EMP attack

I have just finished reading "A nation forsaken" by Michael Maloof. The gist of the book is that its not if but when an EMP attack will come. On page 65, he states "While the actual pulse of electrons or microwaves has little or no effect on the human body, electronic circuitry installed inside the body does not fare well when subjected to high energy microwaves. The devices could heat up very quickly, turning surrounding tissue and blood into steam, searing the body at the site of the device and doing irreparable damage to the user." To his discredit, he cites no reference for the above statement. Still, I would like to hear what you think before I run out to have my ICD removed. Hugh228

5 Comments

Don't worry

by brushmore - 2014-05-14 05:05:30

This topic has come up before. It got me curious so I did some googling with EMP's and PM's. This study by the US Army was one of the first ones that I found: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA242990

I think that description is way overblown. Also, microwaves have no effect on the human body? Maybe I am missing something with this but ever hear of a microwave oven?

oh my

by Tracey_E - 2014-05-14 08:05:29

Guess I better get busy and find a manufacturer. I'm pretty sure I have plenty of time.

OMG(oddness), I'm shaking in my boots!!

by Sunnydaze - 2014-05-14 10:05:29

Hugh!! Goodness...I think I'll barricade myself in some lead-lined cave on the outside chance some rogue nation sets off an EMP(sarcasm)!! IF, and when, the EMP strikes, :(, and our PM's, and CRT's burn up, we won't suffer like those left behind. Another good reads along this line is "One Second After" by William Forstchen. Good book, if you like these kind of books.

I started comment last night .....

by donr - 2014-05-15 08:05:00

.....& immediately suffered an EMP that shut me down immediately! Not a joke, A bolt of lightning killed power to over 3000 houses in our Nawth Jawa wilderness.

Power out for over FOUR hours while they found all the breaks & fixed them. Propitious timing so I can write you all a small, private monograph on EMP effects. Gotta wait till tonight, however. Day starts immediately & runs till after supper tonight.

Meanwhile, Go to this URL to read a decent discussion of EMP's in all their forms. Not too technical if you stay away from interpreting the graph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse

Donr

EMP's are intreresting phenomena!

by donr - 2014-05-16 12:05:28

They are horribly misunderstood & the fodder for horrible sci-fi stories. But not to sell them short! They can be a disaster to a power grid & that has been experimentally verified - both by the Russians & the US.

There have been about a dozen nuclear weapon tests that have been conducted to verify that the theory behind EMP was correct. For two reasons: 1) to determine if EMP was worthwhile as a weapon & 2) To find out what the effects were that we had to defend against & how serious they were.

Once the US found out what the threats are & that they are indeed real, a simulation lab was built to further examine the phenomena w/o using a nuke.

IIRC, all the tests using nuke warheads were conducted by firing a weapon straight up (or nearly so) & were conducted in the middle of the Pacific ocean by the US & over a vast, empty area in central Asia by the Russians.

The weapons were detonated well above the atmosphere - 60 Km - 300 Km in altitude. The weapons varied from some 10's of Kilotons to several Megatons (Kilo = 1000; Mega = 1 Million) The results were not surprising in what happened, but rather the MAGNITUDE of the results. In some cases, very much greater than expected. F'rinstance, one rather small warhead detonated over Johnston Island, about 750 miles SW of Hawaii could be seen in Hawaii & the pulse destroyed about 300 street light bulbs & melted some fuses & connectors in the power dist grid. This was in the 1960's.

At about the same time, the Russians detonated a weapon high above Central Asia & melted several thousand Km of electric power lines, burning out the very large circuit breakers installed to hopefully protect against that effect. Apparently it also caused a fire in a generating station.

So what does that all mean to US today? A lot & a little!

1) An Electromagnetic energy pulse is a VERY short burst of energy. Our PM uses a "Pulse" of about half a Milli second. That's .ooo5 seconds. Think that's fast? A turtle to the width of the EMP initially coming out of a nuclear weapon. It's time lapse is about a nano second = .000000001 seconds. So there's a whale of a lot of energy released in a very short time - initially. Far more than ever seen on earth. Go back in history to Hiroshima. That bomb generated about as much energy in that first nano second - but it was stopped by many factors, so it did not affect people or things as terribly as the space explosion could.

Yes, some people died from a Massive dose of Gamma rays - rays not unlike X-rays, but significantly more dangerous. Someone said that the radiation would not kill a person. From near ground bursts (NOT in outer space) it's possible to get a dose of Gamma rays that could kill in less than 5 hours. If you were in outer space, but out of range of the explosion shock waves, the amount of radiation would probably kill you instantly. In space, there no people - we are all on the ground. The pulse travels in straight lines outward - most of them in space where there is little matter to stop them. The radiation on the ground immediately beneath the explosion is negligible. But the devil is in those Gamma rays that stay in space. They interact w/ the little matter that is there, knocking all sorts of negatively charged particles that move very fast & interact w/ the Earth's magnetic field, producing that terrible thing called the EMP. That pulse travels downward, hitting the ground for a very short period of time. That will fry some electronics - especially unshielded semiconductors. There are other effects, but the PM is the one we care about. The first Comment addresses that very nicely in its link. The data is 1991, but shows us where the problems lie.

I'll come back to that in a few more paragraphs.

There follows another pulse of energy, of the same nature, lasting some tens of seconds after the burst. IT also comes after a delay because of some esoteric causes involved in the mechanics of a nuclear explosion, which is nearly as hot as the Sun. It also tends to be lower in frequency that the initial pulse.

finally, comes a third "Pulse." Hardly a pulse because it can last many minutes to several hours. And here lies the real trouble for people on earth. This is the one that has the lowest frequency energy in it that fries power lines. And does it ever do a job on them. This is the pulse that fried the Russian power lines. This is the pulse that would bring the NORTH AMERICAN power grid to its knees in a puddle of molten copper. And there would not be the first sign or symptom of blast or heat damage.

How you ask, if you've read this far? Simple. Ever see a TV antenna on top of a roof? How 'bout a TV transmitter? Or an AM radio tower. Notice how tall an AM radio tower is - hundreds of feet. The TV antenna is composed of a series of conductor tunes a foot or two in length. How about the XM or Sirius radio antennae? Only a couple inches in length.

All those antennae work because they are "Tuned" to the frequency they wish to receive. The longer the antenna, the lower the frequency they are sensitive to. So the electric power lines are extremely long - they would be tuned to a very low frequency & that frequency energy is present in an EMP - by the boatload, so they react to the pulse that induces a very strong current in them, heating & melting the wires.

Back to our PM. It has leads that can act as antennae for the initial & middle pulses. They could get hot & melt. Except for one thing. The PM is in a conductive can that acts as a shield at the frequencies involved in an EMP. The leads are likewise shielded. PLUS - the leads have to be oriented just right for anything to happen to them catastrophic. Just right means they have to be perpendicular to the direction of travel of the pulse. They also have to have the correct length oriented in that direction to be tuned to the pulse.

In the Army tests conducted in 1991, they found disturbances lasting only a few seconds occurring in a PM's output. That's just a couple heart beats.

What the Army told us is that the danger to the PM is overblown, so relax. You may not come out of an EMP w/o any effects, but for most of us, nothing catastrophic.

In my last comment, I mentioned lightning as an EMP. Yes it is, & it can cause many of the same effects as a nuke's EMP - but on a much smaller scale.

I believe in a comment about lightning I mentioned that I witnessed a lightning bolt start a fire in an electrical box inside a house when it did not strike the house. The bolt struck the ground a few feet away from the house & induced enough current in the wires to heat up & start a fire. A nuke EMP can do the same thing from hundreds of miles away.

I'd like to point out, that to get that nuke blast at the right height above ground & at the correct spot in space to affect the US Midwest would require an intercontinental missile. The terrorist rogues have not yet demonstrated the capability to do that from their home turf. It cannot be generated w/ a ground burst like a ground delivered nuke carried in on the backs of humans could create.

Just a reminder, however - very simple nukes can be built that weigh in at about 200 lbs. More sophisticated ones can be built weighing in the 100 lb range.

The true threat from EMP lies somewhere significantly less than the doomsday books & significantly greater than the "Not to worry" variety.

I do not look forward to witnessing it in the next several years.

Donr

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