EMP

Let me put it this way: An EMP fries a lot of electronics, yes, but it is not a magic death wave like it's made out to be. It's subject to the laws of electricity, which means there are definite and effective ways to protect against its effects. As an example a powerplant could just keep backups of all its essential EMP-fryable parts inside a small faraday caged closet and bam, the spares are bulletproof. It may not even affect things inside certain structures or underground.

And since there's no major infrastructure disruption aside from electronics it's perfectly possible for society to keep moving. Ever see a grocery store use hand-checkouts when the registers crash or after a hurricane?

If you want to be worried about a doomsday scenario someone actually dropping those nukes for their original purpose would suck a LOT more than getting EMPed.

 

What if all the trucks that deliver food to the grocery stores get fried? How are you going to use a credit card to buy the food if there is no power and no communications? Old tractors and trucks might still work, but even harvesting the crops will take a big effort.

I've seen the giant EMP generator the military has, but I don't know anything about it or if the power companies have started protecting certain transformers and having quite a few spares around.

 

if we're assuming valid premises in the EMP attack scenario argument, how many power plants keep spare parts in Faraday cage closets? I'll have to double check, but I don't think any around here do since the last time I took a tour about ten years ago.

Again, most EMP attacks are nuclear, so it's not a likely threat.

 

I'd think a high-altitude nuclear EMP attack would be much more likely than an actual nuclear explosion utilized for physical destruction.

At least strategically it makes sense, it would affect a much wider area and would go down better with the international community, especially since there's little radiation effect on the population and no "real" destruction/killing involved.

If a country and its military are not well prepared against EMP, even better for the attacking side.

 

The Sun can also send out major EMP blasts.

http://www.protectiongroup.com/Military/Threat-Assessment/Solar-Flare

*And there is the space weapons treaty that even Iran and North Korea signed (but haven't ratified). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

The likeihood of a terrorist group getting a nuke, and launching it into orbit, is quite remote. Even if Pakistan fell to the Taliban, they would need lots of help from forigners and improved rockets to put it into orbit.

 

My point was more the ease of doing it, not that they did. Rarely, if ever, does any organization do what's best in the long term over what allows them to loot the most in the short term in this country.

 

Not really clear on the science of it all..but isn't there some kind of lead shielding you can put around a device that protect it from a EMP?

 

Well, lead might work, but it's more economical to construct a farraday cage that blocks the radiation waves. Effectively, you want something that you're not going to get any radio signal through, since that's the exposure here.

Lead would work, but it would be bulky, heavy and expensive. It's a lot easier to make a wire cage out of the right materials.

 

Chicken wire should do it. The key thing is that the holes have to be smaller than the wavelength you're trying to stop.

An awful lot of things are already faraday cages without you thinking about it. A spare parts store in a metal framed warehouse, filled with metal shelves (all earthed) is probably an effective faraday cage.

Most concrete structures include enough re-bar and metalwork that they are pretty impeneterable to radio waves.

EMP is not an issue if you know it's coming - just switch everything off, and disconnect as many things as you can to reduce induced currents. The problem with the power grid is that power distribution cables are bloody great big radio antennae, but having a fast acting circuit breaker will cut them off if an EMP spikes current into the system.

There are several ways to make an EMP without a nuclear explosion - just watch Ocean's Eleven, or read Cryptonomicon....

 

a big ass microwave would work. right??

if you were underground would it still get you??

 

As far as I can remember, the answer is "it depends".

How deep, how thick is the rock, what water and metal ore content does it have, and so on.

 

Not too many people live underground though.

I think they should in a lot of places. Earthquakes can be a problem though.

 

answers that question....