Thanks Robert A. Cook, PE.
Posted on 09/16/2011 1:13:22 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
As the nation remembers the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, experts are warning that the U.S. effectively is defenseless against an electro-magnetic pulse attack or a far less expensive radio frequency attack on the nation's critical military and civilian electric and electronic infrastructure, according to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Two experts – one a communications systems engineer involved in classified programs who works on EMP vulnerabilities and the other a U.S. Defense Department analyst knowledgeable of their impact – said that the nation's sensitive telecommunications and the electronic systems embedded in its financial and banking institutions can be "fried" by a "turn of the switch."
The result could be a chaos that could allow terrorists to attack virtually at will.
They both pointed out that relatively cheap over-the-counter technology embedded not only in sensitive U.S. military equipment but also civilian electronic systems has not been protected from such attacks, a development that could create complete panic throughout the U.S. if they were subject either to an EMP or RF attack.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
We would quickly be on that freighter, and the crew would quickly decide to cooperate and tell all. Whomever sponsored them would have to know that big changes would be coming.
Besides why would they launch a nuke and suffer all the potential failure modes? Just sail the freight into Long Beach or Tel Aviv and light it off and cause a lot more damage.
“of the type that can be placed in a van and directed”
Your talking about a point source and a single target. The bad guys are into crowd-pleasers and are not going to get caught snuffing one transformer or a limited effect target.
Thanks for your posts. They show some serious thought. I see the big potential problem as an attack that we cannot easily trace. The freighter launches and then the crew blows out the bottom and suicides, for example. The EMP attack could be far worse than a small nuke at one port. That would certainly hurt us, but there are potential failure modes there as well. A missile from off shore doesn't face customs. There are some vulnerabilities I would rather not discuss, but clearly the power grid needs to be hardened more that what the 2008 report said was the case then. Perhaps we are there already. I hope so.
The yield would have to be sufficient to generate 50k volts on the ground. That would quickly fade beyond a 300 mile epicenter by way of the inverse square rule.
Still big trouble, though.
Again, whom would be talented and organized and funded and completely suicidal to want to do such a thing?
But we have sat tracking that would quickly backtrack the freighter to all of its ports and origin. Freight tracking is pretty thorough world-wide due to the insurance industry.
Nobody sails without insurance and customs inspections. The ones that do would be considered to have contraband and would be a prime target for our Coast Guard.
The biggest vulnerability is the transformers, the 500k ones take about 6 months to build. But the grid is quickly being built to interconnect all regional grids and in 5 years we will be able to feed from any direction to anywhere there is trouble.
That is what I was reluctant to talk about. I spotted the vulnerability about 30 years ago, but didn't want to publish it. Good to hear that we are working on it. Five years is longer than I would like.
Tracking the freighter back was something I considered, but thought it might be worked around. It certainly adds difficulty, which helps us. It would take a pretty fair sized vessel.
“The yield would have to be sufficient to generate 50k volts on the ground. That would quickly fade beyond a 300 mile epicenter by way of the inverse square rule.”
Incorrect. Slightly south of ground zero (in the northern hemisphere) there would be a field of approximately 50,000 V/m. 300 miles away it would be approximately half that.
It’s more or less linear decay until you reach the horizon.
You shouldn’t speak authoritatively like you do when you don’t know, or aren’t sure. You mislead people and give them a false sense of security that may not be warranted depending on their specific situation.
People should be aware of the threat and it’s likelihood and effects, and then decide for themselves whether they take some sort of action or precaution. They need the best information available and you are not providing it.
Just google up “EMP effects” and read the material find. You are familiar with the physics enough to grasp it, you are just inappropriately applying the physics you know.
Maybe he is just positioning himself for a cabinet post.
“I’M judging him brilliant, so maybe the bar is lowered since it’s only my opinion.”
I’m not saying your opinion is any worse or better than mine. It’s just not healthy (in my opinion) to idolize any politician especially one that has so many less brilliant moments as Gingrich.
Take two shots of cynicism and see if you have a different view in the morning.
“Your talking about a point source and a single target. The bad guys are into crowd-pleasers and are not going to get caught snuffing one transformer or a limited effect target.”
I believe that is the premise of the article if you read the whole thing- exactly that a single target/collocated targets.
Lightning would be a worse threat and we see that all the time.
I don't speak with authority, I just lay out the facts as I see them. My comparisons to real threats can be believed or not.
Why don't you lay out more of your own facts, do some research and present it instead of drive by dismissals.
Mislead? About what?
You google EMP effects and present your findings as I have done. Then I can nitpick you.......
You speak of my misapplying physics. I've only mentioned the Faraday Cage. If Michael Faraday isn't a good enough authority, drive through a steel girdered bridge and listen as your radio and cell phone go dead.
We are far more at risk from hurricanes and meteorites.
This technical discussion is irrelevant, it's the politics that will decide.
“50k volts is the minimum benchmark for transformer destruction. Less than that and all you basically have to do is change out the fuses.”
No it is not. That is not how a power transformer gets destroyed in a nuclear EMP event. It is the combination of factors from the event, capped by the low-frequency magneto-hydrodynamic magnetic field effect that saturates a transformer core under load and causes it to catastrophically heat up and go boom. The nuclear EMP is broken into 3 parts, E1, which is a broad spectrum RF pulse up to about 1 GHz, E2, which is a less intense (more similar to lightning), lower frequency RF pulse, and E3 which is a very low frequency (geomagnetic) perturbation. Google “HEMP, E1, E2, E3” and read.
“Lightning would be a worse threat and we see that all the time.” I used to believe this too, I read the technical literature and found out I was wrong. You should do the same thing. Lightning is a different threat, not a worse one.
“I don’t speak with authority, I just lay out the facts as I see them. My comparisons to real threats can be believed or not.”
You should state that it’s opinion when it’s opinion, that is why I responded to you. Others may not realize you are wrong.
“Why don’t you lay out more of your own facts, do some research and present it instead of drive by dismissals.”
I’ve suggested google search key words. They are easy to do and give a wide variety of sources, rather than selecting a single source. There is broad consensus supported by scientific data for my points - so broad it becomes obvious when doing a key word search and reading. I will not argue with you that the sky isn’t blue either.
“You speak of my misapplying physics. I’ve only mentioned the Faraday Cage. If Michael Faraday isn’t a good enough authority, drive through a steel girdered bridge and listen as your radio and cell phone go dead.”
This is a great example. Yes, by all means do this, but make sure your radio is tuned to FM, rather than AM. Your cellphone will not go dead, you will have quiet enjoyment of your chosen FM station.
A HEMP protected space, as applied by the military is generally made from steel. This is because at low frequencies (10kHz range) an electromagnetic wave is dominated by the magnetic component - so a ferromagnetic material is required - even your steel-girder bridge would not protect against that, unless it was a solid contiguous surface.
At some point in frequency, (say 200kHz or more), depending on specific material and thickness, the electromagnetic wave transitions to being primarily magnetic to primarily electric in nature, at that point, a Faraday Cage can be effective, but only if it is properly designed. It must be contiguous, have no untreated penetrations and utilize an RF door.
If you make a faraday cage out of steel, you get the low frequency magnetic effects protection, as well as the high frequency RF electric field protection.
That’s why they do it. look at MIL-STD-188-125-1 available online. They tell you how to do much of this - they do not suggest driving over a steel girder bridge to create a Faraday Cage around you.
Just read and learn, and stop misdirecting people with your poorly informed “know enough to be dangerous” postings.
People who are not technically savvy deserve to know the threat, and what you can do about it should they decide they need to do something about it.
“Any US target big or small would be a death sentence to the perpetrators and their sponsors. Instead of haggling over the physics, let’s get real and talk about the feasibility of such a dead end operation.”
It is only a death sentence to the perpetrators because there are people who actually understand how to protect assets required to maintain the capability to respond.
There is no haggling over physics. it’s quite simple - you are incorrectly stating unsubstantiated technical opinion, I am providing the actual threat and design criteria to protect against a nuclear HEMP, and the means to verify that it is correct in the proper context.
“We are far more at risk from hurricanes and meteorites.”
This is likely true today, but as nuclear capabilities proliferate, it is not something that will always be so - that is why it is important for people to get the correct information so they can respond in a way they feel best suits their own needs - whether it’s a hurricane of a HEMP pulse.
“This technical discussion is irrelevant, it’s the politics that will decide.”
That you are technically wrong is not irrelevant - it leads to misunderstanding and the potential for people to read your postings, think you actually know something about the subject, and incorrectly assess for themselves how the threat will affect them. I just want folks to have the correct information.
I introduced the concept of the Faraday Cage to this thread first. I personally worked on a Faraday Cage counter to EMP 30 years ago and am certain that we've thought of a few more enhancements since then.
I do not intend to guide readers through a graduate level discussion of the dangers. My point all along is that the article drifted into hysteria by not revealing both sides to the threat. That is, well known counters were not discussed and the political impracticality was never brought out. The article didn't even discuss pair coupling two Fourier-expansion, 3-dimensional scalar hemispheres, ala Tesla into a protection dome. I can do the physics talk too.
Your technical discussion is competent but only adds unearned credibility to the tactical fantasy of such a weapon. The article does what you accuse me of, of using loose physics jargon to scare the reader. My point was only to demystify the scant and unrealistic threat and redirect the reader to the tactical impracticality of EMP.
I’ll buy an “e”, Pat.
Defenseless perhaps but can a nation also prevent an earthquake?
Just a counter response that does not mean there is any truth that HAARP exists or works.
Would Iran or Pakistan continue to bluster if they had 9.5 earthquakes?
Ahh, but their premise is that nukes won't work. They are also fried. And if not, the way to make them usable would be fried. Nukes like to be talked to ala, "Dark Star" ....
Doolittle: Bomb, this is Lt. Doolittle. You are *not* to detonate in the bomb bay. I repeat, you are NOT to detonate in the bomb bay!
An EMP attack would result in more Chaos and Incivility than the riots that will ensue when Obama loses the next Election.
We are slaves to Technology, no doubt. Remember the Twilight Zone episode when the Aliens screwed with the Electricity on Maple Street?
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