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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) 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.
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