Posted on 05/15/2018 9:47:05 AM PDT by Perseverando
As a prepper and avid reader of post-apocalyptic fiction like One Second After, Alas Babylon, and Going Home, an EMP has long been on my mind as one of the most catastrophic threats we could face.
After reading numerous reports from the Congressional EMP Commission, I figured that the reality of such a threat was a given. So when I recently wrote about making Faraday cages, imagine my surprise when I saw this comment:
I appreciate the attempt to help people prepare for all kinds of disasters, but I’m going to have to throw a conversational bomb into this room, so to speak.
EMP is a total scam. See here: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/02/david-hathaway/emp-hoax/
Not only is EMP a scam, nuclear weapons are probably a scam. Certainly they were at the time of abhorrent and immoral destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both cities victimized by fire bombing like all the other Japanese cities.
I suppose protection against lightning might be useful, a system of lightning rods being an alternative. I wouldn’t lose sleep at night over this EMP nonsense, especially when there are real dangers we face every day.
What?????
I was really surprised to see this. I went to read the article at the link and discovered the author of it had written an entire book on the topic called EMP Hoax. The book had a forward written by Lew Rockwell, for whom I have the deepest respect. Mr. Rockwell wrote of a nuclear detonation over the Pacific Ocean in 1962:
One purpose of the blast was to study the impact, if any, of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) effects. One incident is alleged to show such effects. Based on this incident, the government concluded that hostile powers could use EMPs to disable the electronic infrastructure
(Excerpt) Read more at theorganicprepper.com ...
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Coincidentally I ran across this EMP article last night after posting an EMP article yesterday. More food for thought.
ping
This pretty much kills the credibility of anything that comes after.
Hoax. EMP is a real effect of nuclear devices, but its affect on electronic and electrical circuits is not the god-like destructive powers claimed on the Internet.
There is certainly an obsession with this topic by some on FR. But half the time its invited. Sometimes it might be best just to not bring it up...
She forgot to add “Scientific Illiterate” and “Blog-Shite-Shoveller” to her not-the-least-impressive CV.
“Not only is EMP a scam, nuclear weapons are probably a scam. Certainly they were at the time of abhorrent and immoral destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both cities victimized by fire bombing like all the other Japanese cities.”
Is he saying nukes aren’t real? I’m pretty sure they are, but I am skeptical about the EMP thing. Lew Rockwell is banned on FR for some reason.
An idiot. If the author had spent a few days serving our country, he or she would have known that EMP is real enough.
Stopped paying any attention right there............
So I’m going to refer to a few things I learned from a Ham Radio Club meeting I attended back in the early 80s while living in Santa Barbara. We had a speaker from the Air Force (Vandenberg AFB - maybe you’ve heard of it) - and this is a summary of what the guy said.
The physics of it are relatively easy to understand - a weapons burst at altitude sends high-energy particles through the ionosphere. The energy levels are varied across a wide range, i.e. fairly low energies to fairly high in an essentially even distribution. They interact with the ionosphere which turns some of the energy into radio waves. Because there is an even distribution of the energy spectra - the radio spectra is wide too, i.e. the frequencies represented start at DC to up to the GHz range. The energy levels - and this is from a 40 year old memory - are something like 30KV/m**2.
So - EMP effect is REAL. Why it occurs is straight-forward to understand.
The officer also said that an airburst could cover a range of 1500 miles and get this - Faraday cages wouldn’t help because the EMP step function is so big - that the internal E field of the Faraday cage would take a finite time to re-balance - so you see the effect within the Faraday cage... he suspected that any transistor circuit even within a sealed Faraday cage would go pop.
SPAM
Bill Wattenburg, Berkeley educated nuclear physicist and former long-time radio talk show host, talked about this subject literally for decades, and concluded that although the EMP effect is real, the actual danger from a hostile power detonating one was practically nil for a variety of reasons, and the book ‘one-second-after’ was largely scare-porn crap.
As with so many other things... ...it’s not that simple.
It’s not EITHER a hoax or else a deadly threat.
Again, as with so many other things, Nature (and physics) sees a range — a wide spectrum of degree of effect — between civilization-destroying utter devastation, and “Look Mom, Nothing Happened.”
It depends on the strength of the field, and where the affected objects and systems are. And numerous other variables.
Yes, it’s Real. I spent a lot of years in EMI / RFI / TEMPEST / EMC / and EMP with a manufacturer of control and suppression devices.
So. Prep reasonably, by all means. Run in panicky cicles waving your arms in the air while hollering — probably not indicated.
Don’ worry: Be happy.
Bingo! I’d wager she never took a physics course and thinks Faraday is a multivitamin. Or maybe she failed the only physics course she took.
Depends on what is affected and how close it is and if it has any immunity. Modern systems are designed with some level of immunity. Maybe because of regulatory compliance and not necessarily EMP proof. As a rule something that emits a lot of “noise” is also susceptible to the same “noise.”
Also, what is affected in our electronic world is important. Especially as everything in our lives becomes more and more automated via electronics.
EMP is a concern of mine. Thank God for DJT and his handling of Rocket Man.
A semi-legitimate threat. A sufficiently sophisticated, high-altitude burst, carefully times to have maximum effect, delivered with pinpoint accuracy to specific coordinates, may very well work. Considering the sloppiness of his operators’ performance, it is highly unlikely that a tinpot like Kim Jong Un could deliver such a punch.
And he sure would not get the second chance.
Doubters check out Starfish Prime and Soviet Project K nuclear tests
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