How to Bring Down the US Power Grid: A Detailed Primer

Terrorists could black out large segments of the United States for weeks or months by attacking the power grid and damaging hard-to-replace components that are crucial to making it work, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report released Wednesday.

While the report is the most authoritative yet on the subject, the grid’s vulnerability has long been obvious to independent engineers and to the electric industry itself, which has intermittently tried, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, to rehearse responses.

Of particular concern are giant custom-built transformers that increase the voltage of electricity to levels suited for bulk transmission and then reduce voltage for distribution to customers. Very few of those transformers are manufactured in the United States, and replacing them can take many months.

...The notion of a looming attack on the grid has recently gained a... following, with Newt Gingrich [promoting] a novel that imagines the crippling of the nation and the starvation of millions by unidentified enemies using high-tech methods to fry components of the grid with an electromagnetic pulse. The report does not discuss that possibility, but the appendix does include “electromagnetic pulse” among other technical terms.

The National Academy of Sciences report mainly refers to less sophisticated attacks but also warns of cyberattacks or infiltration of the grid’s transmission operators. “Even a few pernicious people in the wrong place are a potential source of vulnerability,” it said.

The report was completed in 2007, and after reviewing it, the Department of Homeland Security decided to classify its contents. The version released on Wednesday is redacted to avoid handing terrorists a “cookbook” on how to disrupt the grid, the report said. _NYT

As we have seen after Hurricane Sandy and any number of other natural disasters, when the power grid goes down in a modern multicultural society, all manner of mayhem is apt to break out.

Most people are unaware of how easily modern power grids can be brought down.

One of the many ironies of this fragile situation, is that one of the solutions most often proposed by greens and leftists -- the "smart grid" -- would actually make power grids more vulnerable to cyberattack and catastrophic failure.

The recently declassified and redacted document suggests ways in which societies can make their power grids less vulnerable and more resilient. But the NAS is not only a scientific body, it is also a politicised body which maintains a very politically correct posture. Many of the solutions are apt to be non-solutions, and many of the true solutions were certainly omitted or redacted.

The best approach for individuals, families, and small cooperative groups, is to maintain your own backups and lifelines.

At the blog, Al Fin, the Next Level, educational and developmental theorists are creating a new approach to the raising of resilient children, dubbed "The Dangerous Child Method." But it is never too late to have a dangerous childhood. Think about it.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Are Chinese Hackers Smarter than a Tree Limb?

Large portions of the US power grid were taken down by storm-downed trees and tree limbs recently. Thanks to prompt action by electrical workers from over a dozen states, power was restored to almost all customers within a matter of days. But the North American power grid is vulnerable to a growing threat far more dangerous than falling tree limbs. Read on:

The vulnerability of the energy industry's new wireless smart grid will inevitably lead to lights out for everyone, according to leading cyber expert David Chalk. In an online interview for an upcoming documentary film entitled 'Take Back Your Power' (www.ThePowerFilm.org), Chalk says the entire power grid will be at risk to being taken down by cyber attack, and if installations continue it's only a matter of time.

“This could actually be worse than a nuclear war, because it would happen everywhere. How governments and utilities are blindly merging the power grid with the Internet, and effectively without any protection, is insanity at its finest.” “We're in a state of crisis,” said Chalk. “The front door is open and there is no lock to be had. There is not a power meter or device on the grid that is protected from hacking - if not already infected - with some sort of trojan horse that can cause the grid to be shut down or completely annihilated.” _BusinessWire

Speaking at DesignWEST panel on hacking the smart grid, senior research engineer Joe Loomis blasted through the buzz on smart grid and smarter energy technology, exposing the risks of hacking and full scale cyber warfare and the crippling effects it could have on national infrastructure.

“It’s critical infrastructure and society depends on it, making it a prime target for attack,” said Loomis.

Indeed, as smart grid technology develops year by year, so too do the opportunities for hackers with malicious intentions on national infrastructure. _EETimes

The FBI warns that insiders and individuals with only a moderate level of computer knowledge are likely able to compromise meters with low-cost tools and software readily available on the Internet. _Hacking the smart grid

Tools to help utilities monitor the extent of malicious penetration into their systems are just now becoming more available. But we know that in the ongoing war between hackers and security officials, the hackers are typically at least one step ahead.

The new "smart grid" would also be a sitting duck for EMP attacks.

The power grids of the US and Canada are interconnected, and thus share a large co-vulnerability. Large numbers of malicious hackers operate in Russia, China, and other nations which are typically antagonistic toward more open opportunity societies. By pushing "smart grids," the US and Canadian governments appear to be forcing utilities and other critical infrastructure to open their doors to hackers and malicious cyber-attacks.

It is likely to take months or longer to restore the power grid after a large scale cyber- or EMP attack on very vulnerable "smart grids."

The body count after such a widespread power outage could be well into the millions.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The Second Coming, WB Yeats

Understanding what holds things together, and how they fall apart, is one of the most important tasks for members of the Society for Creative Apocalyptology.

There is only so much that small groups of people -- no matter how dedicated -- can do for very large societies that seem determined to commit suicide. But such groups can take steps to see that they have certain advantages when emerging on the other side.

Devising Quicker Ways to Recover from EMP or Geomagnetic Storms

Either an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) or a geomagnetic storm could produce devastating effects on an electric power grid. Replacing crucial power transformers could take up to 2 years, during which time society would be falling apart at the seams for lack of power, and consequent lack of fuel and agricultural production and distribution.

The Electric Power Research Institute has been concerned about the effects of an EMP or geomagnetic storm on the US power grid (PDF) for a number of decades. A more recent FAS report (PDF) reiterates many of the same concerns which EPRI has expressed, although the FAS predictably focuses more upon the politically correct threat of geomagnetic storm, rather than on the perhaps more likely threat of EMP.

Regardless, between EPRI, the electric power industry, and other groups, the US Department of Homeland Security has taken a belated look at how large power transformers might be replaced in the event of a power grid catastrophe. Some clever engineers have come up with a few good ideas -- which could conceivably save millions of lives one day.

“If you have to order a transformer from someplace, it’s two years to do it,” said Richard J. Lordan, a senior technical expert at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit consortium based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Transformers were seen as a potential problem to the grid as far back as 1990, said Sarah Mahmood, a program manager at the Department of Homeland Security, which paid for about half of the cost of the $17 million drill, with the rest picked up by the electrical industry. Transformers are about the size of a one-car garage and usually painted some drab industrial color, but without them, intersecting power lines would be like elevated highways with no interchanges.

For the test, the Electric Power Research Institute ordered three “recovery transformers” from a supplier, ABB in St. Louis. This week they were trucked to a substation owned by CenterPoint Energy near Houston. For security reasons, the company will not say precisely where.

Shipping the replacements was a problem. Ordinary transformers are often too big and heavy to travel by road, and they require special rail cars. But because the transformers typically last 50 years, only a few dozen are shipped each year, so even the appropriate rail cars are in short supply. Ratcheting up the degree of difficulty, many of the places where a replacement transformer might have to go are no longer served by rail.

...the research institute tried a different approach, substituting three smaller, more mobile transformers for one conventional one, and specifying a size that would fit on a modified truck trailer. (A standard transformer costs roughly $5 to $7 million; buying and combining the three singles is slightly more expensive.)

Using a different transformer for each phase allowed shrinking the weight of the transformer from about 400,000 pounds for a single one to roughly 125,000 pounds for each of the three-phase units. In operation, the transformers are oil-filled, but in this case, the oil was shipped in tanker trucks in the convoy, to decrease weight.

With three transformers, three crews can work simultaneously to set them up, and setting up a small transformer is faster than setting up a big one.

In addition, installing a transformer usually requires pouring a concrete foundation, but one of these transformers was mounted on skids, eliminating that need..

...The next step will be a transformer unlike almost any in the field, that can be configured to work between more than two different voltages — say, operating not just between 138 kilovolts and 345 kilovolts, but also between 115 kilovolts and 345 kilovolts. That would cover a few hundred more.

In recent years, electric companies have been required to build entire duplicate control centers, at least 10 miles from the primary center, to reduce the possibility of a catastrophe that would knock down sections of the grid for months. After a flurry of fines and public embarrassments, the utilities have become better at maintaining their power lines. But this is the industry’s first major effort to solve the transformer problem.

A study for the Energy Department last year reinforced the need for speed, suggesting that hundreds of transformers could be lost to a “geomagnetic storm,” an eventuality that experts say could leave large parts of the North American continent blacked out for months. _NYT

Many government officials and politically correct "engineers" continue to doubt the need for this type of preparedness. Unfortunately, if they are wrong, as many as hundreds of millions of people in North America could lose their lives, due to their short-sightedness.

You would not expect the energy-starvationist Obama administration to be particularly concerned about the possible catastrophic fallout from its inept energy and foreign policies, and in general you would be right. But at lower levels of government, there still remain some conscientious and capable public servants who are still looking out for the public welfare.

If the energy starvationists can be ejected soon, society may be able to retain and expand upon these small numbers of competent civil servants in time to prepare for what appears to be more and more likely threats to the power grid -- from cyber-war to EMP to geomagnetic storm to threat from forcing excessive levels of intermittency onto the grid.

Cross-posted from Al Fin Energy

Apocalypse the Easy Way: Low Yield Nukes in Orbit -- EMP

...what do you think would happen to society without power, water, food, and fuel? It’s not a pretty picture. People will begin dying off by the end of the first week, those without a minimal storage of water or those who live in regions where water is not immediately available to them. Desperation will result in a rampage of crime with hoards searching for food and water. Within several weeks, a complete civil breakdown will be underway as mass migration out of the major cities creates extremely dangerous conditions while people search for food, water, and supplies. _ModernSurvivalBlog

China Developing Electromagnetic Weapons_More Here

In addition to causing the immediate damage and failure of transformers, there is also evidence that GIC may be responsible for the onset of long-term damage to transformers and other key power grid assets. Damaged transformers require repair or replacement with new units. Currently most large transformers are manufactured in foreign countries and replacements would likely involve long production lead times in excess of a year. _EENews.net PDF

In excess of a year? After a year, it is estimated that as many of 90% of the residents of a high tech society would have lost their lives to the wide range of complications and repercussions of a long-term power outage.

EMP Commission Report 7MB PDF Download

An EMP attack is different since it only requires but one nuclear weapon, detonated 300 miles above the middle of the United States. One bomb. The launch could even be done from a container ship somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico and in that instant, the war is already over and won.

...The first few million deaths are tragically obvious. Those aboard commercial flights, and even most private flights, those in nursing homes, hospices, and hospitals. The next few million are obvious as well. Those with severe aliments requiring careful daily medication or treatment, such as those awaiting transplants, people undergoing dialysis, those with severe heart ailments both known and not yet realized.

...Our interstate highways will become nightmare paths of exile as our largely urban population tries to fan out to find food that once was shipped in. Millions could and will die on that road. Where do they get safe water? The nearby stream or river is now a dump for raw sewage since purification plants are off line.

...Within a month the next level of die off will be in full development. Those who survive the initial onset of illnesses from polluted water and food, and survive, will nevertheless be weakened, knock down a level...At what point do we begin to kill each other for food, water, shelter? At what point does a small town mobilize, barricade itself in and make clear that any who enter will be shot because there is not enough food to share

...By sixty days true starvation will be killing off millions and by 120 days mass starvation will be the norm. Those lucky enough to be in rich farm producing areas, with the knowledge of how to gather food by hand, and then preserve it, will have a temporary surplus, but even then, if they do not ration it out wisely, as did our colonial forefathers, they too will starve before the next crop is in the ground come spring... _Forstchen

Over 250 million North Americans are likely to die of various causes over the first 6 to 9 months, unless massive assistance arrives from the outside. But since the outside is likely to be at war with itself, how likely is North America to receive foreign aid? After all, it is usually North America that is the source of most foreign aid to the outside.

EENews.Net PDFDuring an overnight power blackout one hot July night in 1977 in New York City, dozens of city blocks were destroyed by fire, almost 2,000 stores were looted and vandalised, and most of the tragedy that occurred that short summer night will never be known. That is from one night without power in a modern city. Imagine 6 months to a year without power over most of an entire continent.

The map above focuses upon the most vulnerable areas in the US grid. But if advocates of the highly vulnerable smart grid have their way, the entire map will be the vulnerable area.

One reason that Al Fin Energy blog often focuses on decentralised production of power and fuels, is because of the enormous vulnerability of a massively interconnected system which has inadequate backups and a rapidly depleting supply of human capital which would be capable of instituting needed immediate repairs and workarounds.

You might think that having a lot of big solar electric plants and wind farms hooked to the grid would be helpful at such times. But no, they would make the situation even worse. Think about it a bit, and if you have any knowledge of the systems involved, you will see what I mean.

Where would the fatal strike arise? Most EMP activists are concerned about an attack from rogue states such as Iran or North Korea -- perhaps via an intermediary such as Venezuela, Cuba, or a ship-launched missile offshore. Al Fin analysts suspect that a more likely scenario involves a dual function space launch by the space services of an established space power such as China or Russia. With the simultaneous orbital placement of multiple satellites, a small yield nuclear device or two might wander off into the night to await subsequent orders to detonate in a particular orbital location. Or such a device might exist in conjunction with a conventional satellite that "fails", and is accepted as "space junk" until needed to fulfill its primary mission.

There a number of possible scenarios which would leave the target of the attack defenseless to stop the initiating event, the high altitude orbital EMP.

As the US falls more deeply into entitlement debt, makes itself more vulnerable to uneducable and unassimilable illegal immigrants, makes war on its own private sector business and commerce, cuts its defenses against foreign threat, shuts down its energy infrastructure due to faux environmental concerns, and moves closer to a catastrophic energy infrastructure of vulnerable "smart" grids paired with unreliable big wind and solar -- you may begin to see a society rotting from within. Such a society is not resilient to the type of attack and damage which is described in the links above.

Make your plans accordingly.

First published at Al Fin Potpourri

North Korea Pursues the "Easy Apocalypse": EMP

The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say. _abcnews

FuturescienceA specialised EMP nuclear burst high above the atmosphere, could knock out continental-sized power grids. Much of the entire continental US and parts of Canada and Mexico could be temporarily sent to the dark ages with a single EMP-customised nuclear device detonated in orbit.
Given the heavy dependency of modern societies on electric power, it has been estimated that long-term loss of electric power over a wide area could result in loss of up to 90% of pre-event population. Such a high mortality rate could occur due to a combination of long-term basic infrastructure breakdown combined with the inability to bring significant aid into the area from the outside.

Both the US and the USSR conducted experiments to determine the effects of EMP from high altitude nuclear detonations:

A few hours after the sun rose in Kazakhstan on [a] cloudy October morning, the Soviet Union detonated a 300 kiloton thermonuclear warhead in space at an altitude of 290 kilometers (about 180 miles) over a point just west of the city of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan. The test was generally known only as Test 184 (although some Soviet documents refer to it as K-3). It knocked out a major 1000-kilometer (600-mile) underground power line running from Astana (then called Aqmola), the capital city of Kazakhstan, to the city of Almaty. Several fires were reported. In the city of Karagandy, the EMP started a fire in the city's electrical power plant, which was connected to the long underground power line.

The EMP also knocked out a major 570 kilometer long overhead telephone line by inducing currents of 1500 to 3400 amperes in the line. (The line was separated into several sub-lines connected by repeater stations.) There were numerous gas-filled overvoltage protectors and fuses along the telephone line. All of the overvoltage protectors fired, and all of the fuses on the line were blown. The EMP damaged radios at 600 kilometers (360 miles) from the test and knocked out a radar 1000 kilometers (600 miles) from the detonation. Some military diesel generators were also damaged. The repeated damage to diesel generators from the E1 component of the pulse after the series high-altitude tests was the most surprising aspect of the damage for the Soviet scientists. _FutureScience

And those effects in Kazakhstan resulted from the detonation of a bomb not particularly efficient at producing EMPs. A custom-designed EMP nuke would have done a far more thorough and devastating job of it.

It is not a question of "if," but of "when" and "where" such an attack will occur. If it occurs over a modern nation which has not prepared for it, the loss of life is likely to be severe. In addition, the target nation would temporarily lose its ability to operate effectively, internationally. The widely dispersed nature of the US military suggests that that country would maintain significant retaliatory capacity, but the civilian infrastructure would require massive immediate aid and a lengthy re-building of destroyed infrastructure. During that time of re-building, it is likely that many millions (or tens of millions) of people would die from a wide range of causes linked ultimately to the attack. If you have not been paying attention, you would be amazed how quickly civilisation can unravel in the absence of a strong order-keeping entity.

Good introductory article on EMP from FutureScience

Wikipedia entry on EMP

Federation of American Scientists article on EMP

EMPact America EMP resource

"One Second After" website for novel based on EMP attack over most of US, and subsequent aftermath

If the damage to the electrical infrastructure from a coordinated EMP attack were widespread enough, restoration of widespread grid power could take years. Over that time period, many large cities would likely revert to barbarism without overwhelming military presence. With hundreds of cities involved, it is unlikely that the US military could preserve order in more than a few.

That is why any hint at development of EMP weapons by North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, etc. must be taken seriously. While it is true that any nation launching an obvious EMP attack against the US would probably be obliterated by retaliation, it is possible to launch a satellite containing an EMP weapon -- but with a different primary use. Such a "sleeper" satellite could orbit for years until it was felt strategically opportune, by its owner, to detonate it. By the time a case could be made against the true culprit, the US (or Europe etc) may no longer be functioning as a viable civilised society.

As you can imagine, preppers and survivalists have taken an interest in the EMP phenomenon, with an emphasis on how to prepare to survive such a widespread disaster. Here is one PDF essay on that topic from Prepper.info

You will need to use your imagination here. What would happen to your neighborhood, community, town, city, etc. if it were to lose power for several months, without significant outside assistance? How long would it take for the stores to run out of food and supplies, or for the fueling stations to run out of fuel? How would you feed yourself and your family, if civil disorder set in -- preventing a cooperative community effort to share resources?

Such weapons may be in orbit overhead, even now, waiting for a designated time to inflict chaos on a targeted continent. What should you do?

Taken from an article at Al Fin, The Next Level

More 7 April 2011: The threat of cyber warfare is much broader, and successful attacks are much more deniable and difficult to prove. Cyber attacks can target power grids -- especially "smart" grids -- and every other piece of critical infrastructure including water systems, phone and other telecom, and much more.

Your Lives are but Bits on Chips: Watch Them Flicker Out

How much of your lives is stored on digital networks? Bank accounts, medical records, educational and employment history, electronic communications and social networking, and more. All of that, plus power grids, financial networks, critical defense systems, air traffic control systems, corporate data files and online backups -- everything connected to the internet or a communication-accessible network -- could be taken down over a period of a few minutes, given sufficient planning and setup.

Cyberwar is an all-out attack on the digital data-underpinnings of modern life. The more reliant we become upon digital networks ("smart power grids" etc), the more vulnerable we become to cyberwar. US National Security Agency (NSA) veteran Charlie Miller has mapped out a comprehensive cyber-attack plan against the US. Miller implies that his plan would satisfy enemies of the US such as North Korea or China. And it would not be terribly difficult or expensive -- considering the devastation it would cause.

Miller explained that he had actually been asked by the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia to play general in the theoretical attack scenario.

He shared his results at a NATO briefing in that country in June.

"I already knew it was easy, but now I know in detail how easy it would be," said. "We are certainly very vulnerable."

Miller described the 100-million-dollar price tag as a bargain compared to how much money is spent on cyber defense.

He crafted a broad strategy to target smart grids, banks, communications and all other aspects of a nation's technology infrastructure.

The cyber army would number about a thousand soldiers ranging from elite computer commandos to basic college trained geeks, according to the plan.

A key to success was stealthily breaching networks and establishing beachheads in computer systems during the two years before the main cyber invasion.

...National Security Corporation president Mark Harding recalled graduating from officers school in the Navy having completed a thesis on how unprepared the country's military is for cyber war.

"There are people I know who have indicated they can take the entire Internet down and they can," Harding said. _Source_via_BrianWang

A relatively primitive belligerent nation such as North Korea has little to lose by bringing down the world's financial and defense networks -- the global internet and all its vital dependent networks. North Korea is minimally networked. Even China or Russia could take precautions to protect themselves, during the two year setup period before the final attack.

But these are old ideas, and it is quite possible that most or all of the setup has already been done, by someone, somewhere.

A cyber-attack would be more effective if combined with multiple parallel and simultaneous attacks, such as EMP and ABC -- atomic (including dirty bombs), biological, chemical. A clever nano-attack would be potentially more effective as an adjunct to cyberwar and EMP, but the technology for a massive and devastating nano-attack may still be decades away -- if we are lucky.

Consider the destruction from the cyber intrusion as the spearhead of a coordinated and fairly comprehensive attack. North Korea might be the nominal, putative villain -- a cat's paw. Which means that North Korea may receive whatever counter-attack the US was able to muster after the networks and power grids go down. But could you tell the difference between pre- and post- nuclear attack for a country already as devastated as N. Korea?

Meanwhile, China and Russia (assuming they were prepared in advance) would be in a perfect condition to move into the US as part of an international relief mission -- in the absence of an effective US government -- meant to relieve the incredible hardship being suffered by the American people. History will never say anything different from the above -- no matter what the underlying truth.

Should the electronic infrastructures of your lives collapse in a nano-second, what would you do? No electric power means no transportation fuels could be pumped. No supplies of food or medicines would be brought to your city to replace the supplies looted from gutted and burned out stores. No clean water would be pumped to your house. No electric lights, no air conditioners or electric heat, no showers. Your lives, as you currently think of them, would dissolve in a short time.

Think of it as an interesting problem which no one can solve but yourselves. What do you do?

John Robb's Resilient Communities: Could They Survive EMP?

John Robb is an author, blogger, former special ops pilot in the USAF, author of "Brave New War", public speaker, entrepreneur, and futurist theorist on "open source warfare", "resilient communities" and more.

Al Fin's cousin Abu recently looked at an interview that John Robb gave to BoingBoing.  Abu asked the question: "Could A Different US President Have Prevented What Is Coming?"  But perhaps a more relevant question might be:  "Can Communities be Made Resilient against Collapse from Many Causes -- Including EMPs?

Here is how Robb describes resilient communities:

Communities that offer energy independence, food security, economic prosperity, and protection. What are the global drivers that make resiliency important? Simply: stability, prosperity, and security is going away. You will soon find you are on your own, if you haven't already. If you do nothing, you will suffer the predations of gangs, militias, and corrupt bureaucracies that will fill the void left by retreating nation-states. If you want to avoid this fate, you can build resilient communities that not only allow you and your family to survive intact, but to thrive. __From Interview In BoingBoing

Robb is writing a book about local resilience, which will describe how to create a resilient community from scratch. Detailed plans for resilience, such as Robb is promising, are badly needed. Survival is better guaranteed by prepared communities possessing multiple competencies, than by single individuals, couples, or other small groups of limited resources and manpower.

Robb is predicting a coming economic crash that will be worse than 2008. As time goes by, Robb expects the societal fallout from successive economic collapses to grow exponentially worse, due to rapidly expanding cultural schisms in multicultural societies. On his blog, he is providing information to help in providing various sorts of community resiliency.

But take it up another notch -- further perhaps than even Robb is looking. What happens to a deeply fractured society, already in economic depression, when it is hit by an EMP or similarly destructive attack on the power grid and energy infrastructures?

Clearly if 90% of US residents could be expected to die within 1 year of an EMP attack under ordinary circumstances, far more would probably succumb within the cultural setting that Robb describes.

Individual and small group preparation for disaster is vital and necessary -- but not sufficient in the long run. For long term survival, we need prepared communities. Most collapse situations will not require something as elaborate as the Society for Creative Apocalyptology. Robb's Resilient Communities might be more than sufficient for most catastrophic disruptions. They are certainly a good place to start.

Electronic Armageddon on National Geographic Tuesday Night

Check out "Electronic Armageddon" Tuesday 15 June at 10 PM on National Geographic Channel. The 4 minute teaser above provides a brief introduction.

What do future presidents need to know about existential dangers this country could face? Explorer investigates the science behind the dangers of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse, or HEMP. Picture an instantaneous deathblow to the vital engines that power our society, delivered by a nuclear weapon designed not to kill humans but to attack electronics. What could happen if an electromagnetic pulse surged to earth, crippling every aspect of modern society's infrastructure? _NG

It is fairly certain that if President Obama was unprepared for an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he is unlikely to be up to the challenge of an Electronic Armageddon. But then, maybe we'll be lucky, and it won't happen.

EMPACT America -- information clearing house on EMP attack

Nuclear weapon EMP effects from FAS

"One Second After" site -- web headquarters for William Forstchen's exciting novel graphically describing the effect of a surprise EMP attack against the US, from the perspective of one semi-rural community.

Links to a number of reports from the US EMP Commission

As Iran and North Korea hone their nuclear explosive and warhead delivery skills, the risk for an untraceable surprise EMP attack against Europe or the US is not subsiding at all. And with Hugo Chavez expressing a wish to join the nuclear club, the problem potential oozes ever closer to North America.

Up to 90% of the US population could be dead within 1 year of an effective EMP attack that destroyed large scale equipment underlying the US electrical grid, without massive outside aid. That is how much modern societies depend upon electricity for their survival. But how realistic would massive outside aid be, if the world was suddenly plunged into global war at the same time?

15June2010 More: The US Congress is working on bills to protect the US energy grid from an array of attacks -- including hacker attacks, and solar storm hazards. But there is no sign that their efforts are anywhere proportionate to the threat.

When the Power Goes, it Takes Civilisation With It

What happens when North America gets hit by either a nuclear EMP or a 110 year cycle solar flare? It would be the mother of all power surges, and everything would seem to go out at once. Power, water, refrigeration, gasoline pumps, food deliveries to supermarkets, virtually all communications and electronic entertainment, etc etc.

What could happen: Everything that would happen in the previous four scenarios, and then some. Forget clean water. Forget health care. Wipe out the last 20 years of recorded history, because most of it was stored digitally...

..."We'd feel it first in the economy and our financial institutions, where everything is digital. Markets will collapse," says Siciliano. "Where's everything backed up -- in a filing cabinet? The economy would collapse, the banks would lock their doors and keep whatever money they had in the vault, because the rest has evaporated into thin air. Once the money's gone, we're resetting the clock."

How long to recover: Unknown. According to a January 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences, the effects of a severe geomagnetic storm would be felt for years, most acutely in societies that are the most dependent on technology. The U.S. could take from four to 10 years to bounce back, according to the NAS -- if it bounces back at all.

"It will take a tremendous amount of manpower to clean up the mess," adds Siciliano. "Something that catastrophic, the gas pumps won't be operating, so a guy who's supposed to take a part to repair a facility can't get there because he has no gas. It could literally throw us back to 1840. Suddenly we're a third-world country again." _Infoworld

It would take years for a full recovery, perhaps decades. Since the big power transformers are no longer made in the US, and require up to a year from order date to be delivered, it all depends upon the extent of the damage worldwide. It is likely that wars would spring up in the middle of the tumult, drawing away the only US force competent and capable enough to re-boot US society -- the US military. Up to 90% of the US population could be dead within 1 year of such a devastating power failure, according to some estimates.

It is also possible for computer hackers to bring down large sections of the North American power grid, but recovery from such an attack would probably take no longer than a few weeks. Of course, a large scale power outage of a week up to a few weeks could have fatal repercussions.

Like the grid itself, other failures tend to cascade when the lights go out. In 2003, landline and cellular phone systems still worked but were so overloaded with calls that they effectively shut down. Electric railways stopped in their tracks, flights were canceled, and gas pumps would no longer pump. Water supplies that relied on electric filtering systems got contaminated. Food and medicine got spoiled; looting occurred; people died. _Infoworld

If you do not have a backup power generator for your home, and several weeks worth of food and clean water, get to work. If you have an insulin requiring diabetic in your household, stock a few months worth of extra insulin, and rotate your stock to keep it fresh. And so on.

It's easy to assume that you can continue to go on depending upon large institutions for your power, fuel, food, medicines, and civil order in your neighborhood. But under the current US government, such assumptions are foolish. Start taking responsibility.
First published at abu al-fin

Computer Security Experts: Power Grid is Vulnerable

The US power grid is vulnerable to foreign cyber-attack to the extent that it can be controlled via computer networks. A long-term shutdown of the US power grid could lead to a 12 month death toll of up to 90% of the population, according to some estimates looking at the potential aftermath of an EMP attack on the grid.

...experts in computer security say there are genuine reasons for American officials to be wary of China, and they generally tend to dismiss disclaimers by China that it has neither the expertise nor the intention to carry out the kind of attacks that bombard American government and computer systems by the thousands every week.

The trouble is that it is so easy to mask the true source of a computer network attack that any retaliation is fraught with uncertainty.

...Cyberwarfare is in some ways “analogous to the way people think about biological weapons — that once you set loose such a weapon it may be very hard to control where it goes,” he added.

...A number of reports, including one last October by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, of which Mr. Wortzel is vice chairman, have used strong language about the worsening threat of computer attacks, particularly from China.

“A large body of both circumstantial and forensic evidence strongly indicates Chinese state involvement in such activities, whether through the direct actions of state entities or through the actions of third-party groups sponsored by the state,” that report stated. _NYT

Of course the US power grid is not alone in its vulnerability to cyber-attack from China or Russia -- the two largest sources of orchestrated cyber attacks against government and large industrial targets. The trend toward a "smart grid", or a more computer-controlled grid, is not reassuring in terms of security against cyber-attack.

If power grids can be controlled -- and disrupted -- via computer networks that are readily accessible to antagonistic governments or terror organisations, there would be no need to use high powered electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to create wide-scale, potentially long-term damage to a large power grid. Large replacement power transformers can require a year or longer for manufacture, shipment, and installation. They are no longer built in the US.

The "Smart Grid" is an Invitation to Cyber-Sabotage

Obama's much-lauded "smart grid" is one of the most idiotic policy plans of an administration that has launched almost nothing but idiotic policy plans. The smart grid would involve putting virtually every aspect of the US power grid under central computer control -- exactly the type of computer control that could be hacked by Chinese and Russian saboteurs working out of government offices in Beijing and Moscow. CBS' 60 Minutes presented a feature on the vulnerability of the US to cyber-attack by overseas saboteurs on Sunday night. From the financial system to the power grid to oil refineries and water treatment plants, anything that is controlled over the network can be sabotaged the same way.

A group of scientists and engineers at the Department of Energy facility wanted to see if they could physically blow up and permanently disable a 27-ton power generator using the Internet.

"If you can hack into that control system, you can instruct the machine to tear itself apart. And that's what the Aurora test was. And if you've seen the video, it's kind of interesting, 'cause the machine starts to shudder. You know, it's clearly shaking. And smoke starts to come out. It destroys itself," Jim Lewis explained.

Asked what the real-world consequences of this would be, Lewis said, "The big generators that we depend on for electrical power are one, expensive, two, no longer made in the U.S., and three, require a lead time of three or four months to order them. So, it's not like if we break one, we can go down to the hardware store and get a replacement. If somebody really thought about this, they could knock a generator out, they could knock a power plant out for months. And that's the real consequence." __60 Minutes

Al Fin has looked at what would happen if the power grid went down after an EMP attack. But it is plain that it isn't necessary to conduct an EMP attack to shut down the grid. If Obama is successful in implementing his "smart grid" plan on the US grid, clever hackers could do the job as well.

If you knock large sections of the US power grid out for several months, the devastation that would follow would be far worse than the damage the US has suffered from any war -- including the US Civil War.

The "smart grid" only makes the US far more vulnerable to attack. But then, that is not the only Obama policy that makes the US more vulnerable to outside attack, is it? If you look at the entirety of the Obama proposals and policies, domestic and foreign, it should be obvious that the end result of almost every one of them, is increased debt and vulnerability with virtually no benefit to the US.

When did the US become such a masochistic nation?

Faraday Cage EMP Protection of Homes and Circuits

Image from Instructables

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is pushing Congress for authority to require power companies to take protective steps, which could include building metal shields around sensitive computer equipment.

An expert panel that Congress created to study such an attack says it would halt banking, transportation, food, water and emergency services and "might result in defeat of our military forces."

"The consequences would be catastrophic," said Joseph McClelland, director of the energy commission's Office of Electric Reliability.

"It would bring down the whole grid and cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion" to repair, said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md. Full recovery could take up to 10 years, he said.

The scenario involves a phenomenon called an "electromagnetic pulse," or EMP, which is essentially a huge energy wave strong enough to knock out systems that control electricity flow across the country.

A nuclear explosion 25 to 250 miles above the Earth's surface would be high enough that the blast wouldn't damage buildings or spread a lethal radioactive cloud. Even so, at that height, the pulse would fan out hundreds of miles.

The immediate effect would resemble a blackout. Although blackouts can be restored quickly, an EMP could damage or destroy power systems, leaving them inoperable for months or longer. _USAToday

Some types of ferrocement buildings include a dense wire mesh or steel rebar matrix support, that may provide some shielding from EMP, if the steel matrix is grounded to earth. In fact, homes with plastered siding often contain a conductive wire lathe, which if integrated with a wire mesh over the ceiling -- and grounded to earth -- may also provide electromagnetic shielding from a radiative pulse. More

Electronic circuits -- integrated circuits such as will be incorporated into any "smart grid" -- are most vulnerable. Any modern automobiles with electronic ignition that are not shielded, will be vulnerable. Needless to say, any modern airplanes or airliners caught in the sky by an EMP would most likely be doomed.

The political leadership of the US is focused on symbolic reforms of the auto industry, the energy industry, health care, and other things community organisers might focus upon. The real and potentially serious problems of the US quasi-empire and international peacekeeper, are essentially ignored. Unfortunately, most other advanced nations are similarly plagued by blind and incompetent leadership.

Which means that it is up to you.

Chinese Scientists Study to Bring Down US Power Grid

Wang and colleagues at Dalian University of Technology in the Chinese province of Liaoning modelled the US's west-coast grid using publicly available data on how it, and its subnetworks, are connected....Their aim was to examine the potential for cascade failures, where a major power outage in a subnetwork results in power being dumped into an adjacent subnetwork, causing a chain reaction of failures. Where, they wondered, were the weak spots? _NewScientist

An electrical power grid is like a living organism, often delicately balanced between stasis and chaotic activity. Every power grid has its weak points, and those who might wish to bring the grid down -- for whatever reason -- will want to study those weaknesses.

Ian Fells at Newcastle University recommends using Semtex explosive on transmission lines located near a power station, for robust effectiveness in bringing down a power grid. Other enterprising power saboteurs have simply removed the anchoring bolts for the line tower.

Other approaches have included shorting across the different phase lines, shorting out the transformers, and hitting power grid control equipment with an electromagnetic pulse.

Local power outages -- although inconvenient for customers and often expensive to repair for utility companies -- are manageable as long as they are limited in size. Even a larger outage that involved an entire state, province, or region, could be managed over time with assistance from non-involved regions.

A much larger outage that involved multiple regions, including most major cities of North America, would be a hug problem. Particularly since such an attack would almost certainly occur in conjunction with significant conflicts elsewhere on the globe. Such distant conflicts could tie up the US military -- usually one of the first organisations on the scene in a global emergency -- and prevent it from assisting.

Life After Electricity: When Transformers Fail

Large power transformers of 100 MVA or larger can fail singly or en masse. They cost over $2 million each to replace, and can take from 18 months to 24 months to receive a replacement from overseas suppliers. These large transformers begin failing spontaneously after 40 years of service, and a large number of US power transformers date back to the 1960s or earlier. Source

Large power equipment can fail en masse under the assault of an EMP attack or an extreme solar event. An organisation called EMPACT America is holding an EMP conference in Niagara Falls at this time: from Sept 8 2009 through Sept 11 2009. They are discussing ways that the US and Canadian power grids can be hardened against EMP and solar events.

Opinions are divided as to how vulnerable the North American power grid actually is to EMP.

Should some of the roughly 300 transformers that are the backbone of our electrical grid be damaged or destroyed, the interruption to the electrical grid will not be brief. Today, we have few back-ups in place. These large and complex pieces of equipment are all produced overseas and it takes at least a year to take delivery of even one, let alone many.

Dr. William Graham, President Reagan's Science Advisor, estimates that, if the electricity is off in large sections of America (far more than the relatively small part of the country afflicted by Katrina) for as long as a year, the effect will not simply be on the quality of life here. He says as many as nine out of ten of our men, women and children will die from starvation, disease and/or exposure. _CenterforSecurityPolicy

Manufacturers of electrical equipment are a bit more sanguine about the ability of heavy power equipment to withstand power surges of short duration. They are concerned about electronic control systems, however.

External grid monitoring and communication equipment are not normally shielded against EMPs. Advanced meters and syncrophasors are examples of new devices whose microprocessors would be destroyed or damaged by an EMP. Even if the underlying power equipment is operational, an EMP will likely cause failures or misoperation of grid control systems. If remote devices are partially damaged, the central control center may not differentiate between grid fault conditions or misreporting sensors. Special protection systems may deploy inadvertently.

...Some EMP warfare scenarios envision multiple blasts over a short duration. Many fault reclosers are designed to "lock out" if several faults occur rapidly, such as four trips in three minutes. Since an EMP affects all devices over a wide geographic area, multiple EMPs could lock out a large number of reclosers, resulting in islanded areas or lost load. Restoration of transmission paths would require cumbersome manual switching, especially if remote communications are also interrupted. _NEMAblog

There are many ways in which the 3 stages of an EMP could shut down power to part or all of a utilities service area. Your electrical power utility is vulnerable. The question is how long should you expect to be without power, should the EMP scenario ever occur in reality.

Of course, that depends upon how well hardened your utility's power equipment is, and how well prepared the utility is for inevitable failures of electronic control systems. If failures are limited to electronic circuits, and the utility is well-stocked with electronic control replacement parts, re-start may take only a matter of several days to several weeks.

If larger electrical equipment is damaged, the power outage could last for months to years, while awaiting expensive replacements from overseas.

How would you like to live in a city without electricity for a year or two? What if your entire state, province, or region were affected? What if most of North America were without power for weeks, months, or years? What do you think would happen to you and those around you?

Here is one scenario

Upcoming Conference on Electromagnetic Pulse

North American Conference on the Threat Posed by Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) to U.S. and Canada to be Held in Niagara Falls Sept. 8-10

A man-made Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is caused by a nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere. This threat is a realistic possibility in this day and age. In fact, two Congressional Commissions have recently warned that America could suffer catastrophic consequences from a nuclear EMP attack by terrorists or rogue states. Their reports also point out that the U.S. can be protected if we act quickly. A House Homeland Security subcommittee is currently meeting and considering legislation, but very little has been done so far. According to the Abstract of the original Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack, U.S. Congress, 2004: “Several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication.” Read the full report _EMPACTAmerica

EMP attack by rogue states or by independent actors supported by rogue states, is increasingly likely. Whether a successful paralysis of the US electrical grid would require the extra-atmospheric detonation of a single nuke or multiple nukes, is irrelevant. More than enough nuclear material can be made available by enemies of the US to cause untold hardship and tens of trillions of dollars in infrastructure damage.

While the US military may be sufficiently hardened against such an attack to continue functioning, the US at large is not. The loss of US economic productivity caused by a large scale EMP attack would force the US military to withdraw from foreign activities on land, sea, and in the air in order to assist in the recovery and defense -- if necessary -- of the far-flung regions of the US proper.

EMP, dirty bombs, biological attacks, and soon nanotechnology attacks are becoming easier and more realistic by the year. While resources and attention are diverted to phantom climate fears, genuine threats are going unmet.

It is clear that the Obama / Pelosi reich is uninterested in anything but the consolidation of power, and elimination of all potential centres of opposition from government and the private sector. It is up to individuals, private groups, and state / county governments to prepare for real threats, essentially without help from the federal government.

Electromagnetic Pulse Basics

William R. Forstchen is the author of One Second After, a best-selling novel that looks at a post - EMP US. Without the electrical power grid, modern civilisation would be in danger of collapse. If your power utility breaks down, the world around you will grow very dangerous, and life very precarious -- quickly.

This is a terrifying aspect of an attack that no government report has publicly discussed along with the potential casualty rate in the first seconds after an attack. Commercial airliners today are all computer driven. In fact, from lift off to landing, a pilot no longer even needs to be in the cockpit, a computer can do all of it if need be. When the pilot pulls back on the "stick" it is no longer connect by wires stretching all the way back to the tail and the elevator assembly. Instead, his motion is read by a computer which sends a signal to an electrical servo - motor in the tail, which then moves the tail. In short, the entire plane is computer driven. It is estimated that at any given moment during regular business hours, somewhere between three to four thousand commercial airliners are crisscrossing the skies. (There is a fascinating site you can find via Goggle that shows typical air traffic around the world during a twenty four hour period. From dawn til way after dusk, the entire USA is one glowing blob of commercial flights crisscrossing our sky). All of them would be doomed, the pilots sitting impotent, staring at blank computer screens, pulling on controls that no longer respond as the plane finally noses over and heads in.

Somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000 people will die in the first few minutes...more than all our battle casualties across four years of World War II

AREN"T WE PREPARING? ISN'T THERE REPLACEMENT EQUIPMENT IN PLACE AND TRAINED PERSONNEL READY TO REACT?

The frightening answer is no. This author has spent over four years researching this topic, interviewing scores of personnel from Congressmen and Generals, to your local police chief and sheriff. At your local level, since 9/11, first responders have received hundreds of hours of training and briefings on all sorts of terrorist scenarios. Only a few have told me that they even discussed the topic for more than a few minutes at an official level. As to emergency stockpiles of supplies and crucial replacement parts, there is nothing in place.

WHY NOT?

EMP, has managed to "stealth" its way on to the highly dangerous list and few, except for a small number of personnel in the Pentagon, various research labs, and men like Congressman Bartlett (R., MD) who heads the Congressional Investigative Committee on EMP, are aware of it. For one it has a certain "sci - fi" sound to it, which makes many dismiss the potential before the discussion has even started. Second, the only way to truly evaluate the threat and demonstrate it is to detonate a nuclear weapon, something we have not done since the full test ban went into effect decades ago. It is therefore not "visible" to us, the way another airliner smashing into a skyscraper is now forever imprinted on our national psyche, feared, and prepared for. Next, with all the competing issues and threats in the world, EMP simply does not have a "constituency" of influence. Only a few members of Congress, our military and scientific community are issuing the warnings. There are no Hollywood stars placing themselves in front of cameras with this as their cause, the few times it has been used in popular movies, it has been portrayed inaccurately, often absurdly.

And finally, the impact is so overwhelming - that it triggers a psychological sense of helplessness, and therefore why bother, since if it happens we are finished. It is the same response that happened between the 1950s - 60s. When first confronted with the threat of a nuclear attack, tens of billions was spent to prepare, in fact our Interstate Highway system was initiated in the mid 1950s as a national defense effort to provide avenues of escape from cities in the event of nuclear war, a means to bring in emergency supplies and to move our military. Plans were issued to citizens on how to build bomb shelters and all children were drilled in what is seen now as the absurd "duck and cover."

Something happened though by the mid - 1960s. The threat was no longer fifty to a hundred small atomic bombs dropped from bombers, it was now a rain of thousands of hydrogen bombs, delivered within minutes by ballistic missiles. In this atmosphere of overkill, attempting to prepare seemed ridiculous, futile. The standard phrase became "the living will envy the dead," so why bother? Civil defense finally became an object of derision, the realm of a few survivalist nut cases.

That threat is still there, and to this day our nuclear forces stand ready to respond, which has indeed been the only defense left..."if you nuke us, we'll nuke you," a policy known as "mutual assured destruction," a zero win game.

EMP is different, it is not a rain of thousands of bombs, needing a vast and powerful military to deliver it, which means Russia and China are the only real threats in that realm...but unless seized by madness, their leaders know such an attack, within minutes would be met with thousands of bombs annihilating their country as well. It is a balance of terror that has now endured for nearly sixty years.

An EMP attack is different since it only requires but one nuclear weapon, detonated 300 miles above the middle of the United States. One bomb. The launch could even be done from a container ship somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico and in that instant, the war is already over and won.

_Forschen

Read the whole thing.

If you are an Obama zombie, brain-dead and blindly trusting in the benevolence and wisdom of the clown in the White House, there is nothing here that will interest you. Life goes on according to the "talking points", and life will always go on according to the talking points. To think anything else is to wander off the reservation, onto dangerous and uncharted territory.

But if you can think for yourself, you will see the threat of EMP as just one out of many threats that can throw the modern, oblivious way of life out of its convenient and affluent path.

William R. Forstchen Discusses EMP Threat

William R. Forstchen is the author of the bestselling near-future thriller, "One Second After." In this Pajamas TV special, Forstchen discusses the threat from EMP to modern civilisations.

Try living without electricity for a week or two. Then imagine entire neighborhoods, communities, cities, and regions going without electrical power for weeks and months. How many would survive after a few months without power? Trauma victims and the critically ill would be the first to die. Then persons with renal failure, insulin dependent diabetes, heart failure, and other chronically ill persons dependent upon short supplies of medication would die. Treating infectious diseases would be a whole new ballgame without immunisations and antibiotics.

Grocery stores and department stores would be looted for supplies. Food supplies would run short due to a shortage of fuel and viable vehicles. Houses and buildings would burn in the absence of the ability to put out the flames. And so on.

Forstchen's book does a good job of describing the breakdown of civil order, and the abysmal death rates that would result from loss of electricity. Keep in mind that a lot of triggers could result in the same widespread death, violence, loss of cohesion. EMP is only one of many.

H/T Instapundit

Iran & North Korea Building EMP Weapons?

Iran and North Korea are far behind their sponsors Russia and China in the high technology arms race. But that doesn't mean they aren't trying -- nor does it mean they are not receiving a little help.

...in at least two earlier ballistic missile launches, the Iranians launched in ways that “appear they were designed to optimize an EMP burst,” according to a Pentagon source with detailed knowledge of the Iranian’s efforts and of space technology.

...EMP stands for electro-magnetic pulse and it is one byproduct of a nuclear blast. EMP destroys power sources, communication capabilities and would cripple or destroy the abilities of most satellites to function. A percentage of military communication and other satellites are hardened against EMP but the gravest effect would be on the ground, the space expert said. “As bad as the space part of this is, that is pretty bad, but the ground part of it is much, much worse. Effectively, whoever was subjected to an EMP burst would be shoved back to an agricultural state.” Few civilian assets such as power grids, generators, telephone systems and commercial communications satellites are hardened against EMP. _DefTech

One advantage that China and Russia enjoy, is the ability to use belligerent client states as cat's paws -- proxies for doing dirty work while maintaining deniability. Iran is receiving a lot of help from Russia on the nuclear front, and receiving significant protection against international interference from both China and Russia.

North Korea has announced plans to launch an orbital payload of undetermined nature within the next few weeks. Given North Korea's nuclear ambitions and multiple threats against South Korea, the US, and the west in general, the ability to loft nuclear weapons -- and perhaps EMP weapons -- into orbit would be a tremendous morale booster for the pariah dictatorship.

A 2007 report by the congressionally-mandated Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack detailed the devastation that could result from a relatively unsophisticated EMP strike. It also detailed how EMP works and what measures the U.S. government might take to reduce the risk from it.

One independent study, “Initial Assessment of Electromagnetic Pulse Impact Upon Baltimore-Washington-Richmond Region,” says a Scud-type missile launched from a small ship 200 miles off our coast could cause up to $771 billion in damage, equal to 7% of gross domestic product. _DODBuzz

A combination EMP / radioactive dirty bomb attack of limited sophistication could easily do over $1 trillion in damages and render much of the Baltimore - Washington - Richmond area uninhabitable for decades.

To this point, neither Russia nor China has been pushed to the point where they might orchestrate a proxy attack of this type against the US. But with the failing economy and demographics of Russia, and with a growing threat of political instability within China, it is impossible to know how easily either nuclear power might expend some of their overseas assets. Particularly during the special window of opportunity that an Obama depression in the US represents.

We should understand that the djinn is out of the bottle. India is developing EMP weapons because it suspects that Pakistan is planning a pre-emptive EMP strike against Indian cities such as Bangalore, a high tech research hub.

"Any nation with even a 1940s technology base could make them," says Carlo Kopp, an Australian-based expert on high-tech warfare. "The threat of E-bomb proliferation is very real." POPULAR MECHANICS estimates a basic weapon could be built for $400. _PM

EMP Weapons Keep Getting More Powerful

Previous e-bomb designs were based on explosively driven magnetic flux compression generators. They used a series of tightly wound, current-carrying metal coils that are rapidly compressed by an explosion. The new technology is much more compact. It's based on research showing that some magnets will spontaneously demagnetize when hit by a powerful enough shock wave, releasing a pulse of energy, in the process. The technical term is "pressure-induced magnetic phase transition." _Wired

Researchers are developing new ways to project a powerful electromagnetic field outward through space. We are all familiar with nuclear EMP. The method described above, using tightly wound metallic coils -- explosively compressed -- is one conventional, non-nuclear approach. A newer, more destructive method is described below:

Hybrid munitions would give warheads the added punch of an e-bomb that can "destroy and disable electronic systems and their operators" all in one blast. The key is a magnet that blows up and spontaneously demagnetizes, releasing energy as a pulse of power.

...Having proved the principle by blowing up neodymium magnets (like the ones in your headphones) the Army's Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center (Amrdec) have moved on to lead zirconate titanate magnets. The current state of the art is described as a completely explosive ultracompact high-voltage nanosecond pulse-generating system, occupying about one-fifth of a cubic inch.

There are engineering challenges at the other end. For this new weapon to work, you need an antenna that can fit inside a warhead, but is big enough to do the job. The problem is, the size is dictated by the properties of the electromagnetic pulse to be generated. You could used some sort of folding antenna, perhaps. The Army is going one step further and using an antenna made out of fire. To be more exact, Allen Stults of Amrdec is using the jet of ionized plasma produced by the explosion as an antenna.

...The multifunction warhead technology is being applied to several types of weapon, including TOW missiles, 70mm helicopter rockets and the bomblets dispensed by MLRS artillery. The effects of e-bombs are notoriously unpredictable. A lot depends on the exact type of electronic component and its orientation compared to the e-bomb. The new munitions will have two crucial advantages over previous e-bombs: they are small, and should not cause electronic "friendly fire" casualties hundreds of meters away. And because they still have the same blast, fragmentation and armor-piercing properties as they did, commanders can be confident that they're not wasting space carrying rounds that might have no effect. _Wired

Being able to knock out an enemy's command and control structure is more than half the battle, on a modern electronic battlefield.

The US has used simple weapons such as long metallic ribbons to short out high voltage transmission lines, against Iraq and against Serbia. More sophisticated, focused methods of destroying electronics and electrical equipment have also been used by US forces in battle.

High tech societies are exquisitely vulnerable to loss of communications and loss of power. Ordinary citizens sometimes appear incapable of imagining what their life without electronic communications and without electrical power would be like. That is not a problem. They may learn soon enough, from direct experience.

Obama Depression, Soon Obama Dark Age?

An electromagnetic pulse starts with a short, intense burst of gamma rays produced from nuclear detonation. The gamma rays interact with the atoms in air molecules through a process called the Compton effect, wherein electrons are scattered at high energies, thus ionizing the atmosphere and generating a powerful electrical field. The strength of the EMP depends highly on the altitude at which it is released. At altitudes above 30,000m, it is the strongest. It is also significant at surface or low altitude bursts, but is not as effective between the two extremes. _EMPTerror

Image SourceModern societies base much of their economies and affluence on the ability to manipulate electricity. Each American has the equivalent of dozens of "energy slaves" working for him. How easy would it be for an antagonist to turn off the power -- to a town, to a region, to a nation, to a continent?

This posting deals with EMP - electromagnetic pulse. EMP is a side effect of the detonation of a nuclear weapon, but it can also be produced by conventional methods. The "lights out" effect of a nuclear detonation can travel well over a thousand miles -- effectively transporting large areas of a continent into a "dark age".

All modern societies that are reliant upon plentiful electricity for their way of life are vulnerable. Research into portable, conventional EMP weapons, has produced effective emp's from hand grenade size weapons.

"They" are electro-magnetic grenades -- not something you'll find in the typical armory but apparently something that could soon be in the hands of GIs.

"EMP grenade technology is out there, but I've never had my hands on one," said Col. Laurie Buckhout, chief of the newly formed Electronic Warfare Division, Army Operations, Readiness and Mobilization, during a bloggers roundtable Tuesday from the Pentagon. _DefenseTech_via_NextBigFuture

It seems that such light-weight electromagnetic radiation burst weapons are available that are capable of knocking out the power for a college campus, a small town, or a central part of Washington DC. Larger weapons, that could knock out power for large cities and entire states or provinces, would be easier to produce. But they require transport by truck, rail, barge, or ship. These are conventional EMP weapons, not detectable by radiation or hazmat detectors. Your next-door neighbor may be storing one in his garage. (:-0

The US could be knocked backward into a quasi-dark age in just a few seconds. Orbiting nuclear weapons, for example, could detonate in space without killing anyone on the surface via blast effect, radiation, thermal effects, or radioactive fallout. The EMP from the detonations would knock out power on the ground, and destroy scores of sensitive communications satellites in orbit. Airplanes and helicopters would drop like hail from the sky. Large bloody pile-ups would occur on countless freeways. Trains would crash into each other without warning. Hospital power supplies and backup power would fail, and many patients would die. Thousands would be stuck between floors on elevators, that for some would become their tombs. Trillions of dollars of electronic wealth would vanish in a flash.

It is difficult for most psychologically neotenous, academically lobotomised incompetent perpetual adolescents to come to grips with a nation where all cities are simultaneously rendered powerless. Where almost all emergency services and law enforcement services were suddenly helpless.

The online novel, Lights Out, is one man's look at a community in middle America trying to survive after such a surprise EMP attack. Or check out this blurb about a similar book in the stores:

New York Times best selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real...a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages...A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies. _Macmillan

Go here for a longer excerpt.

We are at multiple points of bifurcation. The world we know could cease to exist in the blink of an eye, with another -- much harsher -- world taking its place. Such a rapid transition could happen many different ways, but there are only a few ways a society could recover from such transitions. The best way to recover is to have been prepared ahead of time.

EMP is only one easy way for an antagonist to finish off an Obama-weakened US. There are multiple biological, chemical, nuclear (dirty bomb) -- and soon nanotechnological -- ways to knock America flat on its back. And this America is not the same country that bounced back from the 1930s/1940s depression.

Modern america is split into tribes warring among themselves. Many of the newer American tribes are fresh from the third world, with no idea how to run a technological society, and no allegiances to the rule of law or the US Constitution.

America is still rich, still powerful despite its economic problems and current run of bad governmental decision-making. But America and all the western nations, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. are all extremely vulnerable to the new would-be hegemons and would-be world caliphates. Weapons that could separate the thin threads that bind western societies together are becoming less expensive and more widely available.

Much more on the EMP threat

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.