EMP threats overhyped?

[CamoDeafie]

I keep reading on how EMP is gonna fry everything that uses electricity and so on, but doing some research beyond wikipedia and looking at US Govt information, and older records of EMP tests.... it strikes me as odd that it seems to be only the "preppers" segment who are claiming that EMP events will turn any and all electronics into deadweight... the science just does not support that as far as my understanding goes.
Every living thing generates an electromagnetic field (EMF), and everything that uses electricity also generates such a field, only when electricity is passing through the stuff.

From what I can understand, the very best defense against EMP events would be to be totally unplugged, vehicle batteries disconnected, no electricity to effect.

A lightning strike itself produces an EMP, and you just don't hear about everything in a house being fried from a lightning strike, only the equipment that was on and not grounded.
Granted the unclassified tests information is from the 70s-80s, but it is still relevant, a simulated EMP did not fry all the test vehicles, and it was found that the ones turned off simply needed to be turned on again to be functional.

A nuclear blast is more deadly than the EMP it generates, due to the blast, and radiation, and not to the EMP itself.

A non-nuclear EMP is possible (see lightning strikes again), however to generate a pulse that is as deadly to electronics as has been suggested, would mean at least a magnitude of order greater than a super-bolt of lightning, and that is still in excess of the largest nuclear device's capacity to generate an EMP pulse.. but the size of the nuclear blast needed is basically a world-ender anyhow.
Govt electronics are hardened to a certain point, moreso than consumer stuff, yet the threat is still overblown IMO.

If someone can cite sources where the EMP pulse is conclusively more damaging than the nuclear blast itself, and has been reviewed for accuracy and is not from "prepper/doomsday/tinfoil" sites.. I'd like to read more on this.

Understand, my information is from unclassified tests/studies/ SDI papers which gives one a better impression of whats real threats and whats not proven.

Read More

 

[Camelfilter]

No sources, but include the theoretical Carrington type solar flare events in your thought proccess as well.

 

[Vendor Hidden]

From what I can understand, the very best defense against EMP events would be to be totally unplugged, vehicle batteries disconnected, no electricity to effect.

I have wondered about this as well. How can an electric magnetic pulse "fry" electrical items that have no current connection to an electrical source? I'm not saying I don't believe it, but the answer usually seems to get glossed over with "well, these items with delicate computer circuitry are very sensitive to EMP and cannot survive" or something, but I've always kind of wondered how true that is.

Not having much experience in this area (I'm just a dumb artist), I would appreciate some solid information as well.

 

[Wombat of Doom]

Raytheon EMP weapon tested by Boeing, USAF Research Lab

This seems relevant.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Firing high-power microwave bursts

Well yea, technically that would be a microwave beam weapon, or directed energy weaponry... put anything electronic in your microwave and turn the microwave oven on and what do you get? fried electronics.. yet; the microwave oven may or may not be damaged.

 

[Vendor Hidden]

Raytheon EMP weapon tested by Boeing, USAF Research Lab

This seems relevant.

Looks like targeted bursts, for which some obviously advantageous uses await (as mentioned in the article). My question is whether a nuclear burst say, 200 miles up has the same destructive power.

As Ripley would say:

 

[etrain16]

Well, no expert on this, but I would suspect that electromagnetic induction is the problem. Any current flow creates a magnetic field - the stronger the current, the stronger the magnetic field. But, you can also create current with a magnetic field, known as electromagnetic induction. The problem here is that the presence of the EMF pulse/wave can create current flow in electronics, whether they're powered or not. Create a massive EMF and you could run too much current in electronics, frying them.

Electromagnetic induction was discovered by Michael Faraday (Faraday cage, anyone?) He recognized that a changing electromagnetic field (not a static field) would induce current in a coil of wire. In fact, Faraday's law is the basic principle behind how a generator works - a magnet moves in relation to a coil of wire, inducing electric current in the wire.

That's the simplest explanation I can think of from my electrical studies, but I think it's the basic reason why EMF can be such a big problem for electronics - powered or not.

As to the strength of a nuclear caused EMP, I really don't know. I would expect enough research has been done in past nuke testing that they should have a good idea about it.

Here are some videos if you care to know more about induction - the first one does get a bit heady:

 

[ATCclears]

My personal opinion is that there are numerous variables if an EMP occurred (e.g. size, altitude, atmospheric conditions, proximity of <X> to the EMP, what <X> is or is not connected to, etc. etc. ...and the result would be a giant science experiment.

"My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
(from the movie Forrest Gump)

 

[etrain16]

This got me curious, so I took to the Google, and found a very interesting article on how a nuke creates and EMP and how much impact it can have. Very interesting, it's not the nuke itself that does it, but the result of the blast on the Earth's ionosphere - learned something new today!

Q: Why do nuclear weapons cause EMPs (electromagnetic pulses)?

Posted on November 20, 2011 by The Physicist
Physicist: The weapon itself doesn't cause the EMP (or not much of one). The pulse is actually generated by the weapon's effect on the Earth's ionosphere.

Nukes: bad piece of business. The explosion itself expands in every direction, but the pillar of fire and the mushroom cloud are direct results of the convection currents (updraft) caused by the heat.

An EMP is just a sudden change in the electric and magnetic fields, which on its own isn't too bad. It doesn't hurt people at least. However, changing EM fields induce currents in anything capable of carrying a current. This is especially true of power lines, where the current can really "build up some steam". The problem with current suddenly showing up where it's not expected is that it can arc or overload circuits. The kind of components and wiring you find in today's electronics (and the last 30 some odd years) can be destroyed by the sort of sudden surge you get from regular old static electricity.

Of course because of that, sensitive electronics are generally grounded (with ground lines!) and/or shielded with Faraday cages.

The way you generate an EMP (or any interesting electromagnetic effect) is you get a bunch of charge and suddenly move it. A nuclear weapon on its own doesn't have a bunch of extra charges to move around, but luckily (unluckily?) the Earth abides! Between about 40 and 300 miles above your head (about 39 and 299 miles for our Denver readers) there's a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere. It's created by radiation from space (mostly the Sun) knocking electrons free of their host atoms. A nuke releases enough heat, suddenly enough, that the resulting upward and outward "puff" of air literally moves the ionosphere overhead. That moving charge is what causes the bulk of the EMP. To a lesser extent, a nuclear device also ionizes the surrounding air, and then moves that.

The Soviets and Americans, being good at this sort of thing, have done a number of tests that involved setting off nuclear devices in and just above the ionosphere. The best known are America's "Starfish Prime" (you'd think the black ops people would hire better namers-of-things) and the USSR's "test 184" (classy name).

According to <broken link removed> for the US Energy Research and Development Administration, EMP damage was recorded almost a thousand miles away:

"Starfish produced the largest fields of the high-altitude detonations; they caused outages of the series-connected street-lighting systems of Oahu (Hawaii), probable failure of a microwave repeating station on Kauai, failure of the input stages of ionospheric sounders and damage to rectifiers in communication receivers. Other than the failure of the microwave link, no problem was noted in the telephone system."

The Soviet tests sound even more fun, but the relevant details are a little harder to track down:

"…it knocked out a major 1000-kilometer (600-mile) underground power line running from Astana 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." (ref.)

It's worth mentioning that nuclear bombs aren't the only thing that cause these sorts of large-scale electronic nastiness. Any bomb big enough will have a similar effect (if there were other bombs big enough). Also, every now and again, the Sun belches out a cloud of ionized gas that pushes the Earth's magnetic field around. The results are the similar to a nuclear EMP, but global and toned way down. These "geomagnetic storms" mostly just mess with communication channels, which are often already bumping up against their signal-to-noise limit.


Full article here: Q: Why do nuclear weapons cause EMPs (electromagnetic pulses)?

 

[3MTA3]

The US govt did several studies years ago and concluded that communication equipment with an attached antenna is the most susceptible to EMP damage. Just keep your walkie talkie sized devices in an old microwave when you aren't using them and you will be OK. Obviously you should already be disconnecting the antenna on your home HAM rigs when not in use.

The electrical grid itself might not be affected by a man made EMP, but if we have another Carrington event then all bets are off.

Cars were almost unaffected. A few stopped running, but started right away afterwards. Specialized EMP "cannons" can stop cars, but they can be restarted immediately. I don't think these will be allowed to be used even by law enforcement, because they will also stop a pacemaker.

 

[Goosebrown]

I don't know but we're more than likely to find out.

 

[HB of CJ]

Respectfully. Original Poster Only. A Pedestrian level. On equal with Popular Science Magazine or other? Where to start and how to keep it simple? A short answer. A lightning strike is NOT a big EMP. An EMP is 10,000 to 100,000+ times quicker and powerful than a lightning strike. Lightning strike protection will NOT work against an EMP. Certainly will not work against a Big EMP.

All nukes produce some EMP. A big EMP designed nuke, (enhanced gamma ray and hard x-rays) popped high up above the atmosphere can produce a huge EMP affecting a large geographical area. Higher better. The high energy gets down turned into electrical magnetic energy by the atmosphere, then heat. This propagates at or near light speed. The results is a huge EMP pulse.

Car batteries are very immune to EMP. Nothing to affect. They absorb it all as heat and say thank you can I have more. Computer car systems will be burned out. Probably. All current testing with cars can NOT approach the EMP intensity of a BIG EMP nuke popped 1000 miles over Omaha NB.. Anything with an unshielded military hard micro chip may be gone with the wind. Think that through.

The Commie Russians probably had huge primitive orbiting spy satellites the size of small buses orbiting high above the earth for decades. They were said to be weather satellites. Yeah, sure. They probably were EMP bomb satellites but today nobody is talking? I suspect but can not prove every world nuclear power PROBABLY has EMP satellites ALREADY in high orbit. Including the USA.

Respectfully.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Sure this is from wikipedia but I've gone to its sources and it seems to confirm that lightning do release EMPs.

Types of natural EMP event include:

• Lightning electromagnetic pulse (LEMP). The discharge is typically an initial huge current flow, at least mega-amps, followed by a train of pulses of decreasing energy.
• Electrostatic discharge (ESD), as a result of two charged objects coming into close proximity or even contact.
• Meteoric EMP. The discharge of electromagnetic energy resulting from either the impact of a meteoroid with a spacecraft or the explosive breakup of a meteoroid passing through the Earth's atmosphere.[6][7]
• Coronal mass ejection (CME). A burst of plasma and accompanying magnetic field, ejected from the solar corona and released into the solar wind. Sometimes referred to as a Solar EMP.[8]

Perhaps we are discussing different forms of EMP events? My knowledge, more than Popular Science/Mechanic, and from College Physics courses, as well as studying of the unclassified SDI overviews/papers.
As I mentioned before, everything that has electricity, or magentism, generates a magnetic field. And everything alive generates an electromagnetic field, and then there is also the geomagnetic fields

Types of (civil) man-made EMP event include:

• Switching action of electrical circuitry, whether isolated or repetitive (as a pulse train).
• Electric motors can create a train of pulses as the internal electrical contacts make and break connections as the armature rotates.
• Gasoline engine ignition systems can create a train of pulses as the spark plugs are energized or fired.
• Continual switching actions of digital electronic circuitry.
• Power line surges. These can be up to several kilovolts, enough to damage electronic equipment that is insufficiently protected.

Types of military EMP include:

• Nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NEMP), as a result of a nuclear explosion. A variant of this is the high altitude nuclear EMP (HEMP), which produces a secondary pulse due to particle interactions with the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field.
• Non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) weapons.

Again, I just am not seeing where its guaranteed that any weaponry in the sense you're referring to, would be an "end-all" weapon when several tests mentioned that cars were just fine, things were mostly fine, radios/communications may be vulnerable, but people generally went on normally...
Not quite sure if nuke emp is stronger than lightning emp.

Emp is just a term for "electro magnetic pulse". I bet you that computer code itself generates a very low level of EMP with switching on and off in data bursts(binary data transmission)

By the way, my hearing aids do receive Radio Frequency interference on a daily basis if I set them to "T" setting, because of the electrical currents pulsing through everything electriconic/electrical. It manifests as a constant "buzzing" sound.. not unlike that generated from high power transformers at very close range.

 

[Camelfilter]

Camo, forgot on your aids. Any chance you have an older set you could cage up?

...unless they're cochlear implant type, then I'd have no idea on faraday protection for them. Unless you wear one our fashionable hats:



Oops...wrong dang hat, let me find the one I'm thinking on...



There it is.

--just a touch of humor is all.

Raytheon EMP weapon tested by Boeing, USAF Research Lab

This seems relevant.

From the article "...The CHAMP program is a three-year endeavor between Boeing and U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory that hopes to eventually produce five such EMP missiles."

Great! That means that the NORKS, RUSKIES and IRANINa's allready have a copy. Thanks Hillary & Wikileaks!

Edit: added up no ideas as far as if you have cochlear types, and a touch of humor...

 

[Siglvr]

There is a lot of uncertainty about the exact effects because testing Nuclear weapons above ground has been banned by international treaty for years and the effect was first learned via accident (google starfish prime).


Four quick facts that we absolutely do know.

1st) In congressional testimony the director of national security testified that they estimate that the US would see 70-90% of the population die due to an EMP or solar storm. (Google the whole phrase and Carrington event)

2nd) We also know that the Soviet scientists worked for years to try and optimize and increase the EMP effect from a blast. (google Soviets Super EMP)

3rd) Further, we know that the North Koreans hired these same soviet scientists when the USSR fell apart and the scientists needed paychecks. The soviets testified that they worked on developing a Super EMP with the North Koreans. (Google North Korea Super EMP)

4th) We also know that the military scrambled to get back in to an antiquated EMP proof base they they had earlier abandoned. (google Cheyenne mountain)


For myself it's very clear what the threat is, and how to prep for it. I think it's interesting how far back the US (and anyone paying attention) knew that this was coming. You'll have to watch what the politicans do and not what they say. (Google Star Wars/missile interceptor shield). Reagan initiated it. Candidate Bill Clinton was going to defund it but strangely changed his option as President and work continued (abiet with less funding) to the present.

2 more fun facts:

1st) The Norks have 2 satellites that orbit over the US. (google live view North Korean satellites)

2nd) The US has a self-contained robotic "shuttle" which is super top secret and stays in space for record times. (Google X-37B). Reflect on the timeline, and what this craft must be doing, include the fact above in your reflections. For myself, even with no hard visible facts I have less fear that a Nork satellite has not been defanged these days. You can see it all over US policy that the satellites are not a threat if they ever were. For instance, notice current US efforts are trying to stop missile development as well. What does that tell ya?

 

[Camelfilter]

Then think on this for a moment:

Lets say some rogue state pops an EMP and it works. Wipes out a huge percentage of electronics & infrastructure. That'd suck!

Folks whome were lucky to have there cars survive, for whatever reason, deep garage or spare computer modules whatever/etc, or there laptops/pads/radios survive because they were lucky in the rite part of a building etc etc. Then the very small percentage of tinfoil hat folks (like myself ) have some electronics shielded.

It wouldn't take a military genius to pop off a second or third EMP at a delayed unknown time to assure any remaining electronics get zapped further screwing up any chance at infrastructure recovery. That'd take the suck up a few notches...

What it would take, from the military genius perspective, would be to not get blamed for the primaries...


Then we have the Carrington event type scenario. How would one know when it would be safe to crack open the faraday cage? Because if the event is still ongoing the moment the cage gets cracked, everything inside is immediately susceptible...

Dun dun dun!

 

[The Heretic]

Disclaimer: I have not read anything but the first post and my knowledge of EMP extends only from what I read, my education (EE degree) and some experience with related tech (I worked on DOD contracts that involved, tangentially, whether some electronics/etc. would survive in a nuke attack).

First, whether something electrical is powered on or not, probably has much less effect on whether it becomes inoperative or not, than the type of device it is and the type of circuitry it employs.

The most vulnerable circuitry will be microelectronics - i.e., integrated circuits or "chips". The lower power and more dense, probably the more vulnerable. It does not take much power or voltage to damage those kinds of electronics. Any microelectronics with any kind of antenna will be even more vulnerable - smartphones, modern radios, etc.

Electrical systems with long wires will also pick up the EMP signal - so the power grid could be vulnerable simply due to the length of the power lines - but OTOH - those lines are meant to carry a lot of voltage and current.

Automobiles - the most vulnerable ones will be the early years of electronics when manufacturers had not yet learned how to shield their electronics. They had a lot of problems with EMI caused by the ignition. As they learned the electronics got better and better and less vulnerable. Still, I would not be surprised that some percentage of todays cars would have problems - they are so complex and tightly coupled (systems highly dependent on other systems) that it doesn't take much to make them act funny.

Starting and charging systems? Not the electromechanical systems themselves. Although they have a lot of wire wrapped around the armature which will cause them to get some current from the EMP, they (especially the starter) are built to take a relatively large amount of current. Might get some cars start by themselves though from the induced voltage/current.

But back to whether something has to be powered or not to be affected. Having something powered on would probably increase the vulnerability (since some circuits would be connected and therefore make more of the circuitry vulnerable), but having it turned off doesn't make it immune - far from it.

 

[Oathkeeper1775]

Think "Cloud Computing"; that should invite a sobering perspective that most electronic devices send or receive signals of some type to/from a distant station.

One's electronics locally may avoid being fried by a distant EMP, but the hubs, towers, power grids, or satilites where signals pass through may be.

I doubt the bad actors would burst over Timbucktwo, but a burst over a hub would do enough damage.

It comes down to the usual Risk Assessment & Management practice(s); where we rate (1-10) the Likelyhood of the event, against the Severity of the event, then delevelop Mitigation; and one should arrive at a logical balance.

Example: Likelyhood; I give it a slim chance (2). Why? The bad actors see equal value in the infrastructure. The same goes for BIO; non-persistant nerve VX is better than a nuke because land can be occupied after the VX evaporates. A (2) because mistakes and natural events happen. They make more money by hacking our web &cloud......

Severity; 10 (regional for non-cloud computing devices). Won't hurt my oil lamp.

Mitigation; the only thing that will fit into my faraday cage is comms; 50% of my H/H comms and small electronics are protected/rotated, etc.

So, 2 waters-down 10 = 8, mitigated to 4.


Prep to live as if it were the 1890s...get up wind and up stream from major metro areas...

 

[Camelfilter]

Think "Cloud Computing"; that should invite a sobering perspective that most electronic devices send or receive signals of some type to/from a distant station.

One's electronics locally may avoid being fried by a distant EMP, but the hubs, towers, power grids, or satilites where signals pass through may be.

I doubt the bad actors would burst over Timbucktwo, but a burst over a hub would do enough damage.

It comes down to the usual Risk Assessment &Management practice(s); where we rate (1-10) the Likelyhood of the event, against the Severity of the event, then delevelop Mitigation; and one should arrive at a logical balance.

Example: Likelyhood; I give it a slim chance (2). Why? The bad actors see equal value in the infrastructure. The same goes for BIO; non-persistant nerve VX is better than a nuke because land can be occupied after the VX evaporates. A (2) because mistakes and natural events happen. They make more money by hacking our web &cloud......

Severity; 10 (regional for non-cloud computing devices). Won't hurt my oil lamp.

Mitigation; the only thing that will fit into my faraday cage is comms; 50% of my H/H comms and small electronics are protected/rotated, etc. Prep to live as if it were the 1890s...

If you have a large electronic library it may be a reasonably decent idea to at least have the back up media stored in a cage. Would unprotected media be affected? I doubt it, but the media itself wouldn't take up too much storage.

A step further might be to store a backup laptop in a cage, both to read the media, as well as to program any Ham equipment which is software driven.

Don't forget to store the cables to program any software driven Ham stuff, because I believe some of the cabling to be chipped themselves.

 

[Oathkeeper1775]

If you have a large electronic library it may be a reasonably decent idea to at least have the back up media stored in a cage. Would unprotected media be affected? I doubt it, but the media itself wouldn't take up too much storage.

A step further might be to store a backup laptop in a cage, both to read the media, as well as to program any Ham equipment which is software driven.

Don't forget to store the cables to program any software driven Ham stuff, because I believe some of the cabling to be chipped themselves.

Will do.

The challenge is discipline!

The discipline to rotate; run down batts, recharge, test, rotate, etc.

I don't have it...