WSJ: Mother of All Blackouts

Wall Street Journal | 8/12/2004 | Editorial

[vajimbo]

Saturday marks the anniversary of the blackout that shut down much of the Northeast a year ago. Anyone who lived through that power outage remembers the annoyance of life without lights, air conditioning, TVs, computers and all the other electronic equipment on which a modern society depends. Now, imagine a blackout that lasts for months, or years.

[vajimbo]

Didn't one of the terrorist threats from Al Jazeera call the next attack on US soil "The Cave of Darkness"? Could this be what they're planning?

[Atlas Sneezed]

The whole-nation orbital scenario seems pretty remote for terrorists, but the cosatal scud that takes out a Metro area is plausible.

It would make those paranoid survival/preparedness folks look pretty clever.

[cripplecreek]

Blackouts don't scare me much. I went over 6 days without electricity in June. I have a 5,000 watt DeVillbiss generator that carried me fine for that week.

[backhoe]

Nukes are the brute-force method for generating EMP, but there are other ways using conventional explosives. Somewhere, buried in all of Charlie's links, is a schematic of a conventional-powered EMP warhead:

http://www.softwar.net/

BTW, SoftWar has a lot of stuff many people don't know about, or have forgotten- it's worth a long look.

[cripplecreek]

I thought there was talk of using EMP weapons in Iraq but apparently they weren't used.

[Travis McGee]

I think a nuke launched to explode at apogee 100 miles above NY would take out most of New England and the Mid Atlantic states, probably all the way to Ohio. I'm sure the experts will be along to fill us in.

But if terrorists had one nuke, I think they'd use it to craterize NYC or DC, not explode in space to take out our grid.

[sneakers]

bump

[scan59]

Blackouts don't scare me much. I went over 6 days without electricity in June. I have a 5,000 watt DeVillbiss generator that carried me fine for that week

Yea, but that takes fuel pumped to the dispenser by electricity. With no power, the fuel stays in the tanks.

I once read that only an 80-day supply of food is on hand at any one time. After that comes starvation and barbarism.

Not that I'm worried or anything. I found the book "Alas Babylon" to be very informative as to how things might go after the electricity dies.

Another reason to ensure our 2nd Amendment rights are not trampled upon.

[Bikers4Bush]

Doesn't an EMP only fry the electrical systems of things that are actually running at the time?

In other words if a car was on when hit by an EMP it'd be trashed but if it wasn't running no damage.

[Atlas Sneezed]

In other words if a car was on when hit by an EMP it'd be trashed but if it wasn't running no damage.

---

No, I understand that it induces currents in any conductor, which are at high enough levels that they tend to fry sensitive components.

Then again, if you keep your car in a metal box that shields against the pulse, you may be OK.

[Bikers4Bush]

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

How about an underground garage made out of cement?

[Atlas Sneezed]

I think you'd need some very special rebar constriction. Magnetic fields pass through concrete, as I understand.

[Bikers4Bush]

Check this out....

Effects of an EMP

Although the electric field created from an EMP lasts for only a short time, its effects can be devastating. It is predicted that a single high altitude burst 200 miles above Kansas could propagate an EMP enveloping the entire United States. Electrical systems connected to things that can conduct current like wires, antennas, and metal objects will suffer significant damage. EMP effects on electronics include interference of radio frequency links, irreparable damage to microcircuits, and even the disabling of satellites. Fortunately, electronic equipment that is turned off is less likely to be damaged.

[Bikers4Bush]

Here's some good info from Northwestern.

http://www.physics.northwestern.edu/classes/2001Fall/Phyx135-2/19/emp.htm

[backhoe]

I thought there was talk of using EMP weapons in Iraq but apparently they weren't used.

That's how I recall it- discussed, then not used.

[A Navy Vet]

Definitely a concern, but that's why NORAD exists. They would see the moment an ICBM is launched and our MERVS would be on the way, not to mention our growing missle defense systems now being put in place. China, Russia, or any other country would be in the same boat, or worse. That's why MAD works.

The terrorist barge/scud scenerio is highly implausible. Satellite imaging would detect such an operation off shore. The various intel agencies monitor our coasts very closely. We may not be able to stop every crazy with a box cutter, bomb belt, or even a dirty bomb, but missle strikes are another thing.

Also, it's my understanding our coasts are constantly patrolled by defensive aircraft. The moment a short-range missle was launched, they would head to intercept with air to air missles which would be faster, providing they are within the required proximity to the scud. With our technology and defense capabilities, I just don't see that scenerio happening.

[Yossarian]

EMP destroys chips whether they are working or not. The EM pulse is of a wavelength that the wires in the chip will pick up like an antenna. These wires often lead to transistor gates, which can be blown out by sudden large voltages. (Transistor gates are very delicate things - comprised of only a few atoms thick layer of SiO2.)

I know a bit more about this on both the risks and defenses, but I'll just shut up due to the nature of the issue...

Yossarian
microprocessor designer

[Poohbah]

I have a copy of Bruce Blair's Strategic Command and Control open to the EMP diagram on page 91. The scenario is a high-yield thermonuclear detonation 62 miles above the Earth, centered on western Nebraska. It would have EMP'd every Minuteman field we had in the mid-1960s (Minuteman launch control centers were not EMP-hardened until the early 1970s). The radius of the 20,000-volt-per-meter ring is 744 miles (coincidentally, exactly 12 times the burst height of 62 miles).

If the 62-mile figure were used, but the blast hypocenter is NYC, the circle would just about reach the Indiana-Illinois border. A 100-mile burst height would probably generate an EMP ring about 1,200 miles across; this would extend to somewhere around Kansas City.

[Wonder Warthog]

"No, I understand that it induces currents in any conductor, which are at high enough levels that they tend to fry sensitive components."

"....sensitive components..." read "solid-state devices. I doubt seriously that an EMP would have much effect on anything of technology "pre-transistor". Rather than knowing us back to the late 1800's, it would be more like the mid-1950's.

[Bikers4Bush]

So pc's, cell phones and anything else with a chip is gone.

Shut up nothing, spill the beans on the defenses.