Low-tech EMP could bring America to its knees

Where was Moses when the lights went out?...

... in the dark.

Low-tech EMP to send U.S. back to 'Stone Age'?
3 Aug.`12 > Experts: Attack with 50-year-old SCUD would turn America into 'government by disaster'

 

I've been concerned about this for some time. If you have money in the bank, get it out and store some of it at home hidden. Money will have little value but money in a bank that can't get it out is worth even less.

Know what else i find. Home-ohs are not into prepping. Neither are most leftist. After an emp attack, it is estimated that 100 mill will die in the first 6 months.

 

Guns and ammo people.

No has responsibility for you except for you.

 

As a high voltage electronics hobbyist and being very familiar with this type of technology, my informed opinion is that the threat of EMP weapons is vastly overrated. Plenty of very knowledgable hobbyists experiment with EMP "weapons" in their backyards, and despite some of these devices being quite large and operating at high energy levels, none of them has managed to fry anything more than an individual computer at close range. I do not think we will see any "EMP terrorism" any time soon.

 

one fission bomb over NYC would fry everything from DC to Boston. in winter, millions would freeze to death. Iran test launched a scud from a freighter in the Caspian Sea in 1986 and detonated the warhead at apogee. this is part of their long term plan.

 

I find it rather amusing that Ámericans can find their "dreaded" winters to be a life or death issue. I wonder how you all would survive in my little northern corner of the world. If you live in America and your power goes out in the winter, you will not get the least bit of sympathy from me.

 

Wouldn't you agree that several million would die within the first few weeks?

Of course it would be tough on the very old and the very young and lots of those wouldn't make it, but I was also thinking about people with illnesses or injuries. Cancer patients who couldn't get their chemo, diabetics whose insulin would go bad unrefrigerated, people on life support recovering from surgeries, etc...

ummm... I'll take a stab at this.....we live in different latitudes and are acclimated to different weather along with the fact that our building codes/techniques reflect what is necessary for the area.
In other words, as tough as you obviously are I don't think you'd survive in a N.Y. (or Maine or wherever....) apartment in winter with no heat either.
Here's another angle. How long do you think you'd you survive in Death Valley in the summer?..OR winter, ace?
I could be wrong.

 

there's no trees left to burn in NYC...well there's a few, but i doubt Rocky would have a saw.

 

Been covered before.

EMP is not only a theory and never actually proven, it is amazingly simple to protect against.

And I am sorry, this is complete nonsense. "50 year old SCUD"? I mean really, really?

The longest range SCUD ever deployed only has a range of 550 km. Now the last time I looked, that is less then 350 miles. And that impact point is way more then 350 miles inland. So I guess that this SCUD is going to be launched from Louisville?

Seems that whoever made that horrible original article never thought to see what the range of a SCUD was, or how far inland St. Lewis was the sea (distance from St. Louis to Washington DC, 836 miles).

Now think about this insane claim. Some nation is going to sneak up the coast with a single nuclear missile, then use it to burn out some electronics with an EMP burst. When instead they can strike more important targets, like DC, New York, or even the Old River Control Structure.

This is just paranoia. And paranoia that is easily protected against.

 

This type of "conspiracy theory" thrives on the ignorance of most people, and their ignorance of how nuclear weapons actually work.

You can protect your electronics with something as simple as a garbage can. We have known about the theoretical threat of EMP for decades, and protected ourselves against it for just as long. Because the same protections also protect our grid against things like solar flares.

 

Fry everything? No.

Temporarily shut it down until it can be restarted a few hours later? Yes.

How will millions freeze to death when most buildings in the northeast use heating systems that don't require electronics?

 

But Mushroom- the posters here are on the inside! After all- one of them knows Iran's plans:
" detonated the warhead at apogee. this is part of their long term plan."!

They clearly are working for Iran because they know this stuff, so how can you possbily deny it.

Iran is going to launch a Scud off a merchant ship off of our coast, and detonate a nuclear device over the United States, because they think Iran would be a nicer place to live in if it was a nuclear wasteland.....because thats what it would be afterwards.

 

Buildings don't use "electronics" to generate heat.
You're familiar with Mr. Franklin's discovery of electricity?

 

EMP doesn't shut down electricity. It shuts down ELECTRONICS. Diesel generators and fuel oil boilers don't have electronic components. They wouldn't even shut off.

 

An EMP could (theoretically) immediately shut down the power grid...and generators and boilers do have electronic parts...Almost everything does.

Your position is that loss of the power grid would have no effect on living conditions?

Such a weapon poses “substantial risk to equipment and operation of the nation’s power grid and under extreme conditions could result in major long term electrical outages,” said Joseph McClelland of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Senate testimony.


…An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, is a super energetic radio wave that’s immediately harmless to people, but it’ll burn out all the critical electronic systems that sustain human economic activity and human life across vast areas, including the entire continental United States.

-Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, President, EMPact America

“Within a year of that attack, nine out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can’t support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity,” said Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy. “And that is exactly what I believe the Iranians are working towards.”

 

They have electric parts, not electronic parts.

EMP's short circuit electronics like computers, but have very little effect on simple electric switches.

The people that you are quoting are deliberately overstating the threat and engaging in fear mongering. EMP would take our power grid off line...for a couple hours. Then they would restart it. It would shut off your computer, then you restart it.

It would take a multi-megaton warhead (which won't fit on a SCUD) to generate an EMP strong enough to permanently fry anything like what they are claiming.

9 out of 10 Americans dead...what bull(*)(*)(*)(*). I guess no one ever survived in the 1950's when cars didn't have computers and I guess such a thing is impossible to have now.

 

Ok...I think you're distorting some of the conditions and cooking the books on others....but it's all fantasy anyway.

I'm not going to quibble about which devices have circuit boards and how much damage could occur to the infrastructure due to power outages or how fast things could be fixed (by who?..the government?...like they did during hurricane Katrina?)...pure speculation all the way around.
Different sources say different things.
Would it be safe to say nobody knows for sure?

 

Nobody know sofr sure because the entire excercise is theoretical.

At the very least, the idea that Iran could pull of such a thing with a Scud is ludicrious. Scud's don't carry a big enough payload.

 

What in the world are you talking about? Sometimes here in Bama it gets below freezing and it may last for two or three days!

It even snowed last year. How in the world would we survive that?

 

Are you familiar with what a Faraday Cage is?

These are really remarkable. You place metal sheeting or even a grid around things, and it shields them from electrical and electromagnetic pulses and effects.

It lets people stand feet away from charged Tesla Coils, and not get zapped.



It is why way back in the 1960's, computers and telephone equipment was placed inside of thick shielded metal cases.



It is the reason why military electronics are protected behind thick metal doors, often with multiple layers of metal shielding.



All of these are Faraday Cages. And the technology is amazingly simple. If you doubt me, take your phone and put it inside of a galvinized steel garbage can with a tight fitting lid. Then call that phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoQZY1FtI3c

Oh, and if you doubt this, ask yourself why you can watch the inside of your microwave oven, with huge numbers of microwaves flying about. The answer is that your microwave oven is itself a Faraday Cage.

 

Yes. I had read a little about Faraday cages.
Thanks for the info. Good stuff.

 

And everyone thinks the N. Koreans can't get there rockets to go any higher, and continually laugh at them as failures.

Maybe they are going just a high as they need them to go....from say...off of a freighter in harbor to major city.

 

This is something that most people just don't seem to get.

The US has known about the possible effect from EMP since the Starfish Prime detonation in 1962. And almost all of the major military equipment since then has been designed with this in mind. If you ever get a chance, look at some of what the military uses. Tanks, PATRIOT launchers, aircraft, computers, generators, these have been designed and shielded to protect them from such effects for decades.

And the same goes for the civilian infrastructure. Now I am not saying there will be no effect, but it is not as bad as a lot of fear prophits seem to make it out to be. For example, we have had massive solar flares in the past, which when they strike satellites or electronics infrastructure act just like EMP. Just a few months ago, such a flare took down the Skyterra 1 satellite for about 2 weeks until technicians could reboot it. The same solar flare cluster also knocked out the Sky Astra, which took about 6 hours to fix.

Such a flare in 1989 knocked out power to parts of Quebec, but it was back up within 9 hours. The Space Shuttle in orbit was not affected, and some satellites had to be rebooted, but none were significantly damaged. Generally in these cases circuit breakers are tripped, and sometimes components are fused. But most repairs are completed within days.

In fact, the only satellite I could think of that had ever been knocked out of service permanently was the Galaxy IV in 1998. I remember when this went down, because my pager was offline for about a week when it happened, and at the time it was reported to have been caused by solar flares. But in looking it back up now, it seems that the actual cause of this failure was actually tin whiskers, not solar flares.

 

If they want them to hit any further then say Japan or South Korea, then they are indeed failures. And quite often they have been spectacular failures. Like the recent Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3, which exploded 90 seconds after lift off. Or the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2, in which the 3rd stage failed to seperate and ignite from the 2nd stage, causing it (and an expensive communications satellite on board) to fall into the ocean. Or the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1, in which the third stage rocket motor ruptured, causing the rocket and satellite to fall into the sea.

I am sorry, I juts can't accept them purposefully destroying their 3 most advanced rockets that way. This goes beyond conspiracy theory ideas.

 

insulation, breakers and fuses are no protection against EMP. even lightbulbs still in the box would be ruined. it's a lighting strike that hits everywhere at once.

even fuel oil boilers have electronic controls or a thermocouple. they're not going to work with every wire for 200 miles that isn't 40 feet underground or in a faraday cage is blown out.

steam heat? yeah, good luck with that when the steam plants go down.