Can an EMP take out a city, or more?

Uh.....okay. Every single computer that could run the grid...out.

Gotcha.

And tell me, how many inches of concrete are nuclear power stations shielded by? How far underground are some of the other installations? If an EMP that casts a burst of protons, neutrons and other deadly particles could interrupt operation of computers, then a nuclear facility has no need to shield their equipment, right?

If a detonation occurs at a certain distance over Kansas, you are going to tell me that all of these devices...like some sort of video game...are all gonna fold like a house of cards?????? It's not a light switch that would be thrown. That's not how physics works.

I'm thinking we're looking at a high percentage of failure, but the others would be able to start things up again, even on a worse case scenario.

That's just my projection.

And I suppose you know more than the people that have been studying the effects of EMP and nuclear weapons for decades right? You read a little on the internet and know more than they do?

On July 9, 1962, U.S. military researchers on a tiny Pacific atoll called Johnston Island fired a thermonuclear weapon into outer space. Code-named Starfish Prime, the launch onboard a Thor ballistic missile was the latest of a series of similar classified tests the U.S. Defense Department had begun four years before. But as the rocket rose on its smoky plume, few on the launch team realized that the forthcoming 1.4-megaton orbital burst was to yield surprising long-term results.

Hotel operators in Hawaii, some 1,300 kilometers away, were expecting a good show, though. Word had leaked of this latest "rainbow bomb" test shot, so a few enterprising resorts had organized rooftop parties from which guests could better view the distant fireworks. When the warhead detonated that evening at an altitude of 400 kilometers, it produced a brilliant white flash that momentarily lit up sea and sky like a noonday sun. Then, for about a second, the heavens turned light green.

Other Hawaiians witnessed some less welcome aftereffects. Streetlights suddenly blinked out on the island of Oahu. Local radio stations shut down, and telephone service failed for a time. Elsewhere in the Pacific, very high frequency communications systems malfunctioned for half a minute. Scientists later realized that Starfish Prime had sent a strong, disruptive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) sweeping through the vast region below the blast.

cndyorks.gn.apc.org...

This was a 1.4 Megaton device for christ sake! And it took out power 1300 kilometers away! Yes they got it back up fast, but imagine if someone detonated a MUCH larger device. What exactly are they shielding nuclear plants with? Concrete? That won't stop anything.

Enter Demetrios L. Basdekas and his numerous NRC memoranda that he wrote to alert his agency. Basdekas was worried about the effects on the safety systems of nuclear plants when Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is generated by a nuclear weapon's explosion. There are over 70 atomic power plants operating now in the United States.

Here are Basdekas' words from his memo of February 15, 1979:

"A single 3-4 megaton nuclear weapon exploded over the lower 48 States, somewhere say over Kansas City, at an altitude of 200-250 miles will produce a sufficiently strong EMP to affect every nuclear power plant operating anywhere in the lower 48 States. It is not known what the exact degree of these effects would be on each power plant affected. It will probably range, depending on location and design of the individual plant, from a shutdown to a catastrophic nuclear accident.

"The consequences of such a scenario are so enormous that our society might not recover from them. Early deaths in the hundred of thousands of people, and property and other economic losses in the trillion dollar range, with millions of people subject to latent cancer and genetic effects in future generations will be only part of the consequences."

www.nader.org.../archives/1048-Nuclear-War-Not-Survivable.html

So much for THAT theory.

[edit on 4/30/2007 by Zaphod58]

Such naysayers. Geez!

Development of cement that shields EM waves

Check it out.

Oh, yeah. You probably don't have a subscription. Well, neither do I, and yes I am limited to the internet to gather info, but apparently so are you.

My posts offer possible solutions. I never claimed to be an expert.

And yet, when someone who DOES have experience dealing with this posts, you jump all over him. I have had access to OTHER sources than the internet, but since I can't post them online, I'm using internet documents.

And look at the date of your source. 2005-2006 So they had this for decades and have rebuilt all the nuclear power stations with it since then? Or they've already rebuilt them with it?

In fact, as late as 2000 they were STILL rather concerned about EMP, as stated in this paper.
www.fas.org...



[edit on 4/30/2007 by Zaphod58]

OKay peeps, let's simmer down, shall we?

As far as I know, I am regarded in certain circles of the Brit armed forces as an expert instructor in all things Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare and, I might add, I am a legend in my own lifetime!

Seriously though, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding EMP. Electro-Magnetic Phenmonena occures within the first 60 seconds of a nuclear explosion, right alongside Initial Nuclear radiations such as Alpha, Beta and Gamma Rays and Neutron Induced Activity.

Electro-Magnetic Phenomena consists of a broad band spectrum energy wave called an Electro-Magnetic Pulse and a by product of this pulse called TREE.

EMP

EMP is, as I said, is a broad band wave of super radioactive energy that emanates from GZ across the impact area spreading outwards until it's energy is dissipated.

Because EMP is to all intents and purposes 'hot', when the pulsed wave of energy comes in to contact with say an antenna, it will earth through whatever is attached to the antenna.

In the case of electronic components such as radios or computors, the EMP will move across motherboards, hard disks, batteries or whatever, and 'fry' them, melting all gold ciruits and erasing memouries. However, this will only happen if the equipment is in use or switched on.

In the case of a radio, if an operator is using it, the EMP will pass down through the AE, the radio and the operator causing a deep radiation burn.

TREE

TREE - or more properly, Transient Radiation Effect on Electronics, occurs when electrical equipment is switched off or not in use.

Basically put, the Radiation [EMP] is Transient in that it passes through electronic equipment and earths by the quickest route - usually in a fraction of a second. The effects themselves vary from blown fuses to short circuiting but usually damage caused by the EMP is minimal and indeed, most military equipment is protected from TREE.

As to whether or not a machine could be built to fire an EMP bolt across a city to black it out, this is very unlikely.

If it could be done, I would imagine the machine would be the size of a small house and would require an army of technicians to maintain it.

The main reason the US and congress are concerned about Iran building a nuclear weapon is its capability of detonating it in high atmosphere

www.worldnetdaily.com...

since Irans is testing remote detonating systems..
btw, the idea of the neutron bomb was its radiation mainly killing organic life and "leaving builings standing" we all know thats a fairy tale but thats still the main concept of the weapon..
and for turning electronics off? lots of devices always have some voltage still around if turned off, a car for instance i wonder if it matters if you turn if off, i think it can still be struck by EMP..ok that must be the TREE then



[edit on 1-5-2007 by Foppezao]

[edit on 1-5-2007 by Foppezao]

My car got struck by a TREE once...wait, I think that was the other way around.

never mind

Right, so... how exactly are Neutron bombs a myth if they're proven to do what they do?

Shattered OUT...

Foppezao, I think you answered your own question.

Neutron Induced Activity (Alpha, Beta and Gamma Rays) are Initial Nuclear Radiations and as such, occur within the first 60 seconds of a nuclear explosion.

These form the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (Radiation) that will seriously mess with all electrical components and machines.

TREE - Transient Radiation Effects apon Electronics happens when you protect - in your case, your car - and switch things off.

ShatteredSkies, do you recall how easy it was for the USAF to disable power supplies in both Kosovo and Iraq during the initial stages of GW II?

I don't think this was achieved with a Neutron bomb per se, because as I recall, there were no tell-tale mushroom clouds over Serbia or Baghdad and a Neutron bomb is just another Nuclear device.

No. I suspect that an undisclosed EMP device was used, or perhaps a couple of 'E' bombs, see:

english.peopledaily.com.cn...

www.freerepublic.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I hope that clears things up a little.

I don't believe the US has Neutron bombs. I think only France is the main proprietor of Neutron weapons. Now why did you make the connection between Kosovo and Iraq during the Second Gulf War?

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
I don't believe the US has Neutron bombs. I think only France is the main proprietor of Neutron weapons. Now why did you make the connection between Kosovo and Iraq during the Second Gulf War? Shattered OUT...

I was trying to illustrate [allbeit badly] that the US has the ability to disrupt power supply to just about any enemy she [US] is fighting and has done so in low level conflicts - the bombing of Serbia (Kosovo) and the first wave of arial attacks against Iraq that preceeded the ground offensive in Iraq (GW II).

If I remember correctly, stealth a/c took out major power stations, sub stations which in turn, restricted command and control.

That was a brilliant move because without command and control, your enemy is powerless to prosecute the war and must rely on runners and despatch riders who of course may well be killed in the general fighting.

but was the disruption of the power done with conventional bombs or with um...."conventional" bombs?

though i do recall an episode of "future weapons" on the disc channel that demonstrated an emp device that shut down the car the host of the show was driving for the demo.

heh toys are fun

The weapon used to take out power stations was not EMp but a 'soft bomb'

www.fas.org...

The BLU-114/B is a special-purpose munition for attacking electrical power infrastructure. Although very little is known about this highly classified weapon, reportedly it functions by dispensing a number of submunitions which in turn disperse large numbers of chemically treated carbon graphite filaments which short-circuit electrical power distribution equipment such as transformers and switching stations. The weapon is sometimes referred to as a "soft bomb" since its effects are largely confined to the targetted electrical power facility, with minimal risk of collateral damage.

This previously undisclosed weapon, carried by the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, was used for the first time on 02 May 1999 as part of Operation ALLIED FORCE strikes against Serbia. Following these attacks lights went out over 70 per cent of the country. The munition was subsequently used on the night of 07 May 1999 to counter Serbian efforts to restore damage caused by the initial attack.

Similar in concept to the "Kit-2" Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile warhead used in the opening days of Operation DESERT STORM, few details of either weapons can be established on an unclassified basis. The missiles, packed with bomblets filled with small spools of carbon-fiber wire, deprived Iraq of 85% of its generating capacity. During the Gulf War Iraq responded to the use of this type of munition by disconnecting electrical power grid circuit breakers. Attacks on Iraqi power facilities shut down their effective operation and eventually collapsed the national power grid. Coalition planners in the theater initially directed that the switching system be targeted, rather than the generator halls. For the first three days, the ATO explicitly contained specific aimpoints for strikes against electrical production facilities. Subsequently the specific aimpoints were only sporadically included. When wing-level planners lacked specific guidance on which aimpoints to hit at electrical power plants, they sometimes chose to target generator halls, which are among the aimpoints listed in standard targeting manuals.

Fritz I recall reading at the time of attacks on Kosovo that there was an EMP bomb which involved some sort of ferrite core inside a long cylinder made of a copper coil. Somehow upon deceleration, the core shot forward through the coil to produce a huge electrical discharge. I am only citing from memory here.

It does not follow necessarily that it was a neutron bomb if there are other ways to cause the discharge. I suspect had there been any neutron bomb, there would have been evidence of radiation sickness and fallout by now.

Yes mate. That was exactly my point. It is called an 'E' Bomb and the link I gave illustrated this.

I 'think' the US certainly has different 'E' Bombs. Here's a couple of links:

www.newsmax.com...

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil...

What about creating a very small version of an EMP to prove it works? I think a scaled down version should be well within the grasp of any High School physics class.

Any takers? I'm guessing you'd need simple off the shelf components to affect devices (ones you don't care alot about like computers that are being mothballed anyway or old TV's) from a modest distance, say 10 feet away.

I'm honestly not sure I've got the time or smarts to do it, but I always seem to come up with the ideas....

Since i have done some reading on this in the past ( at least a few here would be familiar with my contributions related to nuclear wars and the like) i feel almost compelled to intervene considering the treatment poor Zaphod are being forced to put up with.

If anyone is going to abuse Zaphod it's going to be me and then only on MERIT.

But today, we must consider a giant electromagnetic pulse (EMP) a significant threat on its own. The congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, calls EMP "one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold our society seriously at risk and might result in defeat of our military forces."

Our military needs to retrofit some equipment to resist such attacks and insist that more new purchases come EMP attack-proof. Of course, the best defense against an EMP attack would be an effective missile-defense system that intercepts the missile before it reaches the United States.

www.lewrockwell.com...

The thing that can electrocute you from such a great distance is called "EMP" or ElectroMagnetic Pulse. US scientists first noticed EMP back in 1962, when they had a little nuclear experiment called "Starfish Prime". They exploded a one-and-a-half megaton nuclear weapon 400 km above Johnston Island in the Pacific. 1500 km away in Hawaii, there was massive electronic destruction as three hundred street lights blew up, burglar alarms triggered off, power lines fused and TV sets exploded. The scientists immediately started trying to work out what was going on. It took them a year to understand it. They wanted to check this strange EMP thingie by popping another nuke, but unfortunately for them, Kruschev and Kennedy had signed a treaty banning nuclear weapon test explosions either in the atmosphere or in space.

EMP is very destructive because any length of metal will pick up this radio energy. Look at the cars on the street with coat hanger aerials - their radios work fine. So if you have a telephone line or a power line which crosses a continent, an EMP will make it generate about 10 million volts and 10,000 amperes. This is enough to burn through any insulation we have today. If you were to touch a telephone or a radio when the nuke popped, you could be in big trouble.

Modern electronic components (integrated circuits and chips) are very sensitive to EMP. But older electronic components, such as valves (or vacuum tubes) are 1 billion times more resistant. The Russians know this, and they use valves in their MIG 25 Foxbat interceptor fighter. United States investigators found this in 1976 when a Soviet pilot defected to Japan and they pulled the plane to pieces. They started laughing and thought, "Valves in 1976, how primitive!" But late in 1977, the Pentagon rewrote the handbook on the effects of nuclear weapons to advise the use of valves where possible. One Soviet war manual said, "To achieve surprise in a war, high altitude nuclear explosions can be carried out to destroy the electronics of satellites whether they are spy satellites or communication satellites".

If you were flying in a modern aeroplane, and an EMP rippled past, the plane would fall out of the sky like a bunch of car keys. In 1970, Boeing tried to harden some 747s by wrapping the cables in lead, and putting wire mesh on the windows. When they tested it they found that some 12,000 circuits, essential for the running of the aircraft, had fused. Later, they started from scratch, and hardened the 747 right from the very beginning. It didn't have any windows, and it cost five times as much as a normal 747, but it was hardened - and there was only one ever built.

www.abc.net.au...

In 1997 Congress held what was apparently its first public hearing on high-altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP). This topic had "riveted the attention of the military nuclear tactical community for three and a half decades since the first comparatively modest one very unexpectedly turned off the lights over a few million square miles in the mid-Pacific," testified Dr. Lowell Wood, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist who has worked for the past three decades in both the offensive and defensive aspects of EMP. "The entire topic of EMP was highly classified," said Dr. Wood.

The Blackout Bomb is simply a high-yield nuclear weapon, or a smaller nuclear weapon designed to maximize gamma-ray emissions. The EMP "laydown" of a thermonuclear burst moves at the speed of light, striking the Earth to the horizon at line-of-sight from the detonation. Gamma rays actually radiate spherically from the blast point, creating space EMP which, Dr. Wood explained in written hearing testimony, would damage satellite electronics even at great distances from the explosion. "The basic point," he said, "is that essentially all of our conventional military capability and all of our civilian infrastructure is highly vulnerable to EMP damage. The dollar numbers in the civilian infrastructure alone can be conservatively estimated at several trillion dollars' worth of infrastructure which is at risk potentially even from a single pulse--several trillion dollars."

Our civilization's vulnerability to EMP has increased exponentially since the 1962 Johnston Island test, which blacked out power grids and shut down autos in Hawaii, a thousand miles away from the burst. Microchips with integrated circuits are much more vulnerable to EMP than were the vacuum tubes used in the sixties. And, said Dr. Wood, the smaller that the integrated circuits get, the more vulnerable they are to EMP.

www.sonic.net...

Mr. BONO. In that same context, would that knock out the computers in the—it would knock out all the computers, so wouldn't that affect more than just the landing capabilities?

Dr. WOOD. Yes, sir. It is a reasonable projection that most, if not all, modern computer systems exposed to referenced EMP field levels—which are 50 kilovolts per meter, not just 10—but the very high levels you might see in most of the United States—most modern computer systems ranging from laptops to mainframes would wilt. By wilting, they would at least cease to function. In many cases, they would be burned out. So it would require very major maintenance before they could be restored to operation.

Not just computers in aircraft but computers everywhere, other than in this type of very high integrity metallic enclosures that Dr. Ullrich sketched in his opening statement. Computers in any other enclosure than that type would be compromised, if not destroyed outright.

Mr. BARTLETT. Just one other comment, Mr. Chairman; and then I will yield.

In a large city like Washington, DC, hundreds of thousands of homes on any one day, there is a very, very small percentage of those that burn. Yet none of us would sleep well tonight if we had not paid up our fire insurance premium on our home.

commdocs.house.gov...

Large transmitting tubes have tungsten filaments containing a small trace of thorium. A thin layer of thorium atoms forms on the outside of the wire when heated, serving as an efficient source of electrons. The thorium slowly evaporates from the wire surface, while new thorium atoms diffuse to the surface to replace them. Such thoriated tungsten cathodes routinely deliver lifetimes in the tens of thousands of hours. The claimed record is held by an Eimac power tetrode used in a Los Angeles radio station's transmitter, which was removed from service after 80,000 hours (~9 years) of uneventful operation. Transmitting tubes are claimed to survive lightning strikes more often than transistor transmitters do.

Tubes were ubiquitous in the early generations of electronic devices, such as radios, televisions, and early computers such as the Colossus which used 2000 tubes, the ENIAC which used nearly 18,000 tubes, and the IBM 700 series. Vacuum tubes inherently have higher resistance to the electromagnetic pulse effect of nuclear explosions. This property kept them in use for certain military applications long after transistors had replaced them elsewhere. Vacuum tubes are still used for very high-powered applications such as microwave ovens, industrial radio-frequency heating, and power amplification for broadcasting.

en.wikipedia.org...

People are were always joking ( and some fools still are ) about those silly Soviet vacuum tube planes but i think the 'joke' would have been , and still is, on those who don't like reading or making sense of their enemies actions.

Continued

[edit on 4-5-2007 by StellarX]

I would say that, should it so be desired by someone with enough connection, moxie, and finances would be able to purchase such an effect from Russian mafia affiliates, via the Woodpecker Grid, would it not?

You can download the Woodpecker Grid sound here:

www.cheniere.org...

Information to be found here:

www.rumormillnews.com...

(yeah, i know...Rense...but you will get the general idea.

Pictures of cloud effects can be seen here:

www.rumormillnews.com...

The big question is, what do the chemtrails have to do with this? There is talk, now, that Morgellons can be related to this, and they are made of a silica based nanomachine. I don't know how they are related, but they seem to be somehow.

Now, combine with this HAARP, Tesla's EM technology (which he called The Magnifying Transmitter), and Beardon's theories, and you can see the EMP's are a simple matter, and it could be made to wipe out everything electronic world wide.

Mr. BARTLETT. Is it not true that a vacuum tube is one million or so times less susceptible to EMP effects?

Page 66
Dr. ULLRICH. Absolutely. Vacuum tubes are inherently hard to these kind of effects.


But the question is, why would any nation choose to launch a strike of this sort as a single shot? It seems to me that one might do it as a first shot out of a multiple barrage where you are trying to disable the enemy beforehand, but it seems most of the concern we have currently is about rogue nations launching a few nuclear missiles at our country or perhaps at our troops elsewhere.

The question is, why would they launch EMP attacks rather than launching a direct attack against some of our defense installations or our cities?

Dr. WOOD. As I said in my opening statement——

Mr. EHLERS. That question goes to anyone.

Dr. WOOD. As I said in my opening statement, the Soviets planned a very extensive EMP laydown over the United States and elsewhere; and they had a substantial amount of their ICBM force devoted to doing that. So, yes, indeed, they would do just as you anticipated. The rationale thing is punch and punch again and keep on punching so there is a very high likelihood of nothing escaping.

commdocs.house.gov...

On 9 July 1962, the US began a further series of experiments with the ionosphere. From their description: "one kiloton device, at a height of 60 km and one megaton and one multi-megaton, at several hundred kilometres height" (K.H.A., 29 June 1962). These tests seriously disturbed the lower Van Allen Belt, substantially altering its shape and intensity. "In this experiment the inner Van Allen Belt will be practically destroyed for a period of time; particles from the Belt will be transported to the atmosphere. It is anticipated that the earth's magnetic field will be disturbed over long distances for several hours, preventing radio communication. The explosion in the inner radiation belt will create an artificial dome of polar light that will be visible from Los Angeles."(K.H.A. 11 May 1962). A Fijian Sailor, present at this nuclear explosion told me that the whole sky was on fire and he thought it would be the end of the world. This was the experiment which called forth the strong protest of the Queen's Astronomer, Sir Martin Ryle in the UK.

"On 19 July.... NASA announced that as a consequence of the high altitude nuclear test of July 9, a new radiation belt had been formed, stretching from a height of about 400 km to 1600 km; it can be seen as a temporary extension of the lower Van Allen Belt." (K.H.A. 5 August 1962)

As explained in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "... Starfish made a much wider belt (than Project Argus) that extends from low altitude out past L=3 (i.e. three earth radiuses or about 13,000 km above the surface of the earth)" Later in 1962, the USSR undertook similar planetary experiments, creating three new radiation belts between 7,000 and 13,000 km above the earth. According to the Encyclopaedia, the electron fluxes in the lower Van Allen Belt have changed markedly since the 1962 high-altitude nuclear explosions by the US and USSR, never returning to their former state. According to American scientists, it could take many hundreds of years for the Van Allen Belts to restabilise at their normal levels. (Research done by: Nigel Harle, Borderland Archives, Cortenbachstraat 32, 6136 CH Sittard, Netherlands.)

www.globalpolicy.org...

All the pages comes recommended and whoever has the time and interest are advised to read and consider why any nation would put itself at such risk when preparation and defense could have been possible without great cost.

Stellar

[edit on 4-5-2007 by StellarX]

eh i think we should just ask our enemies very nicly not to nuke us.


but thast just me