Posted on 10/01/2017 6:57:53 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
“There’s a difference between no grid and no electricity.”
The grid is the delivery infrastructure. No grid, no electricity.
No grid - no working computer chips...
The X 37B went back up 3 1/2 weeks ago, 2 months ahead of schedule.
Correct, and that's also the reason Mueller is begging to be fired.
"Never do what your enemy wishes, for this reason alone, that he desires it" - Napoleon.
More speculation...It would probably be relatively easy given enough time to compromise what ever orbital threat might exist and make it look like an unknown technical failure which included total loss of communication etc..They'd all get suspicious, but that's all they'd get.
Woolsey isn’t very bright, is he. In his mind ‘knocking out the grid = no hospitals? There’s a difference between no grid and no electricity.
It is the length of the outage that makes the difference. Most hospitals have, maybe, a 72 hour supply of diesel to run the generators.
An EMP could put out much of the grid, perhaps most of the continental U.S., out of service for years.
For that sort of time period... no hospitals. Potentially, no mechanized agriculture or distribution system.
Look at Puerto Rico now. Imagine it for years without aid.
That is what he is talking about.
If North Korea is not able to send a nuclear weapon inter continentally, they DEFINITELY CANNOT put one into orbit, a task which takes far more energy.
Wrong. North Korea has had the ability to put satellites into earth orbit since 2012.
Every time they send up the X-37, I think to myself: “tungsten rods.”
And when your backup on-site generator runs out of fuel, and there are no deliveries for more fuel (because although diesel engines were not affected by the EMP, the refineries are down, so there is no new fuel to ship) ?
No doubt we have been tracking the NK satellite since it was put into orbit. Given this threat, if there’s even a hint that it’s nuclear, it will soon be destroyed — as it passes over Antartica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmy%C5%8Fngs%C5%8Fng-3_Unit_2
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-north-korea-nuclear-bomb-20170809-story.html
“With the last generation of nuclear weapons designed in the 1980s, engineers at Los Alamos National Laboratory produced the W88, weighing only 800 pounds despite having an explosive force equal to 475,000 tons of TNT — in other words, less than one-tenth the weight of the first atomic bomb, but 400 times more powerful.”
The US has had the ability to disable orbiting satellites for at least a couple of decades. All it takes is a high powered laser, like the one in New Mexico, to burn up electronic circuits on the vehicle. The Norks do not yet have the ability to deorbit a satellite and steer it to a target. That takes considerably more technology and reentry shielding. This is an empty threat.
I have a 12 KW military surplus generator much older than half a century. It does just fine without the grid. It's even on a trailer, so I can move it to a gas station to run the pumps if the owner hasn't figured it out, as well. I'm sure the US will do just fine if the grid goes down.
Step 1 Throw out the safety manuals
Step 2 Rip out the electronic switches and controls. Put in manual switches and fusible links where possible for some level of safety. Remove all the anti-pollution equipment and revert to 1950s technology without some of the then available safety equipment.
Heat - boiler (with a mechanical safety valve) - turbine - generator - wire.
Without all the power guzzling modern electronics, you are going to need a lot less electricity on the front end, anyway.
Ah yes, the “SMITE” key! I actually have that ‘toon on a T-Shirt. I rarely wear it anymore because it is really old and I can’t replace it.
Locate it. Shoot it down. Repeat as necessary.
If the target is really big, it won't be an overwhelming obstacle. If they go after mid-town of a certain city, it would probably be beyond their current technical capability, but if they can only aim it to a certain densely populated state or anywhere in continental U.S., the job gets considerably easier. They are always after psychological terror they can unleash. The fallout itself can cause a lot of panic and economic damage even when the nuke warhead won't go off. I agree that they may have not yet mastered the reentry technology.
Woolsey's scenario does not even presume reentry. He says that the nuke can go off in orbit and cause extensive EMP damage in space and on the ground.
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