No. A single EMP could cause great damage to about one-third of the nation, but some electrical infrastructure has already been updated and protected. Damage would vary, with some regions having total power loss, but others anywhere from 20% to 50% power loss.
End result would be significant destruction, chaos and economic damage.
If detonated in the upper atmosphere (somewhere above 70K ft), one thermonuclear bomb can deploy an EM burst strong enough to kill the power grid for the whole U.S., if detonated over the Midwest. Most of Canada and about half of Mexico would go down, too.
That was DARPA's estimate they gave the U.S. military back in the 90's. Our power grid is operating on technology developed over 60 yrs ago and hadn't been upgraded or hardened against EM interference since. I remember that Safety Stand-down well. It left us all a little shook that, with all the tech advances made up to then, that we would still be left so vulnerable to that. It's even more sobering to me that it's almost 30 yrs later, and we still haven't attempted to harden our global powergrids.
But that wasn't all that Kennedy was actually referring to here. If the whole part of that conversation would've been played, you would've heard her go on to explain that we are in a time frame where another Carrington Event could happen.
About every 150-175 yrs, the sun emits a very large burst of EM energy. The last time was the Carrington Event. It was so powerful, it literally fried to char telegraph operators in their seats, melted the telegraph wires, and set while sections of every telegraph operating country on earth that took the brunt of the waves. No country was left unaffected.
There are 9 super large power transformers scattered around the U.S. that help transmit our electricity around the country. It takes yrs of manufacturing to make one, none of them are made here in the U.S., they cost tens of millions of USD each, and it takes months of planning to move one into position and get it on line. They're so large, they can't fit under bridges or overpasses, so just the transporting of them over land can take weeks. And none of them are hardened against EM energy bursts. If even one goes down, it will affect tens of millions of people, and will take too long to replace to keep people from looting and killing each other.
And the U.S. Dept of Energy admits they can't do anything for us, and that to harden something against a Carrington Event level EM burst, it would've had to have been engineered into the manufacturing process. It's not as simple as building a Faraday cage around them all.
The dude you're replying to just laid out facts as succinctly as I've ever seen, almost verbatim from a (free and publicly available) congressional report, but sure feel free to take as gospel something that some Russian dude told you half a century ago.
You're talking about the localized EMP effect that comes with a ground detonation of a nuclear weapon. When people talk about an intentional EMP attack, it is assumed that the detonation would occur at high altitude or even from a sattelite in NEO to maximize the LOS.
It was tested as early as 1962 and caused disruption at least 800 miles away.
Altitude dictates LOS. The electromagnetic pulse will travel through the open air at the speed of light until it is either absorbed or reflected by something else. From 30 miles up, the area affected would be a radius of just under 500 miles. From 120 miles up, 1,000 miles, and from 300 miles up, the radius would be just under 1,500 miles which, if detonated over Kansas would cause damage coast to coast and most of both Canada and Mexico.
Also the pulse happens in whatever time it takes for light to travel from the detonation site to the ground, so it's much closer to a microsecond than a couple or a few days or whatever the good professor said.
Lastly, the yield of a warhead on one of our Minuteman missiles is estimated to be more than sufficient to create a large enough pulse to black out most of our continent.
Any EMPfags out there? Can one EMP knock out the entire US?
No. A single EMP could cause great damage to about one-third of the nation, but some electrical infrastructure has already been updated and protected. Damage would vary, with some regions having total power loss, but others anywhere from 20% to 50% power loss.
End result would be significant destruction, chaos and economic damage.
If detonated in the upper atmosphere (somewhere above 70K ft), one thermonuclear bomb can deploy an EM burst strong enough to kill the power grid for the whole U.S., if detonated over the Midwest. Most of Canada and about half of Mexico would go down, too.
That was DARPA's estimate they gave the U.S. military back in the 90's. Our power grid is operating on technology developed over 60 yrs ago and hadn't been upgraded or hardened against EM interference since. I remember that Safety Stand-down well. It left us all a little shook that, with all the tech advances made up to then, that we would still be left so vulnerable to that. It's even more sobering to me that it's almost 30 yrs later, and we still haven't attempted to harden our global powergrids.
But that wasn't all that Kennedy was actually referring to here. If the whole part of that conversation would've been played, you would've heard her go on to explain that we are in a time frame where another Carrington Event could happen.
About every 150-175 yrs, the sun emits a very large burst of EM energy. The last time was the Carrington Event. It was so powerful, it literally fried to char telegraph operators in their seats, melted the telegraph wires, and set while sections of every telegraph operating country on earth that took the brunt of the waves. No country was left unaffected.
There are 9 super large power transformers scattered around the U.S. that help transmit our electricity around the country. It takes yrs of manufacturing to make one, none of them are made here in the U.S., they cost tens of millions of USD each, and it takes months of planning to move one into position and get it on line. They're so large, they can't fit under bridges or overpasses, so just the transporting of them over land can take weeks. And none of them are hardened against EM energy bursts. If even one goes down, it will affect tens of millions of people, and will take too long to replace to keep people from looting and killing each other.
And the U.S. Dept of Energy admits they can't do anything for us, and that to harden something against a Carrington Event level EM burst, it would've had to have been engineered into the manufacturing process. It's not as simple as building a Faraday cage around them all.
Imagine having a money printing machine and not thinking about these things.
These fckin retards have us all with our pants around our ankles.
The dude you're replying to just laid out facts as succinctly as I've ever seen, almost verbatim from a (free and publicly available) congressional report, but sure feel free to take as gospel something that some Russian dude told you half a century ago.
No, but two large nukes detonated at high altitude would have the vast majority of CONUS in the dark for a very long time.
Actually, the answer is probably yes, with a 1 megaton warhead detonated at an altitude of 300 miles.
In the right place it can render most.of the nation inoperable. What good is a phone if the providers shit is gone.
Thanks
You're talking about the localized EMP effect that comes with a ground detonation of a nuclear weapon. When people talk about an intentional EMP attack, it is assumed that the detonation would occur at high altitude or even from a sattelite in NEO to maximize the LOS.
It was tested as early as 1962 and caused disruption at least 800 miles away.
Altitude dictates LOS. The electromagnetic pulse will travel through the open air at the speed of light until it is either absorbed or reflected by something else. From 30 miles up, the area affected would be a radius of just under 500 miles. From 120 miles up, 1,000 miles, and from 300 miles up, the radius would be just under 1,500 miles which, if detonated over Kansas would cause damage coast to coast and most of both Canada and Mexico.
Also the pulse happens in whatever time it takes for light to travel from the detonation site to the ground, so it's much closer to a microsecond than a couple or a few days or whatever the good professor said.
Lastly, the yield of a warhead on one of our Minuteman missiles is estimated to be more than sufficient to create a large enough pulse to black out most of our continent.
Their is a lot of easy preps,you can do to help.