Posted on 08/12/2004 5:23:52 AM PDT by OESY
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[I]magine a blackout that lasts for months, or years.
That was the job of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the U.S. from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. The commission, created in 2000 to examine the possibility of EMP attack and its aftermath, just delivered a report to Congress. All we can say is, we hope someone in Washington is paying attention.
An EMP attack occurs when an enemy sets off a nuclear explosion high in the Earth's atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys the electronics and satellites in its field of vision. For a detonation above the Midwest, that could mean the entire continental U.S.
No American would necessarily die in the initial attack, but what comes next is potentially catastrophic. The pulse would wipe out most electronics and telecommunications, including the power grid. Millions could die for want of modern medical care or even of starvation since farmers wouldn't be able to harvest crops and distributors wouldn't be able to get food to supermarkets. Commissioner Lowell Wood calls EMP attack a "giant continental time machine" that would move us back more than a century in technology to the late 1800s.
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China and Russia have the capability to launch an EMP weapon -- and have let us know it.
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But it's a relatively unsophisticated EMP weapon in the hands of terrorists that really scares the Commission. All it would take is one nuclear warhead attached to a Scud missile launched from a barge off the U.S. coast to shut down much of the country.
The Commission offers a series of recommendations for reducing U.S. vulnerability.
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(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
In the end, maybe Y2K was, at least, useful in getting us to pay attention. I have wondered about the fragility of the power grid - especially after the power outages that occurred last year or the year before in the northeastern US.
Now there's a pairing you don't see everyday...(-;
The answer is yes and no..... sorry.
If you have a computer that is not connected to anything including the AC wall outlet, cable modem or phone line, odds are very good good it will survive.
EMP causes current to flow in conductors. That is why lightning causes spikes in electrical transmission lines. It's the conductors that carry the spikes to the computer (via the AC outlet) and cause it to fail.
A second form of EMP damage is caused when radation (typically alpha/beta radiation) causes damage to the chips themselves. This is why things like the MarsRover use what are referred to as radiation hardened chips. This type of damage can be protected as Alpha particles can be blocked, although beta particles are harder to block.
Good for him--and for you. My wife has never said "I told you so," though she's had reason, and she has never blamed me for errors in judgment, though they affected her. She's also truthful, even if it's not in her interest to be.
Actually, I noticed unusual purchases by the power company... They were buying two of things - one from one vendor and one from another, but their main office would have one, but not the other. An employee of the power company slipped up when I was looking over their equipment room after a meeting with his boss, he said that they were setting it up there before moving it. When I asked, "Moving?" He realized he made a mistake, and didn't answer. I brought up my suspicions of a secondary command center, and he just grunted and escorted me out of the equipment room.
It makes a lot of sense... it began after 9/11.
That was one of the things they are working on at Los Alamos. If you recall those threads, not too long ago.
Nothing wrong with having a secondary command center. Most large businesses that know what they're doing have one.
Posits an attack by unknown agency which stops all electrical devices (including say...flashlights) from working- starvation, plague, riots, rape, murder, lice, hand farming...oh and gunpowder doesn't work either.
kind of a little goofy- but to his credit he doesn't try to explain the "how" of it- these are the effects he needs for his story, soooo "the boojums did it."
Thats what I thought....thx.
Ha ha! Yeah, I know...poor Whitley, what with the abductions and all...
But "Warday" is at least a work of fiction, and well researched enough to believably predict consequences of even limited nuclear attack.
And no aliens, I promise!
Sounds interesting. Goofy might be OK...I mean, I recommended Whitley Steiber on other posts on this thread, so clearly I'm comfortable with "goofy". IF the story makes up for goofiness.
In a similar apocalyptic theme, didja ever wonder why in after-nuclear-war movies, all the silverware somehow was vaporized and everyone has to eat with their hands?
Indeed they can. An entire facility I used to work in was completely shielded.
Computer C is a Mac!
Does "_" think it is possible?
"Nuclear Explosions in Orbit" by Daniel G. DuPont, Scientific American, June 2004.
Brief article on the effects of HANE's (viz., high-altitude nuclear explosions), starting with project "Starfish Prime" from July 1962.
I would have my doubts. In an EMP situation, any wire of over a few inches actually generates a current. Blown chips will result. Think of the cableing inside the computer.
EMP causes current to flow in conductors. That is why lightning causes spikes in electrical transmission lines. It's the conductors that carry the spikes to the computer (via the AC outlet) and cause it to fail.
Also the cabling inside the computer (or any "long" wire)
A second form of EMP damage is caused when radation (typically alpha/beta radiation) causes damage to the chips themselves. This is why things like the MarsRover use what are referred to as radiation hardened chips. This type of damage can be protected as Alpha particles can be blocked, although beta particles are harder to block.
This does not fall within the EMP moniker. That is ionization radiation as apposed to RF radiation.
ping
It can.
>>>EMP is a threat but this is article tin-foiled.
Why? I don't know a thing about these things and WSJ has credibility.
If this is tin-foiled, please say why so I can follow your train of thought.
>>>time for a generator
That willl work? That is not considered electronic?
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