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The "Most Significant Danger" According To Elliott's Paul Singer
While we have 'joked' about it in the past, Elliott Management's Paul Singer believes "there is one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence" - an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
Did someone EMP the 9th floor at Liberty 33?
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 24, 2014
Did someone launch an EMP next to the BATS New Jersey exchange? Spoos now decidedly ungreen
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 3, 2014
Not a laughing matter....
Exceprted from Elliott Management's latest letter from Paul Singer,
EMP: THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DANGER
While these pages are typically overflowing with scary or depressing scenarios, there is one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence. Even nuclear war is a relatively localized issue, except in its most extreme form. And the threat from asteroids can (possibly) be mitigated.
The risks associated with electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, represent another story entirely. It can occur naturally, from solar storms that send “coronal mass ejections,” which are massive energetic bursts of solar wind, tens of millions of miles in a mere few hours. Or it can be artificial, produced by a high-altitude (at least 15 miles) explosion of relatively low-yield (even Hiroshima-strength) nuclear weapons.
Different initiators of EMP have different pulses and different effects. But the bottom line is that EMP fries electronic devices, including parts of electric grids. In 1859, a particularly strong solar disturbance (the “Carrington Event”) caused disruption to the nascent telegraph network. It happened again with similar disruptions in 1921, before our modern power grid came into existence. A NASA study concluded these events have typically occurred around once per century. A repeat of the Carrington Event today would cause a massive disruption to the electric grid, possibly shutting it down entirely for months or longer, with unimaginable consequences.
Only two years ago, the sun let loose with a Carrington-magnitude burst, but the position of the earth at the time prevented the burst from hitting it. The chances of additional events of such magnitude may be far greater than most people think.
The artificial version of EMP, a kind of nuclear attack, would require between one and three high-altitude nuclear explosions to create its effect across all of North America. It would not cause any blast or radiation damage, but such an attack would have consequences even more catastrophic than a severe solar storm. It could not only bring down the grid, but also lay down a very intense, very fast pulse across the continent, damaging or destroying electronic switches, devices, computers and transformers across America.
There is no way to stop a naturally occurring EMP, and nuclear proliferation, combined with advances in weapons delivery systems, make the artificial version a distinct possibility, so the dangers are very real.
What can be done about this risk? Critical elements of the power grid and essential electronic devices can be hardened. Spare parts can be stockpiled for other, less critical hardware. Procedures can be developed as part of emergency preparedness so that the relevant government agencies and emergency response NGOs are ready to respond quickly and effectively to an episode large or small.
Why are we writing about EMP? Because in any analysis of societal risk, EMP stands all by itself. Congressional committees are studying this problem, and federal legislation is laboriously working its way through the process. We think that raising people’s consciousness about what should be an effort by both parties to make the country (and the world) safer from this kind of event is a good thing to do.
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EMP...is that some sort of Paul Allen conspiracy?
EMP + Ebola and that should do it. Thanks for coming folks.
So should I feel justified for buying a mechanical safe for this very reason? EMPs, bitchez.
EMP. Ebola. Russians. ISIS. China. Polar Vortex. Global Warming. Immigrants. So many MSM promoted perceived threats. However, none compare to the destruction being done by the USGov and the Federal Reserve.
Time to bug out or make a stand.
We're a single solar event away from the dark ages. Have fun peeps!
Does it surprise you it took them almost two years before they admit "ya know, we almost got fried in 2012, just FYI."
Issue a zoning ordinance for industrial and office buildings to be built with Faraday Cages.
We have insulation from heat transfer in the exterior walls of all of homes and offices, no?
Then would it be outrageous science fiction to have insulation from EMP inside the exterior walls of all of our factories and offices?
Think about it.
I'm in.
I could finally take off that itchy and unfashionable tinfoil hat I've been wearing. Of course it might make the NSA's job that much harder...
Dont foget the solar flare of 1859 either. Created auroras "bright enough to read a news paper by" as far south as the mid-atlantic. Mother Nature's EMP could be much much worse .... it could fry the grid of the entire planet and not just one country or region
The earth's magnetic field which protects us from such things has decreased over 20% since the 1859 Carrington Event. It would affect us more today. Official estimates are that the death rate from a complete grid shutdown would be 50-90% of Americans within a year. East Coast more and the Midwest less. Putin can cause an EMP with high altitude nukes without any difficulty yet the Kenyan guy keeps poking at him with a stick. He can probably even do it without anyone being certain he was responsible. This is the scariest scenario I see out there.
Oh, I'm sure our gubment and the MIC are diligently working on a scenario by which they can self-inflict an EMP on us False Flag-style in order to blame it on Veterans, patriots, 2nd Amendment supporters, the TEA party, Ron Paul, and all the rest of us "domestic terrorists" who own nukes. ;-)
The psychological term for these types of worries is DISPLACEMENT.
Take a recent college graduate. They are typically deeply in debt, employed part time (at best) in a dead end job with little prospect of things getting better. What is the most pressing problem in the world? Why its GLOBAL WARMING of course.
Hopeless people worry about hypothetical unlikely or unavoidable events ( like global warming, asteroid impacts, EMP pulses ) to avoid facing their very real personal problems.
Grow up.
c'mon, don't be so serious. Don't get so worked up and have some fun with it. You're just not getting into the spirit of the gloom and doom banter here.
Any one have any good examples of EMPs being tested? Because I know of plenty of nukes being tested, without EMP effects occuring.
Here' one, but maybe it’s best not to be taking a video selfie during a nearby multi-million volt, kiloampere discharge.
This is BS, untested, we all have seen the Russian asteroid explosion!
Desensitivation Psy-Op inprog.
This world will have an unmitigated de-pop event at any time?
Woo-Hoo, CalvinBall is the name of the game.
Bullish for BitCoin..... BUWAHAHAHHAHAHAHHH!!!!!!!!!
ob1 forgets we are all but grist for the mill...
most nukes were blasted off under ground. They say for a EMP effect a nuke would have to be blow up in the atmosphere at least 15 miles up.
Or it seems the U.S. may have EMP bombs that aren't nuclear:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb3.htm
Apparently N.Korea has EMP bombs from Russia? (now I know where Tyler got the cool graphic pic for his article) ;-)
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/170563-north-korea-emp
And apparently we also have EMP guided missles that just fly through your city frying the shit out of everything in it's path selectively frying specific targets.
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/10/29/emp-missile-microwave/
Here's the video simulation...thanks Boeing!!! http://www.boeing.com/Features/2012/10/bds_champ_10_22_12.html
And of course they found a cute nick-name for it too: Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP)
It will also blast "We are the Champions" as it flies by or "The Ride of the Valkyries" to really freak out the natives...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30QzJKCUekQ
I have a little problem believing a high altitude nuke burst poses no radiation hazard.
Gamma must be misunderstood by the author.
I'm reminded of having once read about a prankster device that could be constructed of transformers, a large capacitor, and some sort of picosecond power diode, these fed by a bank of lead acid batteries, all to be placed in back of a pickup truck.
Would wipe out all electronics in the neighborhood, they say.
The pulse can even be focused into a narrow beam, should that suit one's purposes.Plenty of decent power, HV stuff can be "harvested" from old microwave ovens.The transformers (if wired as a centre-tapped pair) are good for 3kv at 100mA, and the capacitors are usually high kV rated, along with the HV diodes (that act as a voltage doubling step, a la Cockroft-Walton).
It is "interesting" to wire the o/p from an MOT secondary across another MOT primary. Depending on the manufacturer, many survive for a "reasonable time" - i.e. time enough to use the VERY high kV output for interesting purposes. Best not to try this with the cheaper Chinese MOTs - their secondaries tend to experience "cascade failure" - looks good though (check out Youtube!)
The EMP effects don't occur with ground or subterranean detonations, which are the ones you're referencing as "plenty of nukes being tested". You want high altitude detonations like in Operation Hardtack. There have been fewer of these tests and they had devestating effects - google Hardtack as an example that the US executed. The russians have done similar tests with similarly devestating effects. Most of these were performed pre-Woodstock era when it was open season on nuclear testing.
Google "Starfish Prime" a high altitude nuke test over the Pacific that first introduced the U.S. military to EMP effects. The Soviets had observed this sooner and studied it more comprehensively. That's one reason they stuck with vacuum tube and discrete electronics so much longer than we did. These days, you can be certain EMP attacks would be part of any big power's pre-prepared strike packages against any other big power. It's part of M.A.D. The bigger concern in terms of man-made EMP would be wealthy non-state actors, or psycho-states acting surreptitiously, to launch nuclear tipped IRBM's to detonations above the atmosphere of their designated enemies. It would be a very cost effective infidel genocide.
The first EMP effect was noticed at the first atomic test despite Fermi insisting all circuits be hardened to resist the expected pulse. The high altitude megaton+ blast above the Pacific in '62 "Starfish Prime" damaged electroics in Hawaii 900 miles away. Circuirs are much more vulnerable now and blasts can be much bigger. Plus EMPs have been researched for decades since then to 'perfect' it as a weapon of war. The good part is that it doesn't produce much fallout so the cannibals won't be consuming many rads with their meals.
Read this report: The electro-magnetic pulse produced by a nuclear bomb explosion high above the atmosphere. J. Steinberger Sept. 2006
Introduction. This article discusses the electromagnetic pulse produced by a high, exoatmospheric nuclear explosion, commonly abbreviated HEMP. The gamma rays produced in the nuclear explosion above the atmosphere produce electrons in the atmosphere by Compton scattering.
July 8 1962, 11 PM the "Starfish" test, a 1.4 Megaton nuclear explosion at an altitude 400 km above Johnston island, could be "observed" from the Hawaiian islands, 1200 km to the west. This event had been announced previously and according to the newspapers, the population joyfully anticipated it. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of the next two days 8), the sky lit up bright blue, as in daylight, for some seconds, streetlights on Ferdinand St. In Manoa and Kawainui St. In Kailua went out the instant the bomb went off, and "police were sent off to a South St. warehouse, when a burglar alarm started ringing at the time of the blast".. Fuses blew out in Kasmuki, Kahala, Kaluji, Maili, Wajanae, Makaha, Wahsaura, Kailua and Sandy Beach, and the Federal Aviation Agency reported occasional radio communication blackouts over a period of two hours. These reports, of Honolulu street lights going out, burglar alarms sounding, and circuit breakers popping are frequently cited as evidence for the danger posed by the HEMP, but such things happen also without nuclear bomb explosions, and the connection cited with the nuclear explosion of these incidences are far from clear. The outstanding fact seems to be that life went on normally in Hawaii, during and after the Starfish test, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin appeared normally the next day. In response to such an article citing these alleged Starfish effects 9), there are answers by Alan S. Lloyd, Manager, Consumer Services, Hawaiian Electric Company 10) stating categorically that "there was absolutely no adverse effect on our utility power and communications system on the island of Oahu where the city of Honolulu is located", and by E.C. Schoen, Chief Engineer, Hawaiian Telephone Company, that, in connection with these nuclear bomb tests "No one, that I have talked to, can recall any increase in troubles associated with telephone sets or any other type of difficulty" Damage to microelectronics. One of the often cited dangers of electro-magnetic pulses is damage to microelectronics, a very important element of our modern society.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/272552-the-electro-magnetic-puls...
So, as with other fear mongering scare tactics utilized in the past, the question must be asked, who benefits financially from hardening the power grid and other systems from a HEMP event?
uhmm, referring to the part that you highlighted, that blast was 1200km away and still had effects in Hawaii. now imagine if the blast was overhead.
They had only vacuum tubes back then. Those take EMP effects in stride. Modern ICs FET oxide insulators have microscopic thinness.
Take a pound of salt with HECO's assertions of system reliability--those numbskulls have a hard time supplying surge-free power on their best days.
The fact that the USA, Russia, China and no doubt others have happily spent many tens or hundreds of million $$s on EMP weapon research indicates that someone, somewhere knows that an EMP weapon woould have "useful effects", hence all that (costly) R&D.
One very significant difference between now, and the Starfish Prime era, is the ubiquitous global distribution of SCADA systems, the design of which is more concerned with maximising performance per $ spent (both as initial CapEx, and as recurrent costs). This customer-driven mindset has not led to the development of "EMP robust" systems and architecture, with a few exceptions where such systems are intended to work in electrically noisy environments.
It is a bit disingenuous to compare the "effects reported" then (assuming the reportage was not directed by the Military to "tone down" the reported effect for propaganda reasons), and the effects on our globally interconnected systems in the early 21st century.
Here: http://www.empcommission.org .pdf of report is linked from site.
in 1962, the USA tested a 1.44-megaton nuclear EMP (Starfish Prime) above the Pacific Ocean that caused electrical damage 900 miles away in Hawaii. Kiloton-yield nukes are very effective as well, and to maximize the size of the EMP it’s actually better for the nuke to be fission, rather than a thermonuclear H-bomb. If a big EMP was detonated above the USA, the E1 burst would probably melt most of the electronics within 1,000 miles or so, and it would take only three to blanket the U$A. Danial Boone Days are here again.
As always, your government is keeping you safe ... with experts looking into everything. Like NSA. (they don't tell us what they find) Government secrecy - the ultimate oxymoron.
@HR
The 9th of this month was the 50th anniversary of Starfish Prime, a 1.4 MT nuke we detonated 248 miles up in the South Pacific:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/09/the-50th-anniv...
unless you can build a faraday cage around the hundreds of Nuke power plants, I would not worry. I heard they are not very safe unless they have complelx electronic controls. Can you say fukushima x 500.
It is exactly the opposite of what you say. They will automatically shut down as in no criticality without all those electronic systems functioning. All the US reactors are designed and built with fail safe mechanisms. That means that in the event of a failure of anything to operate properly the plant will shut itself down. The only thing to worry about is the spent fuel. You can thank the anti nuke people for that problem. All the nuclear plants would love to process the spent fuel and use it until it is harmless but the anti nukes make sure the gov won't allow it.
You live in a dream world skippy.
(San Francisco) – Feb 28, 2014 – Carlsbad, New Mexico is the site of the nation’s only nuclear weapons program garbage dump. Plutonium is used in making The Bomb, it melts at 640 Deg C or 1,184 Deg F, and is made in reactors. It is not mined anywhere on Earth. Reactors exist to make Bombs.
____________________________
Black Smoke from Plutonium Fire at Nuke Garbage Dump Source Current Argus
The Carlsbad Bomb making garbage dump is on fire. The burning radioactive metal does not go away, it turns to dense black radioactive smoke. The black smoke is very obvious in the daytime and it streamed from several ventilator shafts during a fire at the dump two weeks ago.
The shafts were then closed and the visible smoke kept underground. Plutonium does not need oxygen to burn and escaped anyway. The HEPA filters are not good enough to contain the very small Plutonium particles; that’s because nothing is. The fire very well could still be burning Plutonium and Uranium in the salt mine.
The special Bomb making isotopes catch fire easily and burn at unearthly high temperatures – nothing can contain a fire in the underground garbage dump. Since Uranium and Plutonium burn at higher temperatures than rock salt, there is a remote possibility the underground dump itself is on fire.
This is all about the contaminated garbage left over from making nuclear and thermonuclear bombs. That is the source of the poisonous garbage buried 2200 ft, or 670.56 meters, beneath the southeastern New Mexico desert.
WIPP Pu239 Dispersion by wind Carlsbad New Mexico
The nation manufactures and maintains more than 60,000 nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. Bomb production has not necessarily stopped. All the contaminated garbage, trucks, tools, junk, wipes and clothes, etc from 70 years plus of nuclear weapons production is stuffed down a hole in New Mexico.
13 People Poisoned So FarAs of Feb 28, 2014 the mine operator, a private corporation, had announced that 13 employees were radiologically contaminated inside their bodies. The poison will probably kill them all. Dog studies done with living animals show us how they will die. From the few reports that surfaced in the past two weeks enough plutonium was released to kill 35,500 people.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has legal title to all the nation’s thermonuclear weapons and is one point of possible responsibility. The DOE announced six areas of potential contamination spreading outward from the garbage dump.
All adults in the First Contamination Zone, up to 100 miles or 160km, from the Carlsbad dump are eligible for free whole body scans. This is of little value in Plutonium Contamination since it is a different form of radioactive energy. The expensive scans take about an hour and, of course, will find nothing. That’s a typical Scam of the DOE.
It’s amazing. A normal human couldn’t make this up if they tried. That’s life in the DOE and the nation’s nuclear weapons program. It is just bizarre.
[End]
Copyright by Bob Nichols Mar 2, 2014. All rights reserved. Distribute with credit and all Notes and Sources. Reach Bob Nichols at duweapons@gmail.com
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/03/02/south-central-us-poisoned-by-new-mexico-nuke-garbage-dump/
We don't control the Sun so I agree. No point in getting worked up about it.
I wouldn't call it worrying, just prudent planning, being aware of possibilities.
It gives us folks without things to worry about something to ponder.
Actually, they do!
Have you mooks ever heard of "Tempest" EMP proof buildings built since the Cold War days to withstand nuke attck EMPs?
There's also plenty of underground military and private facilities (like old salt mines) which are EMP proof
Submerged submariens are immune too.
Power grids... not so much.
I worked in at&t switching buildings that were hardened like that.
Old fifties era bomb shelter signs, most of the cable-heavy stuff (trunks) on the third subterranean floor or lower, meetings with the mayor and his disaster recovery planning committee biannually.
I still have a backdoor into one if it comes to that...
Hey Toady: I visited one of those at&t switching centers once to fix a mainframe back in the 80's. It was in the middle of a farm field. There wasa small shed the size of an elevator and it was an elevator. Pushed the button the the guy came up and we went down three floors.
Chicago deep-tunnel. Massive underground bunker and UMB (underground military base). An amazingly successful and covert project. Its size is amazing. On youtube, you can see the world's largest cranes and earthmovers being lowered into the deep tunnel. The tunnels run for tens of miles, hundreds in total. Work continues but is now far enough along that no one on the surface need know or see any evidence.
no retard, the reason ionizing radiation would affect earth more now is because we have electricty, a distribution grid with wires and electronic devices everywhere.
places in africa would have zero clue there was any bad outcomes from an emp, other than the west having less money to buy their shit the next week.
and the shadow result of ionzing radation that is no doubt classified by government is how well military sattelites shielding can deal with a thresh-hold of radation before being temporarily if not permanently destroyed.
theres plenty of radiation ALWAYS CIRCLING EARTH IN THE ONION LIKE RINGS OF THE VAN ALLENT BELTS, AND THE IONIZED POLAR MAGNETIC VORTICES.
'sattelites are constantly dealing wiith rapidly varrying amounts of electrons and protons helium ions and and even moderate energy neutrons . furthermore ionzed space dust . the question is , would the likelihood of world war escalate and, to whose benefit, shoudl a solar storm knock out a sufficient number of some powerful nations sattlites.
You know who also won't notice the affects of an EMP? The people of Gaza.
Fuck you, shit eating monkey.
I am Chumbawamba.
Can I up that one 100 times?
I am with Chumbawamba
You all know what happens to nuclear power plants when they lose their cooling systems!
the Japanese will build ice walls around them for us??? They should have that technology mastered by now, right???
And a tent overhead!
duck and cover.
Free X-rays?
Hey where'd my zeros and ones go?
well, at least we know our guns and ammo will still work after an EMP ;-)
Go read Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven.
Stan, the narrator, notices that the moon is glowing much brighter than ever before. The people he meets as the story begins all praise the moon's increased beauty but lack the scientific background to understand its cause.
ya i quit wearing mine for that reason. They can just read our comments on here, no need for some kind of brain reading device....
If your tinfoil hat is chafing you, just coat the inside with Vaseline like I do. It offers the great side benefit of making you look like a sweaty lunatic, which is great if you want to keep people at arm's length.
Of course it might make the NSA's job that much harder...
I'm against anything that makes Our Heroes™ have to work even harder than they already do to keep us safe, thank you very much!
Sod the whole 'Faraday cage' idea, I think .gov should pass a law obliging us to wear antennas on our head so the NSA can read our thoughts more easily!
It would require less energy, too, so it's a win-win for the environment!
Well, maybe gamma radiation is a good therapy for Ebola.
That's what I've been saying here the past few days about using our nukes to stop ebola..
But nooooooo....
Cause it has to be "all natural" gamma radiation for you mooks!
Good one.. :-D
All-Natural Organic Gamma V man-made synthetic Atomically Modified Occurrences.. (AMO’s ?) ..
I never looked at it that way before.
And you shield the hundreds of miles of cable that brings the power into the building how, exactly? The longer the wire, the greater the "hit". If it's plugged into the grid, it's toast, regardless of whether the building is shielded.
So, am I supposed to solve all the world's problems at once?
No props at all?
I'm the guy trying to figure shit out. I guess you're the other guy.
Look, you gotta understand this is a stressful time for me. I was just confronted with the possibility of not being able to access Zero Hedge for and extended period of time.
So if you're the one gonna figure this out, I ask that you please hurry the fuck up because I got nothin'.
Hello, SOMEONE has a pen and a phone.
He will just ban them and we can go back to enjoying our summer of recovery.
pods
Worst case scenario, everyone on ZH shares name and addresses?
So we can get our ZH fix in person, if it comes to that?
I'll start. My real name is Bob, and I live in a pineapple, under the sea.
What about porntube!!!!!!! I am fucked.
had to log in for these three posts
Do Debt
PODS
and Tetons'
Thanks!
*bitcoin
I'M WORKING AS FAST AS I CAN, AAAHHHHH!!!!!!!
Raymond
I'm coming back soon and if you are not studying to be a veternarian....
HA HA!!!
Tylers: Shouldn't we select a sign-post location where we can all physically post our comments, once the web is removed from civilization? I recommend the ass of the bull on Wall Street?
Might be optimistic there chum.
If it "goes nuclear" Wall Street (along with most of the Eastern seaboard USA) may have experienced some "significant remodelling"!
A faraday cage won't do squat without something like a DEHNshield box where your electrical service penetration is (before you get to the big gray "fuse" box).
I'm not sure that EMPs affect wires NOT carrying current.
Our government has at least 25 years in the development of conducting polymers to be used in paints and coatings. Light weignt, water soluble. Think about it. Did some work in this area back in the day.
EMP induces the current. Over long stretches of conductor, the induced voltage can even be high enough to arc across on / off switches.
Of Faraday cages, not so easy to do. You might need DOUBLE (and leak-proof) Faraday cages to provide enough signal attenuation to protect your home electronics.
Anyway, a high level study a few years ago foretold that if the three U.S. grids go down, they ain't coming back up again. It's THE END.
See many Faraday demos on youtube.
Any electronic part stressed over its max ratings by a decent linear margin, will blow. These events induce potential differences orders of magnitude greater than the max ratings of all electronics, and all conductors everywhere will fry all logic on all closed circuit paths in the locality of the hit, in an instant. Of course, if the locality is the whole planet, all electronics ever made are toast.
if the locality is the whole planet, all electronics ever made are toast.
Sounds like a great way to stimulate the global economy.
Everybody will need new iShit.
And the toast can be fed to the poor.
Yeah, but the Fed won't be able to "print" any "money"!
So that's really all it would take for the NSA to have their nads whacked, eh?
All tube ham radio. I will have fun talking to myself I guess...
Now you know why I have a tube guitar amp. Cuz no way am I going to face The Zombie Apocalypse without a cranked-up rendition of 'Voodoo Chile' to ward them off.
Correct. Electricity is generated in a conductor when it subjected to changing magnetic or electric fields. As such, every wire is an antenna. Cell phone antennas are now so sensitive, they can reliably pick up signals even slighty below a millionth of a volt. It's like having ears so sensitive, you can hear a butterfly flapping it's wings from across a foot ball stadium. Then theres's EMP, which can induce a spike of hundreds, or even thousands of volts. Imagine what happens to those ultra sensitive 'butterfly' ears when a cannon is fired right next to them...
THE END is right. One of the myriad of items needed to restore the grid is large (think utility substations) transformers, and we don't make them anymore. The Chinese make them now, and in that scenario I'd wager their terms will be a wee less favorable than 2/10, net 30.
Wiring, powered or not, acts as an antenna, receiving induced current when subjected to changing electromagentic fields. This is the basis of how an electric generator works. The induced current can potentially be large and massively transient, assuming the wire is long enough and the field strong enough. However, circuit breakers would protect anything on the far side of them, assuming they trip fast enough. Items not connected to long wires exposed to the field (or containing lots of wiring exposed to the field) are not really affected.
That's what my insurance company said about circuit breakers the last time Dominion Power sent a garden variety surge down my line before I went apeshit and prevented them from ever doing so again...
It took me over a year to finally get them to cut a check for the $5000 in damages, and this wasn't even an EMP.
fallout guy
Consider the 32-gig flash drive or SDHC chip. Though the chip itself is only as big as your smallest fingernail, it contains at least 256 billion very low voltage transistors.
Am I to suppose that these won't be damaged so long as the device isn't connected to an external circuit?
A sharp-cornered PCB trace is an antenna.
Sorry I didn't see this question sooner. The wavelength of the produced EM field seen by the item is critical to your question, as is the comparitive length of the wire runs in said item. If the wavelength of the field is close to twice the wire length, yes, it will likely be damaged. If not, then it will likely be okay. The reason is resonance. If you were to inject an electrical pulse into one end of a wire, the pulse would travel along the wire until it reached the other end. Then it would be reflected and travel back to your end of the wire. When it reached your end, it would again be reflected. If you were to inject a second pulse at the instant of this second reflection, the two pulses would add constructively -- both pushing electrons in the same direction. But if you injected your second pulse when the first pulse was at the far end, the two pulses would tend to cancel each other out -- one pushing electrons away from you, the other pushing them toward you. (An electron pushed in both directions at once will mostly just sit still.) So, a length of wire will become strongly excited when pulses are periodically injected if the pulse period matches the time that a pulse takes to travel twice the length of the wire. This explains the common 1/2 wavelength antenna. A 1/4 wave antenna placed near a perfectly reflecting surface has an image in that surface. (Place a ruler perpendicular to a mirror. You will see a two-foot ruler.) The ground is a pretty good reflector at the frequency of radio waves, so a 1/4 wave antenna placed near the ground, and its image, act together as a 1/2 wavelength antenna. In your example, the low voltage transistors have very short coil lengths, and thus would only be artifically excited by very high frequency (short wavelength) EM pulses.
A Faraday cage works to shield items within by virtue of having holes small enough that the wavelength of the applied EM field is "too big" to pass through the gaps without intersecting the wires. The smaller the holes, the higher frequency of EM field can be protected against. Solid metal = full protection (assuming it can be grounded/earthed).
A changing magnetic field induces a changing electric field which tries to oppose it, and vice versa (to paraphrase the great Michael Faraday-so named Faraday's law), so no you don't need a static current in a wire to light up a light bulb (or blow it up if the electromagnetic field is big enough). Get yourself a magnet, a wire and a light bulb and move the wire in and out of the magnet-congrats you've made a dynamo-and now you can appreciate Faraday's genius-that experiment amazed his contemporaries. You're converting mechanical action (moving the wire through the magnetic field lines) into electric current, just like in a hydroelectric plant.
A corornal mass ejection, CME, is much worse than anything man can create from a short gamma ray burst however. When it occurs it will take out the grid and all those high voltage transformers are the weak link in the system. We'll have enough of a warning that we can just mechanically break the circuit at key points in the grid (like unplugging your electrical devices during a lighting storm) But like the climate we can't control or predict CME at all. Chaotic dynamical systems like planetary climates and solar dynamos are a bitch for control freaks and central planners.
If you want to really freak out consider what might happen if a nearby massive star were to go supernova. The usual cosmic ray shielding provided by the solar magnetic field would be useless at those gamma ray energies. It would be yet another mass extinction event. As we say, on a long enough timeline...
A changing magnetic field induces a changing electric field which tries to oppose it, and vice versa (to paraphrase the great Michael Faraday-so named Faraday's law), so no you don't need a static current in a wire to light up a light bulb (or blow it up if the electromagnetic field is big enough). Get yourself a magnet, a wire and a light bulb and move the wire in and out of the magnet-congrats you've made a dynamo-and now you can appreciate Faraday's genius-that experiment amazed his contemporaries. You're converting mechanical action (moving the wire through the magnetic field lines) into electric current, just like in a hydroelectric plant.
A corornal mass ejection, CME, is much worse than anything man can create from a short gamma ray burst however. When it occurs it will take out the grid and all those high voltage transformers are the weak link in the system. We'll have enough of a warning that we can just mechanically break the circuit at key points in the grid (like unplugging your electrical devices during a lighting storm) But like the climate we can't control or predict CME at all. Chaotic dynamical systems like planetary climates and solar dynamos are a bitch for control freaks and central planners.
If you want to really freak out consider what might happen if a nearby massive star were to go supernova. The usual cosmic ray shielding provided by the solar magnetic field would be useless at those gamma ray energies. It would be yet another mass extinction event. As we say, on a long enough timeline...
Isolation transformer at your building that draws from the 400V step-down
Not the Dark Ages, but certainly the late 1800s. With modern meds, while they last.
Not so bad: No Fed, no Cry. (sing to Bob Marley song No Woman No Cry).
No MSM, Hollywood, IRS, HFT, FB or Twitter. Back to people running machines, not computers running machines. No more offshoring work.
All this is "bad", HOW?
The issue is well described here. The author instills the pain clearly.
http://www.amazon.com/One-Second-After-William-Forstchen/dp/0765356864
Great book, highly recommended.
No water, food, or sanitation.
Sounds like a real party.
Population going from July 29 1899 to 30 July 1899 == no problem
Population going from July 29 2014 to 30 July 1899 == BIG problem
Here you go friends. For your home.
http://www.amazon.com/Supco-SCM150-Surge-Protector-120-240v/dp/B004OMC33C
If the net goes down, make sure you have a library on your laptop, (plenty of good common sense books for free on the net and at kindle) and a way to do mesh wifi.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/how-wireless-mesh-networks-work.htm
Put it and your backup electronics in a faraday cage.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/faraday-cage.htm
Scrappy - How about a lead box? Put a solar or wind generator in it with a couple PC's and bacmup drive for info on electricity generation?
I'd recommend having that library on shelves instead of chips, but that's just me . . .
And where does the Yellowstone supervolcano, Zombies,, Aliens, a meteor, birdflue and Obama Bin Laden fit in this list?
Waddabout a Zombie bin Laden!!!!? Well, that does it. We're fucked then.
It's the flying bin Laden zombie with ebola, arriving on an asteroid, that I'M worried about.
EMP=Asteroid>Supervolcano (Yellowstone>Long Valley)>Birdflu. Aliens and Bin Laden are mythical constructs and pose no threat.
You deserve that century mark, Balth. Hit it on the head you did.
John 3:16
Bug out to where? That's the thing that's always puzz;ed me about the idea of running away. If the threat is as all-pervavsive as many suggest, where are you going to go that you won't be found? If they want you, they'll get you. Drones, Thermal imaging, etc etc. I picture 100's, 1000's even, of hyped up survivalists in a massive traffic jam of super 4WD's, all headed out of the city, all armed to the teeth and with nowhere to go. How long you think before they turn on each other? I'm not arguing there's things to be concerned about.
"EMP. Ebola. Russians. ISIS. China. Polar Vortex. Global Warming. Immigrants. So many MSM promoted perceived threats."
Undocumented immigrants (aka illegal aliens) are being portrayed as perceived threats by the MSM?
NOT!
If anything, they are being portrayed as divine holy saints who deserve the only the best--no matter what the cost is to taxpayers.
relax......when/if the emp goes off then your safe access will be the least of your problems.....unless your guns, food, and water are in it........
The author is absolutely right. EMP is a huge risk. Imagine no telephone, electricity, Internet nor radio. I bet it's total civil unrest in less than a week.
Eat the peoples first, animals second, plant matter third and canned goods last.
And when the canned food is gone, eat foraged game and edible plants. They won't last long enough for you city boys to become successful farmers.
And then you (and nearly all of the few survivors in the US who can't manage to move to another continent) starve or die of diseases arising from nutritional deficiency.
If the gird goes down and stays down more than a few days, best thing to do (unless you are an unusually adventurous sort) is to dig out the .357 with hollow point rounds and blow out your cranium.
Would a .45 ACP suffice?
Of course it would. But autos and .45 caliber aren't good choices for general purposes.
Stop with the negative waves man. Just go to Costco and get a 365-day supply of (the aptly named) Flintstones chewables.
SF Beatnick - Speak for yourself! I can live just fine for as long as I need with an axe, sharpener, flint and steel, compass, a coffee can, heavy fishing twine and a gallon of chorline. I have a few other comforts to fit in in a backpack. I'll head into the bush. I still can be found anywhere with todays tech but it'll be costly and that may in the end be the point or question to ask. Is it worth it?
RAGING
Its the rare individual that can do what you intend to do. For most people, it's sheer fantasy that would pointlessly prolong suffering.
I gather from reading comments here that some of you guys just don't get it.
If the three grids go down in North America, IT'S OVER. FINITO, ADIOS, AMIGOS
The unpalatable fact is that once such a key support of "modern life" goes, predictions of the outcome, short and medium-term, become meaningless.
People and animals will die, and rot. Refrigerated / Freezer contents will become biological weapons, and without power. modern medicine becomes 18th Century very quickly indeed, with "Infection Control" a fond memory.
Add in no waste water treatment (no power), very limited safe fresh water availability (basically, rainwater if you can get it), and all those interesting problems going on in the Nuclear and Chemical Industries (remember that many "household materials" are manufactured via pretty complex and hazardous processes), then you get the picture.
The only reliable means of long distance transport will be under sail, and you'll really need to learn the basics of astronavigation now, 'cause the GPS system will be another fond memory.
48 hours and the cops start abandoning their posts and taking the weapons home once the food and water is gone.
48 hours? No way! 48 minutes maybe. There may be a few Andy Griffith types in the sticks that hold up, but for most it'll be"he who gets out first gets out best".
Right, correct. Grid goes down, cops will not stick around long. Neither should any of us stay in a state of shock, it would be the last few hours to take ALL of your CA$H to the grocery and buy whatever you can (esp. water, beans, flour, viatmins).
Gold, silver, lead (& devices), medicines, etc. you should buy now. Don't wait until the EMP.
Extreme Optimist.
If it ever happens, polite society will collapse in one day. You will have to kill someone on your doorstep in three days.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
1) Physiological
2) Safety
3) Social
4) Love
5) Self Actualization
The shitty thing is that person on your doorstep will not be holding a gun but a newborn.
pods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re61B8sKQWk
Let her in.
Isn't that like the Rothschild version of pizza delivery?
That's a little rough.
Most likely it'll be someone you know. The guy across the cube wall that overheard what you say, the guy you buy your bulk supplies from, the cashier you bought those fifty, five gallon gas cans and stabilizer from.
Or family. Hopefully you would let them in instead of shooting them.
Oh it absolutely is going to be someone you know, and most probably love.
That is why saying offhand that you will have to shoot someone is not really accurate.
You might THINK it will be bandits and thieves.
In reality it will be family or friends who have no options left.
pods
Wise words. Perhaps having an extra few bags of rice and beans to distribute judiciously could help keep your humanity intact, for a while at least.
"Honey, I shrunk the Maslow Pyramid!" Levels 1-3 only.
You get Love at home, or hope to. Level 5 will be "Getting to live levels 1-4".
I just took a screen shot of that and taped it to my cell wall.
Thanks, Captian!
My snark is strong, but I have a ways to go obviously. Plus, I haven't knocked the bottom out of a green chick (yet) so you'll have an edge on most for a long time to come.
LOL. I guess an EMP makes it hard to "Better call Saul!" ;-)
The masses have become so dependent and useless I wouldn't be surprized if they could't even figure out how to 'unrest' and 'revolt'. My advice buy a boat, some gold and GTFO of the USSA.
"Bug-out boat" does sound nicer than "bug-out bag".
"I'm on a boat, motherfucker, don't you ever forget it!"
Until it sinks with your gold. Seriously. I've heard stories.
It happened to someone you know too?
I sometime wonder if ZH is some kind of rest home for sailors with bad judgement.
... and a passion for heavy metallic things.
LMAOROTF - thanks
Total civil unrest yes. But no running vehicles - their electronics would all be fried. (That includes police vehicles.) Unless you had a pre-1953 or so vehicle with a mechanical distributor. So all them civil unresters are either gonna have to walk quite a distance to do their damage or they're just gonna have to riot in place, burn the cities, and then die of thirst before they can get very far. If you're 50 miles or so from an urban center, that's a good start.
Your guns would still work just fine.
long copper mesh wire to creat a faradaic cage around it.
it isnt as much of a threat to most cars as people would think. The steel body would largely protect most of the electronics from damage. The never the vehicle, the more it relies on computers, and thus the more sensitive it will be, but most cars will prbably still run. But, after a couple days, it will be a moot point since there won't be any gas available. The most vulnerable part is the power grid, so there won't be any gas stations able to pump.
This.
Yeah, the metal body would just act as a shield.
I think a points and condenser system up to the mid 70's should be fine so long as the engine wasn't running. It's possible the wiring system could arc signficantly or burn out or cause the battery to discharge, but that would be true pre 53 too.
Bye Bye BitCoin. However, your PM stash will still be there - hopefully not inside a safe with an electronic lock.
No worries, just fire up the ol' grinder... oh... wait...
Watch American Blackout (National Geographic) for a realistic look at the U.S. without electricity for 8 days.
An EMP means the end of life as we know it. It could take years to manufacture the transformers destroyed by an EMP.
Cyberterrorism (against the grid) or wildland fire terrorism are higher on my list of concerns.
There's some good info here...http://www.genready.net/blog/
Economic Warfare Super Panel - William Scott
Discussion of wildland arson...
http://youtu.be/SFHM0rd9cX8"Al Qaeda magazine encourages forest fire arson in the US"
http://wildfiretoday.com/2012/05/02/al-qaeda-magazine-encourages-forest-...