Our internet, our phones, our FR, all gone in the blink of an eye!!!!
I cant wait to post 'I told you so ' after it happens.
Isn’t this why we have the flux capacitor ?!
Wereallgonnadie.
The EMP threat is a joke. Nothing to see here.
Cue the “Aww geez! Not this sh*t again” dude
I’m betting that a gamma ray burst from deep space will get us first. Don’t worry about solar flares or nuke attack. But there is a chance that Yellowstone will beat the gamma ray burst. It is 40000 years overdue ya know.
Author is “Ashman”. How appropriate “A$$man”.
If we get hit by a blast from the Sun, who cares, you’re dead.
We def will kill each other for water, food, firearms, ammo, medical supplies and coffee.
But hey, nothing to worry about if all the circuits, transmission wires and transformers are fried anyway.
...could cause 90% of Americans to die...
Oh, ok.
Our internet, our phones, our FR, all gone in the blink of an eye!!!!
I cant wait to post 'I told you so ' after it happens.
[shrug] The herd needs thinning.
That the US needs to import electric transformers is a problem. Instead of wasting billions on worthless windmills and solar panel farms, we should be investing in developing that manufacturing capability here and improving our electric grid system. In the not too distant past we have had regional blackouts covering large portions of the US caused by simple transformer failures. As part of improvements in our grid should be protections against EMP whether it comes from cosmic or nuclear attack threats.
Rktman, thanks for posting this.
For those who think that EMP is a joke: just because something hasn’t happened before, doesn’t mean that it cannot happen. You are suffering from what is known as confirmation bias.
EMP has, however, occurred before. WRT natural events, the seminal event was in 1859 - the Carrington Event. We had few electrical lines (mostly telegraphs), and many of those burst into flames as a result of the power of the burst. As the article mentioned, we dodged a bullet in 2012. There have been other glancing blows that only resulted in temporary power outages in limited areas...but that’s just plain dumb luck.
WRT hostile actions, we KNOW (as do the Russians) what the potential power of an EMP generated by a nuke can be. We generated one in 1962 in the Starfish Prime nuclear test over the Pacific; the (then) Soviets had their Test 184. Read about them HERE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse Starfish Prime knocked out street lights and had other effects in Hawaii - 900 miles away. Note that this was NOT a test that tried to magnify the EMP effect, and that bombs can be tuned to significantly enhance the effect (and if your nation can build a nuke, it also has the technology to tune it in this fashion). The Soviet test used a smaller bomb, but took place near populated areas, and the effects were well beyond what Soviet scientists had expected.
WRT the tests of automobiles vs. an EMP pulse, the very few results so far are inconclusive. The EMP Commission obtained cars from several government agencies for testing, but had to return them in working order - so they did NOT generate EMP up to the levels that the equipment they had could produce. Further, none of these vehicles was made after the 2002 model year...and there has been a significantly increased reliance upon microelectronics since then. Here is an article analyzing these tests: http://www.futurescience.com/emp/vehicles.html
For anyone actually interested in the FACTS of the matter, there is this study: https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-320.pdf Section 8 has the conclusions...among which are that:
“The EMP Commission specifically was tasked to look at the impacts on general society from an EMP assault on the U.S. It noted that this is not just a power system issue – all of the other important legs of the infrastructure are also intertwined with each other and the power system, with the power grid probably being the most significant. Note also that E1 HEMP often cannot be isolated from other effects. E2 and E3 are also important, and possibly would have worse effects than E1 for some parts of the infrastructure, such as the effect of E3 on the power transmission system. Also there can be synergistic effects, such as E1 setting up a system to be further damaged by the following E2 or E3 pulse.”
The bottom line here is:
1) The EMP threat from either hostile action or natural phenomenon is certainly not zero. If there was only a 0.5% chance of such an event happening in any given year, that would equate to about a 9.5% chance over 20 years, and about a 22.2% chance over 50 years.
2) The effects of such an EMP ARE bad enough (and will get worse as we become more and more dependent upon microelectronics and just-in-time delivery systems) that the probabilities above are just too high to ignore. Granted, in any given year the probability is low, but with potentially catastrophic effects (and we just don’t know), you have the Perfect Storm for a “low probability, high impact” event (much like a 5-mile wide asteroid hitting the Earth). We, as a society, would be incredibly stupid to NOT prepare to significantly ameliorate EMP effects.
3) Given 1 and 2, above, the relatively small investment in measures intended to significantly ameliorate the effects of a hostile or natural EMP event are definitely worth it. In fact, the more such preparations are implemented, the lower the odds of a hostile attack (because it won’t have the desired effect, and any perpetrator(s) would then be faced with a very pissed off, and nuclear-armed, America).
4) WRT the odds of any disaster, and the advisability of preparing for it, there was a VERY instructive article posted on FR yesterday. The original article is here: https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437
I’d suggest that before anyone spouts off again with such ingenious statements as “Ah, not this $hit again!” or “this is a big nothing” or similar UNINFORMED statements, that they read all four of the articles/studies linked to in this post. Once you’ve gotten informed, then come back to the rest of us with INFORMED doubts, rather than just ridicule (like the Alinskyites). Come on, folks, you’re better than that!
We have been warned about the electric grid for years, if not decades.
Nothing has been done. Not by the electric companies. Not by the regulators. Not by the state or federal government.
Seems to me either there really isn’t anything we can do to protect ourselves from an attack on the electric grid, or the powers-that-be don’t care if it happens (or prefer it happens).
Or we are not nearly as vulnerable as they say.
Spam. Buy Spam.
Hmmmmmm - we’re in a solar minimum and it seems like this person has opted to doible down on the Sun as far as EMP dangers w/o acknowledging its affect on the climate...
I realize this is “The Internet” where everyone loves their pet fantasies and disregards mundane things like... math, but I did the math for an EMP strike.
No one else, anywhere, has done the math.
So, if you want a math-based perspective (gasp!) instead of wild-eyed thoughts from “The Internet” then let Free Republic be the first to show it off:
A 1 megaton blast at 200,000 m altitude (sweet spot in Ionosphere for EMP effects) would generate ~~ 4.2 *10^15 joules at that point which might translate to ~~ 6.5 Megawatts/200,000 meters on the surface directly beneath the blast, distributed horizon to horizon (~~ 1,200 miles of Earth surface in every direction) so electronics on the surface directly beneath the blast would see an electrical surge from the Hall effect of a magnetic wave passing through conductive surfaces/wire of about 324 watts/square meter.
Obviously the longer length of your wire (circuitry) that is exposed to the EMP the greater your total wattage from the surge will be in your circuit.
Telephone wires could easily spark. Your headlights/taillights might glow bright for a moment, perhaps even pop. Parallel circuits will be less taxed than series circuits.
...but the surge directly below the blast will be orders of magnitude greater than the final EMP that reaches the blast’s 1,200 mile horizon radius (1,931 Km).
Distance matters.
6.5 Megawatts divided by 1,931,000 meters means that the EMP on the end horizon of the blast is only ~~ 3.37 watts per square meter. Pretty much every circuit made can handle that “surge”.
324 watts/sq meter directly under a high-altitude Space EMP blast, trailing down to 3.37 watts/sq meter 1,200 miles horizontally away from the EMP blast.
Think about how a loud noise is louder when you are closer to it. That’s also how EMP fares with electronic circuits.
It’s math.
Excellent article.
PING!
This is just “boogie man” scare tactics.
A lot of power companies either have or are in the process of installing “enhanced grounding” on their infrastructure
That’s it, I’ve had it, I am leaving this planet.