement? Are we going to sit around and wait for scientific proof (if such can even be obtained in the aftermath of such an event)? I’d say probably not - and that’s just what such a nation would want to do. They know that they cannot take us on head-to-head, so they’re assuredly trying to find ways around it. Ever hear of assymetrical warfare? Well, an EMP strike would be the ultimate in this field.
“There will be a slight inconvenience at most.”
Me, I’d rather NOT take a chance when it comes to something that has a significantly greater than 0% chance of ending our nation, or at least hurting us a LOT. The $20 billion to $50 billion that it’d cost us to significantly ameliorate the effects of an EMP, spread over 10-20 years, is peanuts compared to what we spend on utter crap that does us no good whatsoever.
I realize this is “The Internet” where everyone loves their pet fantasies and disregards mundane things like... math, but I did the math for an EMP strike.
No one else, anywhere, has done the math.
So, if you want a math-based perspective (gasp!) instead of wild-eyed thoughts from “The Internet” then let Free Republic be the first to show it off:
A 1 megaton blast at 200,000 m altitude (sweet spot in Ionosphere for EMP effects) would generate ~~ 4.2 *10^15 joules at that point which might translate to ~~ 6.5 Megawatts/200,000 meters on the surface directly beneath the blast, distributed horizon to horizon (~~ 1,200 miles of Earth surface in every direction) so electronics on the surface directly beneath the blast would see an electrical surge from the Hall effect of a magnetic wave passing through conductive surfaces/wire of about 324 watts/square meter.
Obviously the longer length of your wire (circuitry) that is exposed to the EMP the greater your total wattage from the surge will be in your circuit.
Telephone wires could easily spark. Your headlights/taillights might glow bright for a moment, perhaps even pop. Parallel circuits will be less taxed than series circuits.
...but the surge directly below the blast will be orders of magnitude greater than the final EMP that reaches the blast’s 1,200 mile horizon radius (1,931 Km).
Distance matters.
6.5 Megawatts divided by 1,931,000 meters means that the EMP on the end horizon of the blast is only ~~ 3.37 watts per square meter. Pretty much every circuit made can handle that “surge”.
324 watts/sq meter directly under a high-altitude Space EMP blast, trailing down to 3.37 watts/sq meter 1,200 miles horizontally away from the EMP blast.
Think about how a loud noise is louder when you are closer to it. That’s also how EMP fares with electronic circuits.
It’s math.
About twenty years ago lightning hit our Microwave Tower and due to uneven grounding in our building it hit the small T-1 level DACCS (Digital Access Cross Connect System) that I maintained. I ended up replacing 22 blown circuit boards over two days, living onsite straight through the outage. Replacement circuit cards were overnighted from Texas and hand delivered from locations in nearby states. A grounding team flown in from Texas found a difference of potential between our signal ground and common ground. They ended up reworking the grounding for the whole site, even grounding the chain link fencing in a ring with thermite welding.
I remember WWV universal time stations on HF radio used to broadcast Solar activity warnings.
Much more is known about EMP, Solar Events, and even lightning than any layman could ever imagine.
Guess that settles it. We all know that an author would never take literary license in a novel in order to make the story more interesting.
I actually *did* the math for an EMP strike in post #56.
Excellent article.
PING!
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