Case in point, when people mention nuclear winter or EMP, I just casually mention the 2,000 nuclear weapons explosions under water, underground, in space, high altitude, low altitde, etc from the Sahara, to the Indian Ocean, the Artic, the Pacific, etc. Every continent less S. America and Antartica has had a nuke blown up on it, and guess what, we are still here.
We know that EMP is real, and its effects are real, however sending society back to 1837 ain't gonna happen. With that being said, I do have preparations for energy outages via Communist infiltrator POTUS's. That is alot bigger danger than an SS-18 flying over the pole and doing a high altitude, 25MT detonation.
Our power distribution system is too fragile, and needs to be upgraded.
/johnny
This may be a stupid question, but I have a metal roof, will that mitigate the effects on things kept within the house?
THANK YOU. (caps intentional)
“Exactly right. I bet I am one of a handful of Freepers that have actually worked on, around, and in nuclear weapons with the DOE NNSA/OST. EMP is real, however its effect is exaggerated. “
It depends what you mean by “exaggerated”. If you are saying that the “Hollywood” version of everything that uses an electron dies, I agree.
What isn’t clear is what specifically it would affect, and to what extent.
What is likely is that it will be statistical impact. You take 10 identical devices, some number will be unaffected, some will need a reboot, and some will be bricked.
This is a gross abbreviation What the military basically says is that you need to reduce the Nuclear EMP by a factor of 10,000 to be assured that your electronics will not fail, or be permanently degraded.
What does the average person need to be sure their electronics won’t be adversely impacted by EMP? There is and will never be effective guidance on that.
The power grid is another story. The nature of an EMP can have a profound impact on transformers and other power grid elements. The trend towards higher transmission voltages, in some respects makes, the vulnerability worse.
What happened in Hawaii that is often written about is probably not relevant today - as we have a different grid today than we did then.
So the answer is, in my opinion, yes it is exaggerated by Hollywood, but no its not necessarily well understood - and it could have a significant societal impact, but not “back to the stone age” stuff.
Yep. I worked with the DoD and DoE in regards to both weapons development and weapons effects. I am REAL familiar with EMP and all other effects as my job was to be the "expert" for the big wigs at the Pentagon and the political class, including the White House.
EMP can do major damage but the Chicken Little's who run around claiming the sky is going to fall have another agenda.
I say "follow the money."