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In what could potentially be one of the most, or least, significant actions of his term in office, President Trump Tuesday signed an Executive Order requiring federal agencies to strengthen critical infrastructure against ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) attacks.
EMPs occur for a variety of natural and man-made reasons including, most notably, Nuclear Explosions and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), either of which could potentially take out entire sections of the country's electrical grid and other infrastructure and capabilities, requiring require years or decades to recover from.
Members and supporters of the decommissioned US Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse have long warned of the possibility of an EMP attack, with some individuals, such as Peter Pry, who previously led the congressional EMP commission, asserting that an EMP attack on America could kill off 90% of the US population.
This is because a man-made EMP has the advantage of being highly asymmetrical. A small country able to pull one off would cause potentially massive disruption to a large tech dependent country such as the United States.
Past EMP related coverage here, here and here
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @11:21AM (19 children)
It could also be disrupted by the sun. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon the astronauts discovered there was glass in all the craters, as if something had heated the entire surface to melt it. They dated it to the last 30k years based on the rate of turnover of the lunar surface. A layer of similar glassy substance is found all over earth and has dated to the younger dryas.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:38PM
Source:
Apollo 11 Observations of a Remarkable Glazing Phenomenon on the Lunar Surface.
T. Gold. Science. New Series, Vol. 165, No. 3900 (Sep. 26, 1969), pp. 1345-1349. 10.1126/science.165.3900.1345
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/165/3900/1345 [sciencemag.org]
Melted glass from a cosmic impact 12,900 years ago
Ted E. Bunch, et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jul 2012, 109 (28) E1903-E1912; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204453109
https://www.pnas.org/content/109/28/E1903 [pnas.org]
Strange that the title of the second paper is different in the "citation tools".
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday March 29 2019, @01:22PM (2 children)
> A layer of similar glassy substance is found all over earth and has dated to the younger dryas.
I could not read the first article.
The second article is consistent with meteor impacts rather than solar flares (i.e. a big f--ing asteroid).
Or did I read wrong?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @01:29PM (1 child)
When you read scientific literature you need to separate the facts with the explanation. A meteor made more sense to them because they are unaware of the glass on the moon dated to the same period (they don't mention it). It is unlikely an impact would cause both at the same time.
Also paste the dog into scihub to read the moon paper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @01:32PM
Autocorrect changed doi to dog:
http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.165.3900.1345 [sci-hub.tw]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @05:56PM (14 children)
From TF summary:
EMPs occur for a variety of natural and man-made reasons including, most notably, Nuclear Explosions and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)
Glass in craters doesn't support anything - you *expect* to find glass in craters. And every where nearby (including all over nearby astronomical bodies, if the impact is large enough) - it's created by the heat of impact, and thrown up in the resulting debris cloud. If the glass was created by a CME, you should see less glass in the craters than on the surrounding surface, as craters will be exposed for a shorter duration than flatlands. You'd also expect to only find such glass on the half ofg the moon that was facing the sun at the time, unless the CME was so sustained that the moon was immersed in it for a full month-long rotation. Might be worth investigating once we've gathered samples from the rest of the surface, but it seems implausible from what little I know of solar physics. CMEs form when a loop of plasma breaks free from the suns magnetic field - they can be quite large, but the "explosion" itself is over fairly quickly after it begins. I suppose a large cluster of separate CMEs would do the job, but I don't think that's likely - especially since the sun rotates roughly once every 24 days, so you'd need constant CMEs constantly erupting all around the equator for a month to hit the moon for that long. A terrifying prospect.
Glass scattered all over the Earth is far more likely the result of a large impact (or atmospheric detonation) than a CME - for it to be due to a CME that ejection would have to spend at least a day passing the Earth (which isn't completely impossible), and deliver an *astounding* amount of instantaneous power to the surface, which is also not impossible, but would be likely very difficult to achieve without superheating the atmosphere to the point of killing most living things. You'd also expect to see a much higher density of glass near the poles, as the Earth's magnetic field would concentrate the worst of the influx there.
(Score: 2, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday March 29 2019, @06:31PM (5 children)
Maybe, except the part about, "only find such glass on the half of the moon that was facing the sun all the time." There is no part of the Moon that doesn't face the sun for (roughly) 13.66 out of every 27.32 days. "Roughly" because of both libration effect and it's an average not an absolute period. There's only the half of the Moon we never see because the same face always shows towards the Earth; when it is "new moon" the face we can't see (far side) is 100% lit in the Sun and we see only a dark moon and when it is "full moon" we see our facing half all lit up and the far side is dark Better explanation [phys.org] You may have been trying to explain something else but couldn't get past what you said about both a half facing the sun all the time and the 'month-long rotation' which is actually 13 and a half days leading to nearside and 13 and a half days leading to farside illumination.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @07:47PM (4 children)
>There is no part of the Moon that doesn't face the sun...
Certainly. Though libration has a fairly minimal effect, and a lunar day (aka lunar month) actually lasts 29.53 Earth days. 27.32 days is the time it takes for it to complete a complete rotation with respect to the stars, but it also travels roughly 1/12th of the way around the sun in the same time period, so it has to make a further 1/12 of a rotation before the sun is back to the same place in its sky.
My point was that a CME impact is typically a brief event lasting only a few hours between when the the first and last particles hit - and that's out at Earth orbit, after the particles have been spread out by 1-3 days of traveling towards us at different speeds. The moon doesn't rotate much in that time (only about 1.5 degrees), so the CME would only hit the side currently facing the sun.
To hit all parts of the surface for even a few moments the CME impact would need to last almost 15 days, and then the impact would be very uneven, in a very distinctive pattern: the strip of the moon at the dawn-line when the leading edge hit (and just reaching nightfall when it was over) would have been bombarded for 15 straight days, while the strip that only caught the leading edge at nightfall, and then the tail end at dawn only gets a few minutes. To get a uniform effect the impact would have to last for a full 29.5 days, so that all parts of the moon were exposed to an equal amount of it.
I'm not sure it's even physically possible for a CME impact to last for even two weeks - that would imply that the "explosion" was an ongoing event that had lasted roughly that long on the sun. Plus, since the sun spins once every 27 days, in order for that miraculously sustained stream of plasma to stay focused on us, the eruption would have to travel more than half way around the sun's surface in near-perfect synchronization with the Earth while it was happening, otherwise the "impact" would be spread around 1/2 of the Earth's orbit, and we'd pass only be hit by a tiny portion of it as it swept across us like a lighthouse.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday March 29 2019, @08:57PM (3 children)
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. I'd read the parents above you and couldn't quite put it all together... Could it not be a series of CME's (or, far more possible, impacts) over hundreds of thousands of years? (Not one event but many taking place all around the rotative phases?) Or a roast on one side and then a million years later a roast on the other? One might not get uniformity but rather a coat all over? I'm not saying I buy that at all, just exploring the possibility.
The other thing I wouldn't get is why wouldn't it be the volcanic action (if one accepts the impactor-volcanic theory) which created the glass - not just impacts alone. But the timing would be all wrong to glass over just the last 30,000 years as that era was done in the millions of years ago IIRC.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @09:12PM (2 children)
Sure, lots of bursts are possible.
My biggest objection is with the idea that glass inside craters is evidence of solar activity, when craters would be the least impacted areas by a solar event. Unless perhaps they're talking about glass that was buried by dust and then later exposed when new craters were formed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @11:23PM
They say "For radiative heating from a small angular source in the sky the bottoms of craters are substantially favored." You are ignoring geometry (it gets warmer in a crater for the same reason it is colder at poles than the equator).
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday March 29 2019, @11:29PM
True, and as you mentioned there would be unevenness due to crater shadow.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @07:10PM (7 children)
You realize you are disagreeing with NASA who concluded it was some sort of solar event... despite admitting you know little about it? I provided the source above, take a look.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @08:04PM (6 children)
I don't think the sources post was there yet when I first replied. Not that a one-sentance summary of a media article necessarily reflects what the scientists actually said... but it's a start. And Science was (is? it's been a while) generally one of the better ones.
But regardless, *nobody* understood solar physics all that well in 1969 - we had almost no data about the sun, had only just achieved simple laboratory fusion twenty years earlier, and had no computers capable of running any but the most rudimentary of simulations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:22PM (4 children)
1) Who said this phenomenon covers the entire moon? Have samples been taken from opposite sides?
2) If it is cyclic, then over time the entire surface of the moon would be hit. The period would need to be 15k years or less or micro meteorites would have destroyed these structures (according to the paper). About 15k years before the younger dryas was the last glacial maximum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum. [wikipedia.org]
3) In the paper they say the sun would have gotten 100x brighter for tens of seconds every few tens of thousand of years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:53PM (1 child)
Well, I'd originally dated Anunnaki first contact to about the Middle Uruk period (3800 - 3400 BCE). But it could have been earlier. This isn't Star Trek, so we have to think about how difficult it would be for a technological civilization to detect signs of a primitive technological civilization after arriving at a strange new planet.
I'd always assumed that FTL travel isn't possible (probably 0.01c tops, even for sufficiently advanced technology), but could about 5 to 10 colony ships dropping out of warp generate an EMP to create glass like that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @09:04PM
And why do you think this hypothesis is worth considering? Does it predict anything different than the solar micronova one?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @09:08PM (1 child)
1) Yeah, I think I fixated on "all the craters" to a ridiculous extent
2) agreed
3) Must be the pay-walled first paper, the PNAS one seems to be focused entirely on meteor impacts and airbursts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @10:12PM
The download link is here: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=30805&page=1&cid=821781#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:49PM
It looks like the landing sites are all on the same side.
https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/how-to-see-all-six-apollo-moon-landing-sites/ [skyandtelescope.com]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @11:31AM (12 children)
really? I guess it takes someone like Trump to hear that number and not dismiss it immediately as bullshit.
if someone quoted this 90% to me I would end the conversation right there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @11:46AM (4 children)
It is probably more like 99.9999%. If the sun scorches the earth like in the past only a few dozen to thousand people would survive. When the moon starts glowing red you've got like 20 minutes to get underground.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:01PM (3 children)
that's not an EMP!
I'll be pedantic in the following.
an EMP is a pulse: basically a discontinuity in the electromagnetic field. technically you can decompose it into a short superposition of frequencies, from long radio up to visible and/or beyond (it probably depends on the source), but essentially it's just a big sudden change in the electromagnetic field.
any change in the surrounding magnetic field induces currents in electrical conductors, that grow with the size of the conductor.
the electric grid is vulnerable because it's made from very long conductors.
this is why you're not allowed to put copper wires/aluminium foil in the microwave: big currents are induced in them and bad things happen.
if the moon is glowing red it means there's a large amount of radiation coming from the sun, or hot matter from a big enough coronal mass ejection has hit it.
large amount of radiation is a sustained high amplitude electromagnetic wave (not a pulse). you may liken it to many EMPs one after the other if the amplitude is high enough, and it can certainly cause the same effects that an EMP can cause, but it's much worse than an EMP.
sustained high radiation acts on nonconducting materials, not just conductors.
this is why you can put regular food in the microwave and it still heats up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @04:27PM (1 child)
Really? You're not allowed to? Who says?
Pretty much the worst thing that can happen by sticking aluminium foil in the microwave is that you'll make a bit of ozone in the microwave. Ozone is a bit nasty so it's probably a good idea to do this in a well ventilated area and don't stick your head in the microwave immediately afterwards. Probably wise not to use the same microwave oven you use for food preparation.
It's recommended to also put a glass of water in the microwave which acts as a dummy load so less power is reflected back into the magnetron, which should extend its lifetime.
Microwave ovens don't really work on this principle. Microwave ovens do not present particularly high energy radiation.
Regular food heats up in a microwave oven because regular food contains polar molecules. Such molecules will tend to rotate in order to line up their imbalanced charge with an applied electric field. A microwave oven presents a continuously changing electric field, which causes these molecules to vibrate. This effect is what causes the energy transfer and thus heats up the food.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @06:19PM
> You're not allowed to? Who says?
The same people who say you're not allowed to put anchovies in ice cream, I'm sure.
Fire and explosion can also result, which can rapidly become a much bigger problem if you're not in the room at the time. I once saw someone unthinkingly heat food on a plate with gilded trim. The gilding was vaporized and shattered the plate. I'd be surprised if nothing more toxic than ozone was produced in the process, and the microwave was never quite the same.
Of course, you can also use a normal microwave oven to melt blocks of aluminum for casting, but you want to modify it to survive the temperatures and currents generated first, and operate it in a well-ventilated and fire-resistant area, just in case.
As for normal heating - my understanding is that the primary mechanism of heating is the absorption of microwave photons by (primarily) water and oil molecules, rather than their mechanical agitation by a changing electrostatic field.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @11:06PM
Radiation doesn't "come from the sun". That is like saying the sun revolves around the earth, totally wrong reference frame.
The speed of light is zero (photons do not age), the rest of the universe moves around the radiation at the speed of gravity/matter: c.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by driverless on Friday March 29 2019, @12:37PM (6 children)
It also takes someone like Trump to sign a wishful-thinking EO like this, since you'd have to have absolutely zero clue about EMP and EMP-hardening (and Trump definitely qualifies there) to think you could do this on any significant scale without infeasible amounts of time and money involved. The reason why no-one's ever seriously approached this before apart from some critical military systems isn't because no-one thought of it, it's because it's impractical on any kind of real scale.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @03:00PM
Wouldn't it be more cost effective to issue an executive order requiring all EMP weapons, and solar flares to emit weaker pulses?
Can a presidential committee be formed to study this?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Friday March 29 2019, @03:16PM (1 child)
Just to put this into perspective, a few years ago we got some funding to build a proper EMI-hardened system. Not EMP, just harsh EMI, so a sort of EMP with training wheels. Unit cost for a 3U rack device was US$40,000.
God it was nice though, being able to build a cost-is-no-object perfectly engineered device. I mean, you had to bring a box of tissues along when they unbolted, unscrewed, and unclipped the top of the case, and ask for some privacy.
Unfortunately the client ran out of enthusiasm once they saw the costs involved.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @08:22PM
The best client is one with plenty of enthusiasm and money to back it up.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @07:28PM (2 children)
No, it's called pork spending on a massive scale. The real purpose isn't protection of the equipment for that which truly must be protected for continuity of government already is so. The real purpose is another several billion for Halliburton, Lockheed, Raytheon, McKesson, Bechtel
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @01:59AM
Ding ding ding!
I wonder what the AC OP was thinking. Oh right, Trump supporter, not thinking.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday March 30 2019, @03:18AM
Ah, of course. So you set the threshold so that eyewateringly expensive equipment from L3 qualifies (do they even do SCADA? I guess they will now) but not ordinarily expensive equipment from Siemens, Schneider Electric, and so on. And you can spend infinite amounts of money "hardening" whatever it is you feel like hardening, and when it collapses anyway in the face of an EMP - the US power grid is nothing more than ten million km of EMP receiving antennae - there won't be anyone left to sue. I mean, there'll still be zombie lawyers crawling around, but no-one else left for them to sue.
Mind you it might work. The US grid is in a pretty shaky state from a combination of decades of deferred maintenance and trying to tie separate grids together into one super-grid. So you take the EMP funding and (a) use it to deal with the backlog of deferred maintenance and (b) harden it against actual threats, Ukraine-style SCADA hacks, Metcalf transformer attacks - all you need to do there is take out enough of them in various locations to exhaust the strategic reserve, which isn't much of a reserve, you can keep any extras you hit out of action for months if not years - etc.
So take the money for EMP protection and apply it to the deferred maintenance you haven't been able to get funding for.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @11:42AM (7 children)
The economic impact of an EMP could be devastating. The US population is so dependent on CC transactions and ATM withdrawals that many could find themselves in a position in which they cannot make any purchases. Retailers would suffer without CC purchases.
Most (or all?) "cloud" services could be disrupted, as would payroll automatic deposits and electronic bill paying.
I keep cash on hand in case of an emergency. So, as long as I can access my porn sites I'll be just fine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:04PM (1 child)
or, you know, people could go to their local shop, WRITE DOWN what they have bought, SIGN for it, and then work it out with the owner when they get access to cash.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:17PM
This sounds so quaint and naïve. A local shop owner may do this for some regular customers who they know and trust, but they don't have the time or resources to do this for all customers. Can you imagine a gas station doing this? Your grocery store? Your favorite restaurants?
If/when the electric and communication grids go down due to an EMP (or some other cause) it won't be for an afternoon. It will be days or weeks (and possibly months in some areas).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday March 29 2019, @04:32PM (4 children)
Probably not. The value of cash (meaning, government issued bills and coins) has no reason to remain stable — or even of any value — in such a widespread calamity. Also, even if it does, when the government collapses, as it surely would, just having it would not be enough — you have to be able to protect it.
If you actually want to have fungible trading materials, you're better off building a stock of for-trade food, medicine, reference materials (preferably hard copy), two-way radio systems, solar power systems, ammunition, weapons that can use said ammunition, weapons that don't need ammunition (knives, swords, caltrops, etc.)
You'll also need a very seriously hardened and highly defensible shelter for you and yours, as well as plenty of your own, non-trading-stock of all of the above, of your own. You'd better make sure you have viable solutions for water and sanitation without assistance from the general run of utility services while you're at it. Keep in mind there's going to be an enormous amount of disease as sanitation breaks down, dead bodies accumulate without being properly interred, etc.
Short of going to these lengths, you're going to be in the same boat pretty much everyone else is. And that boat will be sinking, and there will be alligators. Lots and lots of alligators. Hungry, angry, sick, desperate alligators. With weapons.
The Internet will be down as well. Count on it. So no computer-driven porn unless you have a stash on your own EMP-hardened system, and locally-sourced power to run it as well. Of course, there are magazines you could buy now, and then you'd have an inherently EMP resistant porn stash. And excellent trade goods!
--
I set my clock ahead to prevent being late
But all it did was sharpen my subtraction skills
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday March 29 2019, @06:51PM (3 children)
>weapons that don't need ammunition (knives, swords, caltrops, etc.)
Don't forget weapons with reusable ammunition like bows, especially compound- and cross- variety that are much more difficult to make without an industrial base. Not quite as effective at killing people in a pitched battle, but a lot more valuable for hunting, especially small game. You've got to be pretty hungry to trade one of your limited supply of bullets for a rabbit.
And - caltrops? Really? We're talking survival, not well-organized warfare. Caltrops really only serve to slow down approaching enemy vehicles and mounts.
Also, by and large EMP hardening is unnecessary for electronics - they're just not large enough for an EMP (even a super-sized CME) to generate damaging currents within them. They may go haywire during the pulse, but power cycle them afterwards and they'll be fine. You just need to make sure they're not plugged in when it hits, because miles of electric lines *will* end up carrying huge currents that climb slowly enough to be ignored by most surge protectors. EMP hardening is mostly only called for with satellites, battlefield hardware, and other special-purpose equipment where it's important that they continue to function properly during the pulse.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 30 2019, @04:11PM (2 children)
Reusable ammo, absolutely.
If you've even a few wits, you won't be doing very much hunting of rabbits long term... you'll be raising them. This of course takes forethought and protected, available space, not things commonly encountered in the general population. But that's okay, because those people are going to die anyway, and if the problem takes at least a few years to resolve itself, likely the wildlife will recover into (relatively) larger populations. The only reason we don't have wildlife everywhere right now is because people have crowded them out, both intentionally and other. At that point, one could change ranching procedure and perhaps get away with it. Although it's always safer to go down into the basement and cull than it is to go out hunting. Tularemia, parasites, other hunters, animal predators, etc.
Caltrops, absolutely. You really don't want mounted incoming, plus, you disable the horse or mule, you may get to eat it. After you off the rider, of course, which will now be much easier with a lame mount. Caltrops can interfere with vehicles are are running on inflated tires as well, although of course there won't be running vehicles about for very long at all. Not unless someone cobbles up a steam vehicle, anyway, or has an EV and a solar system. Driving such a thing would make you an instant target, though, so...
Depends on your electronics. If they're in use, they're plugged in, which can be a problem. Mine have large antennas connected to them (yes, including the computers, via SDRs.) And as for unplugging said antennas, power lines, sensor runs...
Well, there's the rub, because whichever entity lets off an EMP burst over the US probably isn't going to send out a public service announcement to unplug everything.
What you really need here is a local power supply, for instance a nice 12 VDC system, that is powering 12 VDC electronics, and is being charged / aided with a diode-steered 12 VDC input driven from the AC line where just the power supply is hardened, which obviates the need to harden everything else connected to it. But again, antennas, particularly long wires, are an issue. An EMP may not blow the entire receiver out, but it's likely to eat the front end for snackies. Back to back high current Schottky (high speed) diodes are your friend there, and they should always be in line when the radios are in receive mode. Helps with nearby lightning, too, although not a direct hit of course. A capable solar installation is a very good idea to back all this as well, at least insofar as nominally providing power post-event. Unfortunately, solar panels are also a flag saying "come take me" to others, so again, we're back to requiring a very good defense, sensors, etc.
Going to need somewhere safe to keep females and children, too, if you have those. In circumstances such as these, where equality suddenly becomes again based upon physical capacity in many circumstances, the average female and/or child will be just as likely to be taken as a nice set of solar panels. They would have many uses, including as trade goods.
--
I'm not passive aggressive.
Unlike some people.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday March 30 2019, @09:36PM (1 child)
>because whichever entity lets off an EMP burst over the US probably isn't going to send out a public service announcement to unplug everything.
Nope - but a CME has days of warning (I routinely unplug my electronics whenever a bit one is going to hit - do you?). And it's bloody difficult to hide an incoming bomber or ICBM... though I have to admit, I don't actually trust the government to let me know about it. Not unless there's another cold-war style active fear campaign.
Those solar panels are going to make you an instant target too.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday March 31 2019, @12:59PM
Gear on the AC line gets unplugged when there is a major event in the offing; there hasn't been for quite some time. All of my radio gear, all of my computers, the fish tanks, the furnace, the refrigerators and freezers, and a lot of my lighting are 12 VDC or inverted 12 VDC and are well protected by the AC to 12 VDC bridge, so none of that has to be unplugged from power. The various antenna systems get unplugged quite a lot. Connection to the WAN is by optical link, so we're protected from damage from that vector.
I assume they won't, either intentionally to reduce panic, or because the lead time may be too short. If they did, that would be useful, but counting on it... no.
There are other possibilities as well, some of which would present very short notice. A submarine or surface launch from just off the coast; a vertical launch from within the US borders either from the ground or an inland waterway; an apparently commercial or private aircraft launch (wide area EMPs are all high altitude events that non-military aircraft can't actually reach); a satellite drop; and in the area of natural causes, a wavefront incoming from outside the solar system that might catch us unaware.
All of the typical military / terrorist scenarios assume a nuclear weapon would be required. There may be other ways of doing this as well that we're not aware of, or haven't been invented yet. It would be a valuable military capability, and is already known to have been prototyped at that scale [phys.org], so it's pretty safe to assume it's been on the military's list of interests at larger scales as well since at least 2010.
The advent of high-discharge rate ultracaps has put a number of new design possibilities on the table as well, even at the low voltages they're currently capable of. If anyone manages to get high voltage ultracaps into production, that'll be a game changer. EEStor [eestorcorp.com] has been waving this capability about in the "we're almost there" sense for years now, but has yet, as far as I know, to produce a practical product. Some of the independent test results are interesting, though.
Yes, I said that. 😊 Mine are installed such that they aren't visible or easily accessible from outside the property except by air, and are well covered by a security system inasmuch as they're at ground level and fairly valuable. They're also insured, which of course would be useless in these types of events, but cover us from theft and other damage under normal circumstances.
And no, I'm not a prepper. A lot of this stuff is just basic sane engineering designed to not lose my investment and keep things running when the power company fails or mother nature gets especially pissy. We had a solid lesson in not counting on the utility electricity here when the power went out for 15 hours at -35ºF. It was an expensive and very uncomfortable lesson, not one we care to repeat. Burst plumbing, etc. All this would be useful in the event of a CME or intentional EMP event for initial survival, but I have no illusions at all about being able to stand off serious armed parties for any length of time, nor am I convinced that it would even be worth trying.
--
You matter.
Unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light.
Then you energy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:31PM (8 children)
Tin foil hat
Put your spare computer and power generating parts in a metal box.
Also the control computers for the car,...
Then you can have lights and video games as you starve.
Seriously, what does 'hardening' the country to EMP mean.
The priority list is shelter, clean water, food, then everything else is gravy.
The house will survive EMP, I can cut wood and get heat.
With any population density, the clean water system is not going to work with fryed electronics.
But MacGyver can probably get the pumps running given a working diesel generator.
The thing the bugs me is all the engine control computers on the diesel transport trucks, refineries, and especially farm tractors.
Given that the infrastructure to rebuild that is also fryed, how does one deal with that?
Everybody is not prepared with 40 acres and a mule and the ability to use it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:52PM
https://www.askaprepper.com/10-faraday-cages-you-can-make-at-home/ [askaprepper.com]
Put flash storage in there.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 29 2019, @09:41PM (5 children)
I'd lobe to see you cutting woof and getting heat while living in the Trump tower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday March 29 2019, @10:55PM (2 children)
There will be nearly 330 million people out there doing the same thing. How long will that wood last?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @01:03PM (1 child)
Considering 99.99% of those people live in paved-over shitholes far away, my trees will last as long as I properly maintain them (coppicing is something we've been doing for thousands of years, and it works well).
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday March 30 2019, @11:53PM
There will be a market for that wood and people willing to supply it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 30 2019, @04:15PM (1 child)
Enquiring minds wish to know.
--
Diapers and Politicians should be changed often.
Both for the same reason.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 30 2019, @08:49PM
Me too
1."lobe" as the autocorrect version of something that was mean to be "love", the affective thing
2. too noisy and demanding for me. I don't mind them when kept by others, as long as they take care of their dogs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday March 30 2019, @05:39AM
I think my 25 year old diesel will still run after EMP providing I manually control the E4OD transmission with rheostats and toggle switches.
But, having said that, what's the likelihood that some authority simply confiscates the thing?
I think I would be wise to wire it so convolutedly that it will take someone else way too long to undo how much I monkeyed up the wiring.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:37PM (1 child)
EMP is one of the things they are prepping against. Now with this off their worry list their worry portfolio is weakened and along with it their sense of worth. For the biggest threat for a doomsday prepper is no doomsday!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @12:54PM
Infrastructure protection won't protect your own electronic devices.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 29 2019, @02:44PM (24 children)
Unless I'm missing something, isn't an EMP, just supposed to knock-out electronics. With little to no other effects? Assuming, that's the case, it would take a whole lot of chain-reactions of crazyness to get to the deaths of 90% of the population. While we are "tech dependent" to a certain degree, I believe we wouldn't fare that badly.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @02:50PM (8 children)
83% of people in the USA live in cities, if the food delivery infrastructure isn't fixed in a month you're fucked, and the looting when people's kids start to die will kill many.
(Score: 5, Informative) by deimtee on Friday March 29 2019, @03:32PM (7 children)
Your "fixed in a month" is way too optimistic. The average city is about 3 days away from food riots, and probably only a couple of weeks from cannibalism.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 29 2019, @03:42PM (1 child)
I guess, that makes a bit more sense in an absolute worst case scenario sort of way. One would hope, that the entire USA wouldn't be effected, but that would be a pretty large assumption. As someone who could put one EMP over US soil could likely be able to deliver enough to get the job done. Which would make EMPs a much more effective weapon against technologically dependent nations than your typical Nuclear Weapon. The death of 90% of the USA population would be dependent on multiple factors, though. Not the least of which would be, the willingness/unwillingness of the rest of the world to help out and the state of the USA military after the EMP. A country faced with starvation of most of it's population may be willing to do "insane" things that they wouldn't have otherwise.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday March 29 2019, @04:38PM
Profit.--
Two men walk into a bar.
1st man: I'll have H2O
2nd man: I'll have H2O too
...
The 2nd man dies
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)
The average city is about 3 days away from food riots, and probably only a couple of weeks from cannibalism.
So you understand why we in the UK are more worried about Brexit than EMP?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @01:54AM
Yeah, well, a high fat diet won't kill you immediately, will it?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 30 2019, @04:03AM (2 children)
The average food is less than three days away even in a EMPed US. It all depends on the quality of the response to the attack. Look at emergency response to some hurricanes. If it is incompetent and inadequate such as the recent one in Puerto Rico or Katrina, it's going to be a mess. If it's relatively competent and decisive, like New York City during Sandy, then it won't be that harsh and in a few months will be mostly just a bad memory.
The thing is the US is pretty resilient and a considerable portion of its transportation system would be immune to all but ridiculous levels of EMP. Any thing that's going to melt wire in a car probably will be burning any buildings with metal in them as well and maybe frying exposed blobs of water, like humans.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday March 30 2019, @04:35AM (1 child)
Most disasters are alleviated because they are localized and the people involved know that both help and lawful control are coming in from outside. The people mostly work together to do what they can.
A widespread EMP attack that takes out power and communications will remove the rule of law. Expect immediate massive looting, with shopkeepers/hoarders shooting back. Food may be three days away, but it's not coming if the driver expects to get hijacked and shot.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 30 2019, @11:27AM
That would still be the case here. Even if it isn't localized spatially, it is in time.
Unless, of course, it doesn't do that. Rule of law is more than just electricity and temporarily disabled communications.
Here's one place that a competent, organized response fixes things fast. Things like curfews and shooting looters. Then the driver doesn't expect to get hijacked and shot.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @02:53PM (7 children)
Let's consider what happens if the electrical power goes out for more than two weeks.
I'm going to be generous and assume that automobiles still actually work after an EMP attack.
In a couple of days, the grocery store shelves are stripped bare. Cars will run out of gas. Normal refueling is impossible due to no electricity. After the local filling stations are siphoned dry, there will be no more fuel deliveries because those delivery trucks run on fossil fuels. So the grocery stores are not going to have any more food.
Now without taking this any further, what kind of chaos, riots, and violent mobs stealing food are going to happen?
Rural people with guns might last a bit longer. But they only have so much ammo. And more is not being manufactured, let alone delivered. And they better be willing to shoot people who are just looking for food. They may think of themselves as independent and self reliant, but they depend on cities and tech more than they probably realize.
In short, within a month we would back to the stone ages.
And the president would not have Twitter or FoxNews to console himself with.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @07:15PM
You obviously fail to realise that 90% of the US population are PutinBots!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 30 2019, @04:03AM (5 children)
They still might have more ammo than visitors! Ammo is really cheap after all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @04:38AM (2 children)
I know some people here who reload their cartridges and shotgun shells due to cost. Is that common at all in the US?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 30 2019, @11:33AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30 2019, @01:07PM
It's not uncommon. A lot more people have been in recent years due to rising costs of ammo, but it's still relatively cheap to buy unless you're shooting for fun every day.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday March 30 2019, @03:32PM (1 child)
> They still might have more ammo than visitors!
I'm sure some of them do.
It is to their advantage in the short run. In the long run, if we are back to the stone ages, it won't really matter that much.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 31 2019, @04:11AM
Except, of course, they and their descendants will have a much higher likelihood of surviving.
(Score: 2, Troll) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @02:56PM (4 children)
Revelation 16:10 [biblegateway.com]
10 The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @04:03PM (3 children)
Fairy tale.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @05:12PM (2 children)
I thought you might find it amusing. I didn't add any commentary to it.
In the 21st century it can be read in a way unlike in earlier times.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @10:45PM (1 child)
Don't drop your iPhone in the porcelain throne or your world will be plunged into a darkness unlike anything you've ever seen? Because that quote works so well for it!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday March 30 2019, @03:34PM
I will never own an iProduct. Apple might be what causes the downfall of civilization. Or the introduction of Blue M&Ms by the Mars company.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @05:31PM (1 child)
Well, electronics is a pretty big hit. (Think the ECU in a car or tractor)
But another worry is the big transformers that couple power in the electric grid.
There are few spares and fewer factories to rebuild them.
They are thought to be succeptable to EMP because they are hooked to large antennae (the grid)
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 30 2019, @04:25PM
...and those factories won't be running without power anyway.
Another thing that is connected to the power lines is power generation systems. They might be hit quite hard. So having a transformer vs. not having one... might not even matter. Because spare utility-scale generators aren't common either.
The grid would have to be taken apart so that small sections of it could operate, if you did have a working power plant. Can't be trying to drive current into shorted out transformers, etc.
--
I hate being bipolar... it's awesome!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @04:46PM (1 child)
Excesive Migrating People?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 29 2019, @08:25PM
No.
Excessively Masturbating People.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday March 29 2019, @04:54PM
Am I the only one who was reminded of Basher's EMP bomb in Ocean's 11?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Friday March 29 2019, @05:54PM
Most of this is a problem of a lack of inventory. Starting at the top, Our grid is dependent on a fairly small number of very large transformers. These are built to order with a lead time of 6 months or so. The power companies don't have spares because that would eat into profits.
Most of the doomsday scenarios are the result of JIT logistics. Nobody wants to maintain a significant inventory anymore. Nobody wants spares on-hand.
Another issue is blackstart capability. Many power plants actually cannot be started unless they themselves already have power from the grid. Even an unfortunately large number of home solar setups won't actually run if they don't have grid power! Their inverters are set up to synchronize with the sine wave from the grid and have no isolated mode.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 29 2019, @06:23PM
This is why our electronics are so sensitive. Let's bring it back up to what it used to be, about 90 volts. You can use the low voltage to heat the cathode.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..