EMP - Should the Western World be worried?

Maybe. Maybe not.
I'm sure that some folks are thinking about it.
I'm also sure that I don't have any rudder input on that problem. I'll keep the giveacrap switch in the "do not" position until about 2035.

By then maybe the Chinese will be able to do something about it.

 

Personally Bra...

I'll vote for later...

 

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning and I, live by the river...

We should have nuked everybody back in the '40s, when only America had the bomb.

Joking.

 

Deterrent isn't very effective against rouge states, even less so against terrorist groups. It's like trying to reason with a crazy person.

Asteroids travel through space, where it is relatively easy to project future positions. A reentering satellite is subject to random forces from aerodynamic drag, which makes long term project a crap shoot. It's like the difference between aiming a bullet from a rifle verses dropping a feather from a window on a windy day.

Tom

 

Apophis in Greek) was an evil god, the deification of darkness and chaos (isfet in Egyptian), and thus opponent of light and Ma'at (order/truth)!

I believe that the rock has to pass through a window of a couple hundred square feet in order for it to come back around and cause a ELE scenario.
That being said I imagine in 2036 I will be quite dead, and the rest of you are on your own!

 

Right now, I'm more worried about Buffy slamming into me with her Ford Exploder while she's yakking on her cellphone.

 

Well......

If we're going to get center-punched by a wayward rock, then the whole AGW thing is moot, now isn't it?

If you think Buffy is scary in a 3200 pound car, you aught to go up against her on a 700-pound motorcycle...

 

I lost too many friends that way. That's why I finally hung up my lid.

 

NASA-JPL provides a more detailed impact risk table, with multiple possible strike dates.

Don't waste all your worry on Apophis, as there are lots more that also present risk, including a half dozen that are more serious at this time.

You can safely ignore the ones spotted within the past few days, as they tend to drop off the list fairly rapidly as more observations refine their orbits. But 2011_AG5 is still very high on the list after 8 months of tracking.

You give up so easily, when there are plenty of concepts and ideas about how to prevent impacts.

But waiting until 2035 is the wrong answer, as the cost of changing the orbit to avoid impact is inversely related to the time available.

 

Old vehicles with breaker point ignition. Old diesel engines with purely mechanical injection, no electronics

I get very amused at how rednecks think their electronically fuel injected Dodge Ram Cummins Diesel - which they have modified to gush black smoke on command - would keep running if subjected to EMP

I suggest you read up on Starfish Prime. That was a high altitude nuclear test conducted during Operation Dominic, in 1962. The Atomic Energy Commission had a series of high altitude tests, the so-called Fishbowl Series

The goals of this test series was to determine if the test telephone networks, radar systems of the day, UHF and VHF comms, and even satellites in orbit would be succeptible to EMP.

This theory arose out of the work of Dr. Nicolas Christofilos, who is credited with the Strong Focusing Principle. He wrote a technical paper outlining high altitude EMP, which must have impressed the government of the day. They immediately launched Operation Argus

Christofilos also did a lot of work for JASON, under MITRE Corp. He also did the research for ELF, which resulted in Project Sanguine. To this day, the vast majority of Dr. Chrisofilos work is still Classified

The Starfish Prime test was launched with a Thor rocket from Johnston Island. It carried a 1.4 MT W49 warhead and was detonated about 250 miles directly above the Johnston launch facility.

Starfish Prime actually exceeded the expectations. The power was knocked out in Hawaii, over 1,000 miles away, and all radar, UHF, troposcatter, and VHF comms was knocked out due to the ionosphere being disrupted.

I do not agree that EMP is much ado over nothing. Numerous tests during Operation Dominic - and similar tests done by the USSR - readily demonstrated that EMP is a very real danger

But you need to achieve a low earth orbit of at least 400km to get the desired results. A detonation from an aircraft even at 40,000 ft won't cut it. Numerous tests done during atmospheric nuclear testing prove this out

I would like to differentiate between EMP and GIC, which is Geomagnetic Induced Current

A solar superflare, technically a very large coronal mass ejection, may trigger GIC depending on how the earth is oriented to the CME when it arrives

The most famous example is the 1859 Carrington Flare. Over Europe and North America, aurorae were described as being so bright that people could easily read newspapers at night.

The high tech gadget of the day, the telegraph, was knocked out. The GIC caused the telegraph wires to overheat and start fires. Some operators were shocked by the GIC in their equipment. There are anecdotal reports of train tracks becoming hot

If a superflare of the same intensity were to occur again, a distinct possibility, the results could be catastrophic for us.

A flare much smaller knocked out Hydro Quebec in 1989. The issue of GIC is well documented

http://www.transformerscommittee.org/info/S10/S10-GIC-Tutorial.pdf

Most of the work I have done in the field has been related to confirming various equipment meets appropriate MILSPEC requirements

 

I concur that EMP is real.
I just think that the guestimates about permanent EMP induced damage are somewhat overblown, much like the Y2K thing.
Getting a 1.something megaton warhead into a high altitude burst location above the United States might not be as easy as you think without ballistic transport, and that's one thing that they were pretty good at keeping tabs on even before 9/11.
Right now....that's not the easiest thing for a rogue nation to undertake, and while taking over a civilian airliner might not be that hard, their service ceilings aren't conducive for a HEMP attack without a specific warhead---also somewhat hard to come by.

I read the Wiki page you cited. They fixed Hawaii.

 

The data and equations for orbits are very well understood. Atmospheric braking and entry involves lots of uncertainty. (Apophis will be easy to predict where it lands, as the atmosphere is a shallow puddle to it. Should it bend our way.)

 

I lose power several times a year, often for up to a week (one memorable April, three times in a month, for almost a week each time). What with gas appliances, and composting toilets, my only real problem is the well pump. I am looking into getting my Prius to power that for me.

 

Yes, but rational choices, based on actual risks, rather than on subjective fear, can increase the likelihood of avoiding accidents and postpone the inevitable end. And a healthy lifestyle, informed by evidence-based medicine, rather than pseudoscience, can help maintain a higher quality of life longer. I always tell people that I don't jog to live longer: I jog to feel better while I'm alive.

There was a song. I forget who wrote/sang it:

Wow! The power company line crews in North Dakota are really good. They are dedicated, and very competent. We had probably several power outages a year, but they lasted typically for an hour or three, sometimes less. The long ones I mentioned, where an ice storm caused extensive damage, and a blizzard delayed repair work, were much less common.

 

Cars are not good Faraday cages unless you are talking about very long wavelengths. Cars are full of big windows that easily allow penetration of RF. Furthermore, the metal in most cars is pretty thin, which means any meaningful magnetic field will saturate the steel and penetrate to the interior.

It's easy to confuse EMP with static electricity, but they aren't the same.

Tom

 

I believe that was one of Tom Lehrer's compositions.

Here's another one of his I think is probably more apt:

 

If you impact a very large area, say most of North America, the damage may take years to fix. A lot of those large transformers used for long haul power transmission are custom made, not something stocked in a warehouse

The economic, social, and food distribution disruption could result in an ugly situation

Hence the recent attention for reliable kill systems, either in orbit or quickly ground launched.

We and the former USSR paid a great deal of attention to guidance systems for the orbital systems, as even a 5 MT warhead you want reasonable accuracy. Especially against a hardened target

But if your only goal is to launch a package 400km straight up, that is in the reach of most rogue states now

The US did very extensive atmospheric testing. That sort of altitude really isn't very useful. You need a LEO of at least 200 km, preferably +400km, to achieve results. The Fishbowl Series demonstrated this

Yes, as that was the only region affected. Relatively small and at the time, lower population. If the same warhead would have been launched straight up from the Nevada Test Site, cities like SLC, LA, San Fran, Phoenix, Winnipeg, Twin Cities, etc, would have been knocked out

We'd still be reading about it in the history books

1. Tom already covered the answer. If a power line falls on your car, as long as you remain inside you are safe. But there are specific tests one can do for EMP compliance. They are Classified, and are done in a very remote area

Let's just say that no mass produced vehicle will pass compliance. All of them immediately conk out. A handful, you can disconnect the battery, wait a few minutes, hook it back up, and the motor will restart.

The rest are fried and you have to replace the powertrain control computer

2. Routine solar max. Nothing at all like what happened in 1859. Or even in 1989

Correct. The metal shell, eg NOT a Corvette, may protect you from a downed power line. But the EMP will probably fry the electronics

EMP and static are of course different waveforms, different frequencies, etc

 

Maine Pilot: The song I quoted was definitely NOT one of Tom Lehrer's. The one you quoted was one of my favorites, though I could not have remembered all the lyrics. We had all his records, back in the day. Lehrer's songs dealt often with grim topics, but they were always lighthearted. The one I quoted has a strong element of misanthropy you'd never find in Lehrer.

 

I don't know about that. That guy on Oceans 11 was able to blow up something like this to knock out all of Las Vegas power grid from the ground, by himself.