Here’s One Two More Things To Worry About

by Jack Lee

A POST SCRIPTS SPECIAL REPORT

Do you know what an EMP is, as in an EMP bomb? Great, then you’re one of the few that does, but for the rest of us let me explain. It’s an “electro-magnetic pulse” and EMP’s come from a highly specialized bomb that delivers magnetic radiation that can fry electrical circuits, but does little else to humans, animals or buildings.

An EMP is a common occurence in nature. When it happens we call it a CME event or a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME’s come from our sun – see photo on left). Just think of it as a solar storm of sorts. A moderately large event could take out half or more of all geosynchronous satellites and not just GPS. No more satellite navigation and for many of us no more cable TV..that would be a fate worse than death!So why should should we get our shorts in a bunch over something that is hardly likely to EVER happen, right? Well, heeeeere’s why: It’s actually likely to happen and probably not all that far into our future! This could be a mega-Katrina and spell the deaths of hundreds of millions..

In the scope of 12 months our population could be reduced by 225 million.

But, before we get into sun storms and what we can do about it, lets take a brief look back to the 70’s when the Russians tested both nuclear and non-nuclear EMP bombs on all sorts of electrical things. They were the first to realize the full potential of an EMP airburst from a fairly small nuclear device. Such a blast produces enough electromagnetism that it could knock out all the electrical devices for hundreds of miles. A slightly larger device (typically a nuke, but could be a conventional explosive) and at a slightly higher altitude could knock out even more. A really large device at high altitude could knock out the entire power grid on the entire North American continent. However, it would not cause any immediate deaths or destroy any structures. It all starts as a simple power outage. It’s a silent event and at first hardly anyone would be alarmed, the nas the hours ticked by and there was no restart and no emergency personnel people would begin to get a little worried. Now take this a whole month forward and imagine the fear, stress and panic. An EMP blast or major CME would immediately wreak havoc on the inner workings of vital electrical devices – we would be helpless one second later.

Got a little nest egg put away in the bank, either in the form of a bank account or in the safety deposit box? Good luck trying to get it if an large EMP or CME hits us. All records are stored electronically these days. The bank vaults couldn’t be opened without a power source and imagine the chaos of people trying to get their valuables out of the bank’s vault?

Scary huh? But, that’s not the whole story! You see, right now Iran, North Korea, China and Russia have all demonstrated they can build and detonate an EMP weapon over almost any place on earth. Currently Iran is the one to watch. They are the most motivated to something that stupid thanks to their fanatical leadership that doesn’t fear retaliation because Allah is on their side.

You say, hey if they tried to get us with some EMP bomb we would make short work of them with a real military strike that would do a lot more damage than EMP’s. Mmmm..well, maybe and maybe not. We might be able to retaliate with some submarine nukes located near them, but most of our arsenal at home would be knocked out of action for a time, some for a long time. So, it wouldn’t be the massive response you might like to think. And would we really use a nuke to respond to an EMP bomb where no lives were lost? Probably not. We might not even know who delivered it.

Consider this – If an EMP weapon was to knock out our power grid in the USA and Canada and most of Mexico, scientist estimate that in 12 months time 90% of our population would die. That’s right 90%. It’s estimated that 98% of all our electrical devices are currently not shielded and once fried it would be years before we could get them back up. Where do you get your water, from a well, right? And water is pumped to you by electricity. And how do grocery stores get food on the shelves and how is food made in our factories, that’s right, everything depends on electricity and all that would come to a sudden nationwide halt!

Tell me, how many of you have more than a month’s worth of food in your home in case of an emergency? About 2-3% is the latest DoD guess, so at least 98% of us are not prepared for a month without power let alone 12 months or even longer without power for basic services. Can you last 12 months without power of any kind, competing with others who are starving to death?

But, even if you say the chances of Iran or somebody else detonating an EMP bomb over America is extremely slight, then what about the biggest EMP generator of all, our sun? Every day the sun’s ejecta causes CME storms that produce vast amounts of magnetic radiation that strikes the earth and If it were not for our own magnetic shield that blanket’s the earth we would be exposed to enough current almost any day of the week to fry circuits on half the planet and in a matter of seconds! This would be an event that would virtually shut down all essential power sources and send us back to the horse and buggy days in an instant.

Some day the sun will produce a large enough discharge at just the right moment that we will find ourselves at just the wrong place at just the wrong time and not even our magnetic shield will save us then. This is not a matter of if, but when. Fortunately we’ll know in advance if such a storm is headed our way, but unfortunately we’ll only have about 8 minutes notice to take emergency action. So whatever the plan we better be quick about it so we can save what we can.

Our government knows all this and they have heard scientists testify in Congress about the probabilities of an EMP bomb hitting us or being in the wake of CME storm so large that it would knock out satellites and fry everything from toasters to computers over thousands of square miles in a massive voltage overload. They know and they have known all these potential risks for close to 30 years or more. And I’ll bet you’re saying well, that’s a good thing, right? They probably have shielded a lot of our critical infrastructure, right? RIGHT? Nope, not even close friends – they’ve decided to roll the dice year after year and simply do. . . nothing. Oh, sure some of the power plants around D.C. have been protected, so at least our dear leaders and their secretaries will have a safe place to hide and shall be among the 10% of survivors, but for the rest of us we are left to fend for ourselves. But, you will have to consolation of knowing our leaders will be safe. And for us peons left alone in the dark it’s Mad Max time, better lock and load and board up the windows angry looters are headed your way. Now you’re getting a better idea of why only 10% of us are likely to survive after a year.

It is almost impossible to visualize all that would come to a complete halt if we were hit by a huge EMP, man-made or from a natural cause. Instantly, no radio, no television, no lights, no air conditioning, no heat, no cars, almost nothing moviing. Only those with a diesel engine and then they would have to be hand cranked to start. Gas stations would shut down and hospitals might as well close their doors. No police, no fire, no FEMA, just us. And to complicate matters further all those big power generators that form our power grid would need specialized parts to restart. Where do we get them? Most of the stuff for power plants are not even made in the United States anymore, we’ve outsourced all that. Maybe our dear friends the Chinese would be glad to come to our rescue…for a price?

Tthe United States now has about 200,000 miles of high-voltage lines and “The larger the grid, the larger it acts like an antenna to disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field,” said Mr. Kappenman, who served on a committee that produced a report on the risks for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.

Higher-transmission voltages are favored by utilities because they result in lower energy losses. However, this has also made grids more susceptible to damage from solar storms, said Sean Eagleton, a section manager for engineering with Con Edison, the New York-area utility company. “Engineers are involved in tradeoffs,” he said. “In the process of making the system more efficient, they make it more vulnerable.”

Now at this point you’re probably desperate for a little good news, so here it is. It’s not that hard or costly to shield some of our key infrastructure to make a restart much shorter Some of military jets and computers are already hardened against such things, but the civillian world is way behind and we should start protecting at least a few power generators when and where we can.

If we had a national alert system (we have no plan at the moment), some warning system that could cause power plant operators to throw the breakers moments before the suns EMP blast hit us we could save a tremendous amount of our electrical units from ruin. This would be a huge help for a nation trying to reboot.

Hydroelectric could do an emergency shut down as could coal fired generators, but a nuclear plant…mmm probably not – then you have a nuclear melt down to contend with.
Everyone invested in solar panels would be out of business in split second, no way to shield them or throw the breakers on solar; we would lose every one of them exposed to the sky. But, that which we could save with a coordinated national response system could make the difference between life and death for tens of million of us. You would kinda think our government might be working up such a plan? You would think they would be more interested in protecting us against such an event, which the odds say are inevitable and I’m at a loss to explain why they wouldn’t be. Unless, it’s a case of mega-denial?

Our dear leaders have such a great reputation for recognizing threats and taking prudent action to minimize the dangers don’t they? (Said totally sarcastically) That means we’re basically screwed if we have to rely on the government – so stock your pantry and pray we never get hit. That’s what our leaders are doing.

Want to read more on this topic? May I suggest:

1. Solar Storms

2. Sun’s Ejecta.

3. EMP Weapons

4. The E bomb.

5. More on solar storms.

6. The perfect storm

Here’s a great book on EMP’s called, One Second After