Heh...Nuclear material couriers with DOE/NNSA/OST would consider a large, determined attack good target practice.
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Posted on 05/23/2018 12:47:33 PM PDT by Crucial
When the Commission to Assess the Threat from Electromagnetic Pulse [EMP] Attack published its report in 2004, coal accounted for roughly half of all power produced in the United States. Today, only a third of US electricity comes from coal, according to the US Energy Information Agency (EIA). This is good news for both environmentalists and natural gascompanies. The formers’ long term dream of a more sustainable source of power is being realized, while the latters’ business is booming.
According to the EIA report, natural gas now makes up a third of all power produced – with nuclear and renewables making up the rest.
What will reduce EMP risk is a diffuse, scattered, localized and varied power grid.
We all know, they bigger and more centralized they are, the harder they fall. Black swans, anti-fragile systems and all that.
Reading last week that EMP on large scale is complete fiction.
What will be the effect of an EMP attack on electric cars that are supposed to be so good for us by getting us off that terrible oil?
Follow the money:
EMP is just another scare. They estimate they need 500 billion dollars to update the grid. So you can count on 1.5 Trillion. They don’t get that money unless they can scare us. Also they want to centralize control of the grid.
All just a gigantic scam. This is indians waving blankets to stampede us buffalo over a budgetary cliff.
Only if it’s done by Global Totalitarian Government. Otherwise, it doesn’t count.
If not coal, then there is nuclear, natural gas and hydroelectric, with hydroelectric being very localized and the most scarce. Nuclear poses numerous problems, particularly if there is a terrorist attack. Coal plants will not produce radioactive fallout or nuclear waste, for that matter.
If it is powerful to fry electric cars it will also probably fry the computers in gas ones too.
In that case only cars made before circa 1992 will work. (This was a plot point in the Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds.)
Why would gas be considered more "sustainable" than coal? We have a lot of petroleum, but way more coal. BTW, why aren't we setting up to gasify that, again?
Probably minimal. It’s not power systems that are vulnerable (I mean the actual power transmission, not the electronic control thereof), it’s the electronic control, and gas vehicles have more than enough of that to be rendered inoperable if they were taken out.
The sun is 93 million miles away. (I rounded up, but you’d hardly notice. The Carrington event happened before we had much electricity. If it happened today, chances are most of the world would be left in the dark. https://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event
The nuclear attack scenarios during the cold war had both sides exploding high altitude air bursts in an overlapping pattern of three at a time. The idea was to keep the civilian world and much of the military world in the dark.
As an engineer, I did EMP testing on equipment my company produced for the military. It is very real. Most military equipment is supposedly hardened. But imagine a huge voltage spike hitting everything in your house. You’d smell the smoke.
One bomb probably wouldn’t do in the entire country. But a series of bombs would cause many secondary deaths due to plane and car crashes, people dying in hospitals and among people who require special medication. Also, the logistics of everyday life would be severely interrupted. This isn’t something like a hurricane where repair crews can drive in to the affected area and get everything up and running again. This is the New York blackout times 1,000.Then throw in practically every car that was running at the time of the attack.
This is a great and forward thinking idea. For those who say it is unlikely or impossible, read some more. It happened in the 19 century in the US from a solar flare. Three high altitude nuclear atmospheric explosions positioned correctly would take the US back to 1800s once more. We are dependent on transformers from China to replace the ones we will need, and without shipping and manufacturing, not to mention the glee our enemy would show in pricing and supply. $500 Billions is cheap, and worth every dime.
Besides, even is they all stayed functional, the rest of the infrastructure on the grids would be roast.
There are three electric grids in the US.
The one time instant loss of 30% of generation in each, will cause the collapse of anyone of those grids.
Each grid is operated like one big machine. Many moving parts. Restoration will be a long process.
People will be eating people, pretty much the worst part of the bible.
Nope. At most some transformers would need to be replaced. Power generation would not be impacted.
It is. Nobody can do what's being claimed except possibly the U.S., and even then it's of limited impact (maybe a couple of states)--and I doubt we're going to EMP ourselves anytime soon.
Actual testing showed most cars are not impacted beyond messed up lights on the dashboard. The only car that was killed by the EMP test was Saturn b/c it’s mostly a plastic body. Normal cars’ bodies act as crude Faraday cages to shield most of the effects of the EMP.
A few nuclear scientists at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore who studied this specific effect would disagree with you here.
So an EMP would wipe out transformers, substations and stop power form being generated and transferred. So just how is coal supposed to be better for a dead power system?
Heh...Nuclear material couriers with DOE/NNSA/OST would consider a large, determined attack good target practice.
Snake eaters with a badge:
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