Posted on 09/14/2014 7:15:44 AM PDT by blam
BILLIONAIRE HEDGE FUND MANAGER: Of All The Things That Are Likely, Nothing Is Scarier Than An Electromagnetic Pulse
Myles Udland
July 30, 2014
Plasmasphere - Wikimedia Commons
Hedge fund managers often like to opine on various topics that are largely unrelated to investing.
In his latest lengthy quarterly letter to clients, Paul Singer of Elliott Management spent some time discussing a phenomenon that caught our attention and the attention of many others.
It's the danger posed by an electromagnetic pulse.
Singer writes that an electromagnetic pulse is the "risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence."
According to Singer, threats that are more manageable than an electromagnetic pulse include nuclear war and asteroids.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
An EMP does present a great threat to America.
In the aftermath of an EMP many countries would come here to provide “aid” but while they might help keep people alive I believe that they will come here and chose to stay and keep what they can.
America’s greatest value is in our vast natural resources and we would be in no position to stop them.
This is my biggest fear.
His dirt bike should be ok...........................Best to teach him to read the sun and stars, a compass may not work.
Firearms will still work.
excerpt:
The term ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) is mostly used to describe a strong electromagnetic wave or pulse that accompanies a nuclear explosion. Solar flares can also produce similar electromagnetic waves. Both threat scenarios will be discussed here, with some analysis of similarities and differences.
On purpose with the specific intent of doing damage and with preplanned targets?
Nope, he has a KTM, they are computer driven. I could always have him race his old Kawasaki, but then he wouldn’t be winning many races!! It would be one less worry though, did I mention that his 26 year old brother is studying to be a fire fighter? I do like the star map idea though. :)
What does Alexis have to do with this ;?
< /LIV off >
Would a small home inverter power lights after an EMP?
“Very few people have their own water wells anymore.”
That depends on the state, in MI lots have a well.
You can drive a pipe in the ground most anywhere here and get water. All you need is a ‘well point’, pipe, and a maul, all available at the local hardware.
In some places in MI clean fresh water boils right out of the ground, you can connect that to your house with no need for a pump.
One of my brothers went 25 years with no electric pump on his well, clean fresh water in his house with plenty of water pressure(about 40 PSI). He added a pump when his pressure got a little lower, he still had good water flow.
Clean fresh water, wood heat, and a septic system, most in MI would do just fine.
If Al Gore and Obama could figure out some way to market “EMP Offsets” this issue would suddenly become front page news.
Rural, possibly, yes.
Suburbia? No way.
Here, fresh water is a 300ft+ well. We priced it and with the cost of drilling it was $10K+ including the capacity to hand pump.
Most incorporated areas have bylaws that prevent individual ownership of wells.
Those people will still need water. And may be on the move to your vicinity to find that. There are probably way more of them than there are of you. In the NE and I-95 corridor, there are millions of such people.
While your particular region may fare OK (I’m not buying it though, you will have to share resources with people who live in the suburbs when they show up at your door and I doubt that will happen), most parts of the country that are involved in manufacturing, tech and medical care will be hellholes after a week. Maybe less than a week.
The loss of people with specialized knowledge (surgeons, computer specialists, researchers, etc) would be difficult to recover from. You can’t just manufacture those people in a 2w program, they represent a decade or more of post high school training. Those are the people who live in the urban jungle and its associated suburbs. And regardless of your opinion of ‘blue states’ and ‘blue cities’, it would be difficult to recover the loss of the specialists as a nation.
Ditto the transportation hubs. If the blue cities go up in flames, so does the interstate system, most large river crossings and railway interchanges. Not to mention the ports of LA, Elizabeth NJ, and the rest. If Houston went, you can forget lots of heating fuel in the NE. For the forseeable future. Not to mention the pipelines from the refineries there to the rest of the country.
So you may have potable water, but loss of the millions of people without it would affect you regardless.
Older coal plants had mostly electro-mechanical control systems that are more survivable of an EMP attack than the newer digital control systems.
The older coal plants can not meet the new EPA emission standards without very expensive upgrades that make them economically impossible to operate. So the electric utilities decommission them.
And before anyone ask; decommissioning means that they have to make changes to the plants that render them impossible to ever operate again.
Stop worrying,you’ll drive yourself nuts.
My kids and grandkids are constantly in motion,flying all over the place.
I put them all in God’s hands——and I stay calm.
.
Rural, burbs, city, don’t matter here, you can drive a well most anywhere. 25-30 feet down and get water.
In a SHTF situation no regulation would stop anyone. You could dig a well with a shovel if you had to.
The entire state is crisscrossed with rivers, streams, lakes and ponds.
If you have an interest in the potential disaster an EMP can cause you should read some of the books recommended by Freepers in this and similar, threads.
Briefly, it is theorized that an EMP would burn almost every computer and computer controlled device within its range.
Just about the entire electric power and distribution grid, communications system, banking, transportation, food supply and distribution, automobile, elevator, cash register, etc., etc., is computer controlled.
Once a computer or computer chip has been fried by an EMP it is gone. It won't fix itself once the EMP passes.
That means millions of computers controlling every aspect of the electric grid, communications, banking, finance, transportation and industry would be knocked out for good until replaced or repaired.
The EMP would likely fry the small amount of spare parts available too. Most computers are foreign built or assembled here using mostly foreign parts. Once the grid is down and you have no communications or transportation it would be a long time, if ever, before the necessary spares could be located or manufactured and transported to the places they are needed.
And then there is the belief that a powerful EMP could also short circuit larger and more robust components of the grid - like the transformers you see on power poles and alongside streets. There are millions and millions of them nationwide. It would probably take 20 years or more to manufacture replacements for all of them. IF you had the manufacturing capability, which we don't.
And it is a Catch-22 situation - once the computer controls and transformers are burned out there won't be any factories at all operating, no way to order parts, no way to secure raw materials, no way to pay for anything, no way to transport anything, etc.
Would it fry things that weren’t plugged in and running?
Carrington Event of 1859.
“As it is our grid is mostly unprotected.”
I’ve been hearing that our grid is very, very vulnerable for a long time now. it’s obviously a well-known fact.
Has nobody been working to rectify the situation? That’s unbelievable. I never hear of any additional money or people tasked to work on fixing the problem.
If I didn’t know better I would think the authorities welcome this kind of disaster.
This shows how easy it is to ‘drive’ a well.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/mcdougall128.html
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