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Forget Climate Change: EMP Attack On Power Grid Could Kill 9-In-10
Investor's Business Daily ^ | May 12, 2014 | IBD EDITORIALS

Posted on 05/12/2014 9:26:01 AM PDT by raptor22

Vulnerability: Expert testimony before Congress on Thursday warned that an electromagnetic pulse attack on our power grid and electronic infrastructure could leave most Americans dead and the U.S. in another century.

That dire warning came from Peter Vincent Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.

He testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event could wipe out 90% of America's population.

Most people's eyes might glaze over upon mention of the committee name, the title of the hearing — "Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP): Threat to Critical Infrastructure" — and the general subject of EMP. But it is a real threat and not the stuff of science fiction.

Some attention has been paid to the potential cataclysmic effects of a natural phenomenon such as a massive solar storm, an event that has occurred in America's horse-and-buggy era when it did not matter.

Today an electromagnetic pulse event would be devastating. It wouldn't need a solar storm, just a solitary nuke detonated in the atmosphere above the American heartland. We would envy the horse-and-buggy era.

"Natural EMP from a geomagnetic superstorm, like the 1859 Carrington Event or 1921 Railroad Storm, and nuclear EMP attack from terrorists or rogue states, as practiced by North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2013, are both existential threats that could kill 9-of-10 Americans through starvation, disease and societal collapse," the Washington Free Beacon quoted Pry as saying.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; US: District of Columbia; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: electricgrid; emp; northkorea; nuclearjihad; nuclearterror; nuclearterrorb; peterpry; petervincentpry; powergrid; pry
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1 posted on 05/12/2014 9:26:01 AM PDT by raptor22
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To: raptor22

According to UN Agenda 21, killing 90% of the population would be a GOOD thing. It’s the entire goal.


2 posted on 05/12/2014 9:27:18 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." --Tacitus)
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To: Grampa Dave; granite; GreenFreeper; grjr21; I got the rope; IchBinEinBerliner; jaredt112; JayB; ...

EMP PING


3 posted on 05/12/2014 9:27:26 AM PDT by raptor22 (Follow me on Twitter @gerfingerpoken)
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To: raptor22
That is a lot of chaff separated from the wheat.
4 posted on 05/12/2014 9:28:12 AM PDT by ArtDodger
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To: raptor22
just a solitary nuke detonated in the atmosphere above the American heartland

As an electrical engineer, specialized in power systems, I strongly doubt a single nuclear explosion would be more than a localized event.

5 posted on 05/12/2014 9:28:21 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Smaller populations are easier to control.


6 posted on 05/12/2014 9:30:56 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: thackney

Remember also, that after WWII, a devastated, non-electric mainland China still had roughly 450 million people surviving—not richly, I agree—on approximately the same land mass as the US, without much electrification.

It would be rough for the first few months. Cars and trucks would be re-configured to work with old-style distributors. Generators would work, but would supply power to local areas with a damaged grid. It wouldn’t be the Dark Ages, but it would be a major disaster.


7 posted on 05/12/2014 9:31:47 AM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: thackney

Hope you’re right. I’ve heard some pretty dire predictions of what could happen if the the nuke went off at a few hundred thousand feet.

I’m not qualified to say one way or the other, but some folks out there seem convinced.


8 posted on 05/12/2014 9:33:08 AM PDT by DoughtyOne
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To: raptor22

With 90% of US population gone that would mean the rest of the world would be on that so called “level playing field”. Everyone would now have a great shot at success.


9 posted on 05/12/2014 9:35:10 AM PDT by mosaicwolf (Strength and Honor)
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To: All

“the nuclear crisis of 2013 ... North Korea”

Umm, a few vague threats from North Korea hardly amount to a crisis, but perhaps we should send them a pulse, after all, their ruling classes are probably the only ones on the grid anyway.


10 posted on 05/12/2014 9:35:49 AM PDT by Peter ODonnell (It wasn't this cold before global warming)
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To: Pearls Before Swine

The transition would kill most, if it was truly widespread. Those Chinese were already supporting themselves that way.


11 posted on 05/12/2014 9:37:08 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney

Doood....that doesn’t make any sense. The article is about the electro-magnetic pulse of a nuclear detonation at altitude.


12 posted on 05/12/2014 9:40:34 AM PDT by steerpike100
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To: steerpike100
The article is about the electro-magnetic pulse of a nuclear detonation at altitude.

I understand that. Do you understand how quickly the effect of an EMP falls away with distance? And the amount of distance we are talking about?

13 posted on 05/12/2014 9:42:09 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: raptor22

Oh good grief!!

Keep the masses all stirred up and in a state of fear.


14 posted on 05/12/2014 9:45:23 AM PDT by servantboy777
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To: steerpike100

In my soon to be released novel (titled ‘EMP’) it is a massive solar event that causes the effect. It is mentioned in the book that the Amish communities are doing pretty well a couple of months in, because they didn’t have their day to day lives disrupted.


15 posted on 05/12/2014 9:45:36 AM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius (www.wilsonharpbooks.com - Eclipse, the sequel to Bright Horizons is out! Get it now!)
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To: raptor22

Was the disruption at LAX last week coinciding with the U-2 fly over an EMP test?


16 posted on 05/12/2014 9:46:07 AM PDT by conservativeimage (I Won't Go Underground http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wema3CNqzvg)
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To: steerpike100; thackney
The article is about the electro-magnetic pulse of a nuclear detonation at altitude.

Like the 2,000 or so nukes set off across the world, several dozen of which were burst at extreme altitude? Guess what, we are still here. The "1-nuke-at-altitude-and-we-go-back-to-the-stone-age" is BS. Yes, I read One Second After. Good book, but it is still FICTION.

When I was with DOE/NNSA, I was able to visit an SS-18 site being dismantled in the mid-1990s. When we talked to the Russians about their big 25MT warhead on some of them, they said that it was for the LCCs in the Minuteman/MX missile fields, which makes sense. (Anyways, never trust the russians. IIRC those 25MT warheads were dismantled at their Pantex Plant equivalent in Russia).

17 posted on 05/12/2014 9:48:06 AM PDT by DCBryan1 (No realli, moose bytes can be quite nasti!!)
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To: raptor22

You should be making/buying Faraday boxes for anything important you would want to rely on. Such as communications equipment and solar/wind power charge controllers and inverters.

Those using insulin or having other need for for refrigeration should look for a good, used RV propane powered refrigerator and propane stocks, and have extra circuit board electronics in Faraday boxes.

Of course, insulin supplies and propane will run out eventually. But, RV refrigerators will run a long time with a tiny flame powered from a home barbque grill tank.


18 posted on 05/12/2014 9:48:57 AM PDT by Sasparilla
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To: thackney

I agree. This is hysteria mongering.


19 posted on 05/12/2014 9:49:47 AM PDT by Dalberg-Acton
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To: mosaicwolf; raptor22
According to UN Agenda 21, killing 90% of the population would be a GOOD thing. It’s the entire goal.

If they really believe in AGW they should fear such an outcome.

All of the unburied dead would generate huge amounts of CO2 and methane as the bodies decomposed. If Global Warming is truly caused by these gases accumulating in the atmosphere such a global catastrophe would surely bring it on with a vengeance.

Besides the decomposing bodies urban fires would spread unchecked because fire departments would not be able to fight them due to failed municipal water systems.

The unrestrained collapse of civilization would be an environmental disaster of unimaginable proportions.

20 posted on 05/12/2014 9:50:11 AM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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