Getting Prepared for
an
Electromagnetic Pulse Attack
or Severe Solar Storm
by Jerry
Emanuelson
Futurescience,
LLC
© 2009-2012 Jerry Emanuelson
The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said:
Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic.
This statement is commonly known as Clarke's Third Law. Many people have
heard this quotation, but few people really think about its implications.
We now live in a world that is so completely immersed in advanced technology
that we depend upon it for our very survival. Most of the actions that we
depend upon for our everyday activities -- from flipping a switch to make the
lights come on to obtaining all of our food supplies at a nearby supermarket --
are things that any individual from a century ago would consider
magic.
Very few people in industrialized countries do work that is not directly
assisted by electronic computers, although that computerized assistance is often
quite invisible to the average person. Few people think about things such
as the fact that whenever we buy some food item at a supermarket (and many
others are buying the same item), the next time we go to that same supermarket,
they still have about the same supplies that they had before. There are
invisible infrastructures all around us that are made up of advanced
technology. Most of us just take the magic for granted.
Few people stop to consider what would happen if, in an instant, the magic
went away. If our advanced technology were suddenly and completely destroyed,
how would we manage to survive? A nuclear EMP could make the magic go away. I
hope it never happens, and I don't think that it is at all inevitable. It makes
no sense, however, to be blind to the danger. It is both much less likely to
happen -- and also less likely to have a catastrophic impact -- if, both as a
civilization and as individuals, we are prepared for an attack on our advanced
technology. A nuclear EMP would be a seemingly magical attack upon our advanced
technology, the technological infrastructure upon which our lives depend.
Among all of the kinds of electromagnetic disturbances that can occur,
though, it is important to keep things in perspective. It is possible that a
nuclear EMP may never happen where you live. On the other hand, a severe solar
storm that will destroy most of the world's power grids appears nearly
inevitable at this point. Protection against the damage of a severe solar
storm could be done easily and rather inexpensively by the electrical utilities;
however it is not being done, and there is no sign that it will be
done. A severe solar storm poses little threat to electronics, but would
take down the most important power grids in the world for a period of years.
This is a special problem in the United States, and is a severe threat in the
eastern United States. So, more important than preparing for a nuclear EMP
attack is preparing for all of the ramifications of a severe solar storm which
would cause an electrical power outage that would, in most areas, last for a
period of years. Most standby power systems would continue to function after a
severe solar storm, but supplying the standby power systems with adequate fuel,
when the main power grids are offline for years, could become a very critical
problem.
In the mid-20th century, electricity was regarded as a
convenience. By the end of that century, electricity had become
something that most people literally cannot live without for more than a few
weeks. This profound change has happened so gradually that very few people have
even noticed.
This is a page about some of the things that individuals can do to
prepare for an electromagnetic pulse attack. I'm an electronics engineer who
has been thinking about the EMP problem for more than 3 decades. I even have an
ancient Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4P that has been retrofitted with a complete
electromagnetic shield. It's just a personal antique, useless for anything but
a personal reminder of how long I've been thinking about this problem. That
early-model personal computer didn't even have a hard drive.
I've spent much of my career working with radio and television transmitters
on high mountaintops where there is a lot of lightning and other kinds of severe
electromagnetic transients. Many engineers who spend their careers working in
fairly benign electromagnetic environments don't realize the fragility of our
technological infrastructure. On this page, I'm going to concentrate on a
nuclear EMP attack, but much of this also applies to natural events such as
unusual geomagnetic storms due to extremely large solar storms.
The threat of a sudden EMP attack that causes a widespread catastrophe is
certainly nothing new. Consider this Cold War era quotation from a widely-read
and highly-respected publication more than 30 years ago: "The United States is
frequently crossed by picture-taking Cosmos series satellites that orbit at a
height of 200 to 450 kilometers above the earth. Just one of these satellites,
carrying a few pounds of enriched plutonium instead of a camera, might touch off
instant coast-to-coast pandemonium: the U.S. power grid going out, all
electrical appliances without a separate power supply (televisions, radios,
computers, traffic lights) shutting down, commercial telephone lines going dead,
special military channels barely working or quickly going silent." -- from
"Nuclear Pulse (III): Playing a Wild Card" by William J. Broad in
Science magazine, pages 1248-1251, June 12, 1981.
The situation would be much worse today than in 1981 due to our profound and
ever-increasing dependence upon electricity and electronics for the basic
maintenance of our lives. In addition, the last remnants of the pre-electrical
infrastructure, and the knowledge of how to use the components of that
infrastructure, is slowly and completely disappearing. Some people have said
that the long-term loss of the power grid would send us back to the 19th
century. That belief is quite false because we have no 19th century
infrastructure and very little 19th century knowledge. A long-term loss of the
power grid would send us back at least 500 years.
First: Another brief note about severe solar storms (and similar
natural events), and then I'll get back to nuclear EMP. Solar storms would
primarily affect the power grid, and are not likely to harm things like
computers. Also, solar storms would only disrupt communications temporarily,
and would not be likely to cause direct harm to communications equipment (except
for satellites). An extremely large solar storm, though, would induce
geomagnetic currents that could destroy a substantial fraction of the very
largest transformers on the power grid (possibly over much of the world). If
this happened, electric power loss due to a large solar storm would be out for a
period of years and possibly decades. Unlike nuclear EMP, such a solar storm is
an eventual inevitability.
The last solar storm that could have caused this level of damage happened in
1859, before the power grid was in place (although in 1921 a large solar storm,
of briefer duration than the 1859 event, occurred which affected only a small
area of the planet). The power grid has only been in place for a
tiny fraction of one percent of human history, and a really large
solar storm (of the size and duration of the 1859 event) has not happened in
that time. There is a general assumption that any solar event that is similar
to, or larger than, the 1859 solar superstorm will simply never happen again,
although there is no justification for such an assumption -- in
fact, we know that this assumption is false. There is a good possibility that
such a solar storm will happen in this century. If it happens in the current
situation without spares for our largest transformers, a large part of the
worldwide power grid (including 70 to 100 percent of the United States power
grid) will be down for years.
A 2008 study by Metatech found that the time required to obtain a replacement
for any one of the 370 or so largest transformers in the United States was 3
years. In a solar superstorm that affects vulnerable areas of the entire world,
delivery times could easily be much longer. The United States, which currently
has no capability to manufacture those transformers, will be at the end of a
very long waiting line. There are some companies in the United States that
certainly have the capability of moving up from the ability to manufacture
medium-sized power grid transformers to the capability of manufacturing even the
largest transformers. So far, that capability has not been developed, although
there are signs that this unfortunate situation may change in the coming years.
Since such a expansion of manufacturing capability requires a lot of electrical
power, the capability cannot be developed after an electromagnetic catastrophe.
The capability has to be developed before there is an actual critical need. In
the past two years, at least two companies have expressed the intention of
getting back into the large transformer business, but it will take a
considerable length of time to develop this capability fully.
Because of the inevitability of a large solar superstorm, we have to
accept the fact that the current electric power grid upon which our lives depend
is only a temporary infrastructure.
This temporary infrastructure has served us very well, and we now have entrusted
our very lives to it.
The fact that the electric power grid began as a convenience, but has
become a necessity for sustaining life, is both one of the most beneficial, and
one of the most dangerous, facts of 21st century existence. We do not know how
long the current power grid will last; but if it not replaced by a robust
permanent infrastructure in time, hundreds of millions of people will die when
the electric power grid collapses simultaneously in many countries. How such a
collapse occurs is very well known, and the methods to either prevent it, or to
have spare transformers in place to fairly quickly repair it, are also well
known. Although these preventive measures would not be terribly expensive, they
would take some time to put into place; and those things have never been
done.
Provisions for insuring islands of power production within the country that
would prevent millions of deaths could be put in place fairly quickly, and much
less expensively, but this also has never been done -- or, until recently, even
been seriously considered, except by the few scientists and engineers who have
seriously studied the fragility of the electric power grid. There are finally
signs, in 2011 and 2012, that this situation is beginning to change.
I am repeatedly asked about "Faraday cages" for solar storms and protection
of automobiles against solar storms. I must repeat that this is an area where
solar storms and nuclear EMP are very different. Solar storms only produce
something similar to the E3 component of nuclear EMP. "Faraday cages" are
not relevant for solar storms for anyone at ground level (unless you are
planning to launch a satellite). Solar storms will not destroy your
car,(at least not any of the solar storms that have occurred in the past
million years). If you own an electric car, though, it may be wise to avoid
charging it during an active geomagnetic storm.
Many people who say that they have off-the-grid power systems, however, are
interconnected to the power grid in order to sell their excess power back to the
grid. From an EMP or solar storm standpoint, this presents the worst of all
possible worlds. Such an interconnection exposes a so-called off-the-grid
system to all of the dangers of the power grid.
Even though solar storms primarily affect the power grid, customers can
communicate the importance of EMP and solar storm protection to their local
electric utilities. Devices such as the SolidGround system made by Emprimus can be
installed by local electric companies on all of their large transformers that
are connected to very long lines.
Although a major electromagnetic disturbance that would destroy large parts
of the electrical grid is almost inevitable in the next century, it is important
to keep things in the proper perspective. There is a reasonable chance that
people will come to their senses in time, and have the electrical power grid
protected before such an event happens. Although a hardened power grid does not
seem likely in the near future, the dangers to the power grid are becoming much
more widely known.
Another encouraging trend is the fact that far more people are prepared to be
self-sufficient for at least a few weeks than was the case just a few years
ago. The greater the number of people who have made at least minimal
preparations for a disaster, the smaller will be the impact of the disaster.
Even apartment dwellers on a very low income can have a level of preparedness
that will be of significant help. By buying an extra can of soup or other
reasonably nutritious canned food every week or two, you can build up a food
reserve -- before you realize it -- that will last you for at least a week or
two. A week or two of "breathing room" after a disaster can give you great
peace of mind and allow you to stop and think and plan for a future course of
action (while the unprepared are all in a great panic). It is even possible
that additional help will arrive after a week or two. The most important thing
is to store at least a two-week supply of drinking water. There are many
plastic containers of all sizes that can be stored in a closet that won't take
up an excessive amount of space.
One kind of convenient containers for water storage in small spaces are the
one gallon polypropylene plastic bottles that are used for Arizona brand teas.
Although these plastic containers are marked with the Resin Identification Code
5 or 7, the Arizona Beverage Company web site states that (at
least, as of July 2012 and earlier) the plastic does not contain any bisphenol-A
in the container, so they should be safe for long-term water storage. These
one-gallon plastic containers with screw-on plastic lids should be a convenient
method of water storage for many people. Do not keep the water in storage for a
very long time without putting new water in occasionally, though.
What just happened???
The most important piece of information you can have after any sort of
unusual electrical event is information about what happened. If
there is a bright flash in the sky at the same time that the power goes off, and
you've been worried about nuclear EMP, your first reaction may be to assume the
worst. It may, however, be just cloud-to-cloud lightning that happened at the
same time that a distant cloud-to-ground lightning strike knocked out the
power. Even if you thought the sky was clear outside, there may have been a
distant thunderstorm, and lightning bolts sometimes travel remarkably long
distances.
If it is a nuclear EMP, though, you will want to know about it right away,
and the local radio and television stations are going to all be off the air.
Most of the internet will also be down. There might be some telephone service
if you are very lucky, but anyone that you would call probably
won't know any more than you. The only way that you will get any timely
information will be by listening to broadcasts originating on other continents
using a battery-operated shortwave radio.
If you have a shortwave radio, it is likely to be knocked out by the EMP
unless it is adequately shielded. To be adequately shielded, it needs to be
kept inside of a complete metallic shielded enclosure, commonly known as a
faraday cage, and preferably inside nested faraday cages. A faraday cage
is an total enclosure made out of a good electrical conductor such as
copper or aluminum. (Steel also works well, but it is more difficult to make a
total enclosure with steel.) Large faraday cages can get extremely
complicated. For small portable electronics, though, completely covering the
electronic equipment in aluminum foil makes an adequate faraday cage around the
equipment. The foil covering needs to be complete, without any significant
gaps. Wrap the device in plastic or put it in an insulated box before wrapping
the covered device in foil. (Otherwise, the foil may simply conduct the EMP
energy into the device more effectively.) A single layer of foil may not be
adequate. In order to enclose the equipment in a nested faraday cage,
place the foil-covered device in a plastic bag, such as a freezer bag, and wrap
that bag completely in aluminum foil. If you really want to protect the
equipment against a large EMP, add another layer of plastic and foil. The layer
of plastic need to be the thickest plastic bags that you can easily find. (They
don't need to be terribly thick, but do try to find some heavy-duty bags.)
Just adding many layers of foil directly on top of foil won't do as much
good, due to what is called "skin effect." I won't bother to explain skin
effect here, but you can look it up if you're curious. Don't worry too much
about skin effect, though. I only mention it here because many people have the
misconception that when it comes to shielding, the thicker the better -- and
this is definitely not true after a certain thickness is reached. Layers of
shielding separated by insulation works much better. As a practical matter,
though, wrapping with 2 or 3 layers of foil helps to assure that you actually
have a good shield around the equipment.
Of course, any antennas or power cords need to be either disconnected or
contained completely within the faraday cage.
One question that arises frequently is whether a gun safe or a galvanized
trash can makes an effective faraday cage. Technically, it may not be correct
to call either of these a faraday cage because they are not constructed of the
best electrical conductors. A galvanized metal trash can, though, can be a very
effective electromagnetic shield. The interior of the body of the galvanized
metal trash can should be lined with some material to electrically insulate
items stored inside the container from the metal exterior. (Cardboard probably
works better than any other inexpensive material for this. Liners such as
plastic trash bags may be too thin for this because of the momentary high
voltages that could be induced on the exterior during an actual EMP.) Do
not place any insulation at a point where it would interfere with the
electrical connection between the metal lid and the metal body of the trash
can. It would be a good idea to wrap items placed inside the metal trash can
with a layer of aluminum foil in the "nested faraday cage" manner described
above.
The question about using gun safes as an electromagnetic shield cannot be
answered because there are so many variations in construction that would affect
the shielding efficiency. In particular, the electrical connection between the
door and the rest of the safe is usually not very good. Such a safe probably
has some shielding effectiveness, but in most cases, the shielding is very
minimal.
You'll need to keep plenty of batteries on hand for your radios. There are
some models of shortwave radios that have hand-crank or solar power, but those
"emergency radios" that I've tried don't have very good shortwave reception
(although, as explained below, many inexpensive shortwave radios could suddenly
become very adequate after an EMP event). A common complaint about radios that
use hand-crank power is that the hand cranks are not very sturdy, however the
radios will continue to function by using conventional battery power (or solar
power if it is available.) If you do use the hand crank on an emergency radio,
though, do not treat the hand crank too roughly. I still recommend keeping
plenty of batteries on hand.
Energizer makes lithium batteries with a 15 year shelf life.
Although small batteries were not damaged during the 1962 high-altitude nuclear
tests, it would be wise to wrap each sealed package of batteries in a layer of
aluminum foil. Future EMPs may be much larger than the 1962 events. Also,
battery technology is evolving and the sensitivity of newer types of batteries
to EMP is unknown (although the cylindrical batteries tend to provide a certain
amount of shielding just due to the way that they are constructed.). I
generally prefer Energizer batteries for cylindrical batteries
(AA, AAA, C and D sizes) and Duracell for 9-volt batteries. The
9-volt batteries contain 6 internal cells in series. In the
Duracell 9-volt batteries, the cells are spot welded together,
whereas most other popular brands use a simple press-fit interconnect for the
cells. The Duracell spot-weld method generally makes for a much
more reliable connection in this type of battery.
The idea behind having a shortwave radio is to be able to directly receive
radio stations on another continent that has been unaffected by the EMP.
The radio that I like best of the portable, and not too expensive, receivers is
the SONY ICF-SW7600GR. This model is not cheap, but you can usually find it for
at least 25 percent below its "list price."
Another good shortwave radio for the price is the Grundig Traveller II
Digital G8. This Grundig radio is much less expensive than the SONY
ICF-SW7600GR. You can usually find the Grundig G8 for around 50 U.S. dollars.
In using the Grundig radio recently, my only complaint was that it seemed to be
much more susceptible to electrical noise than many other shortwave radios.
Electrical noise is always a problem when listening to distant stations, but, of
course, in a post-EMP situation, electrical noise would cease to be a
problem.
Grundig also makes a somewhat better radio known as the S350DL, that sells
for about 100 U.S. dollars. This radio is larger, and many people find it
easier to handle. It also has a number of features, such as bandwidth and RF
gain controls, that are difficult to find on other radios in this price range.
The tuning on the S350DL is analog, but it has a digital readout. Some of the
annoying aspects of the tuning dial in earliest models of this radio have been
corrected in current versions.
The National Geographic Store sells the
Grundig S350DL radio, which is pictured at the bottom of this page.
Many people have legitimate complaints about nearly any shortwave radio that
can be purchased for less than 300 U.S. dollars. Those complaints are often
valid if the radio is to be used frequently in today's high levels of electrical
noise and radio frequency interference. In a post-EMP situation, or any
situation where the regional electric grid goes down, the situation will be very
different.
Many people have bought or kept old vacuum tube radios for use after an EMP
attack. Although vacuum tubes are thousands of times more resistant to EMP than
transistors (and discrete transistors are much more resistant than integrated
circuits), other components of vacuum tubes radios can be damaged by EMP. In
fact, vacuum tube radios actually were damaged in 1962 high-altitude
nuclear tests. Vacuum tube radios also have the disadvantage of requiring much
more power than solid-state radios, and electric power will be a rare commodity
after a nuclear EMP. Although a vacuum tube radio would have a high likelihood
of coming through an EMP event undamaged as long as it was turned off and not
connected to an antenna, a modern solid-state shortwave radio kept inside of a
nested faraday cage is the best form of insurance for obtaining information
after an EMP event. (Many people don't realize that most vacuum tube radios
still in existence have an early solid-state device called a selenium rectifier
that is quite vulnerable to EMP damage. Although replacement selenium
rectifiers are still sold for old radios, they are difficult to find, and you
would probably find them to be impossible to get after an EMP attack.)
One important misconception about electromagnetic shielding is the common
belief that it should be "all or nothing." When it comes to critical small
spare items like an emergency radio, it is important to go to some extra trouble
to insure the best shielding possible. Simple small nested faraday cages are so
simple and inexpensive that you might as well make sure that a few items are
very well shielded. When it comes to less critical items, though, such as items
that you use frequently, a less-complete electromagnetic shield could easily
make the difference between having equipment that survives an EMP and equipment
that does not survive. It is a very common misconception that certain items
must have military-grade shielding and other items are nothing to worry about at
all. Real world electromagnetic disturbances are much more messy than that.
A nuclear EMP will severely disrupt the upper atmosphere, so it could be
several hours after an EMP before you get decent shortwave reception with any
radio, but that will be long before you could get information from any other
source. If you're in the United States, you may be able to get emergency
information from a local NOAA Weather Radio station. I believe that a few NOAA
emergency transmitters are EMP-protected, but most are not. Repairs to many of
these transmitters may be able to be made by military personnel, who can also
supply emergency power to them for a while, but that emergency power may not
last very long. If you're in the United States, though, it is important to have
a NOAA Weather Radio. These radios really are inexpensive, and whenever the
NOAA transmitters are working, they can provide local information that is
critically important. Like your shortwave radio, an emergency NOAA Weather
radio needs to be kept in a nested faraday cage until you need it. NOAA Weather
Radios could be especially important in the case of a large solar superstorm,
where the radios would probably continue to work and give information, even
though much of the power grid could be out for years.
Many people severely underestimate the need for information in any kind of a
disaster. In recent examples of long-term disasters (such as the breakdown of
civilization in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s), many people actually died
while undertaking risky activities in order to obtain information. Many 21st
century humans have an addiction to information that, although it has greatly
improved their standard of living, it would cause them to take even greater
risks than people did only a generation earlier. The important thing is to
think about the importance of information well before any sort of a disaster
happens.
If you have a spare laptop computer, it can also be stored in nested faraday
cages, just like your radio.
LED and CFL lights: LED lights (and, to a lesser extent, compact
fluorescent lights) can be very useful for post-EMP use because of their
efficiency at a time when very little electricity may be available. Both LED
lights and CFL lights, though, are very sensitive to EMP.
LED lights are solid-state diodes that are made to conduct electricity on one
direction only. In the case of LED lights, the LED itself has a very low
reverse breakdown voltage. Most LED lights will handle a fairly large voltage
spike in the forward direction, but not in the reverse direction. LED lights
are currently the most efficient form of lighting that is available. LED lights
also can last for a very long time. I know of one case where a device that I
built at a television transmitter site in 1980 has some of the older (1970s)
type of LED indicator lights that have been operating continuously for more than
30 years.
Compact fluorescent lights can probably be stored without any kind of EMP
protection because the base of the light is so small that they are unlikely to
pick up enough voltage for the imbedded transistors to be damaged. CFL bulbs
are almost certain, however, to be damaged if they are in a socket at the time
of an EMP since they have two switching transistors embedded into the base of
the CFL. These switching transistors, although they are out of sight, would
very likely be damaged by high voltages picked up by any wiring external to the
CFL device itself.
If you learn that you have been in an EMP attack, don't make any premature
assumptions about how bad it may have been. It may have just hit a part of the
country, or it may have been with a relatively small weapon so that the power
grid may be back up and running in a few weeks. It also could be from a large
weapon, or multiple weapons, that totally destroyed the infrastructure of the
country. There is an enormous spectrum of possibilities for an EMP attack.
Don't be fooled by the either-or myth, or any of the other common
EMP
Myths that are discussed elsewhere on this web site.
Much of what has been written elsewhere about faraday cages is based upon the
assumption that the faraday cage is going to be a room or building sized
structure. Large professionally-built faraday cages need to be well-grounded,
but for smaller faraday cages, such as you would use to shield a radio or a
laptop computer, any wire running to a ground is likely to just function as an
antenna, and possibly as a very efficient antenna for gathering EMP.
Grounding for EMP is a very specialized area of technology. In
fact, grounding for just about any application other than simple static
discharge or some basic kinds of electrical safety are also very specialized
areas of technology.
As the Soviets learned in 1962, even large underground conductors (such as
underground power lines) can absorb huge induced currents from nuclear EMP. The
same thing can happen to underground conductors like cold water pipes, which are
commonly used for more primitive types of grounding. In a nuclear EMP, a cold
water pipe ground may become a large underground antenna if it is connected to a
long underground pipe. Although these underground pipes probably won't pick up
very much of the fast E1 pulse, they can pick up rather large DC-like currents,
and you don't need unexpected electrical currents coming from what you thought
was a ground connection. (The corrosion of underground pipelines due to the
electric currents induced by moderate solar storms has been a well-known problem
for decades.)
For shielding small items like radios and other electronics equipment, use
the nested faraday cage system of alternating foil (or screen) and
plastic, and don't bother with the ground connection (unless you plan to
physically bury your equipment). EMP grounding gets very tricky, and the
ordinary rules for grounding do not apply. (Most high-power transmitter
antennas are actually at a DC ground.)
I sometimes regret using the term faraday cage at all because
that term has a very specific meaning in the engineering world, and few
non-engineers understand the difference between a faraday cage and a partial
(but possibly quite adequate) electromagnetic shield. A steel enclosure is
not a good enough electrical conductor to be called a faraday cage, but it
may provide enough electromagnetic shielding to protect its contents. A related
popular myth is that there is a sharp and well-defined boundary between what is
protected from EMP and what is not.
Military systems have very rigid specifications for electromagnetic shielding
because they are trying to protect against a multitude of unknown factors.
Unless an individual has a very large amount of available wealth, such a high
level of protection is probably not going to be relevant for an individual. The
level of shielding that is adequate in any particular case depends upon a great
many factors, including the strength of the EMP, the distance and direction to
the weapon and the electromagnetic sensitivity of the particular equipment that
you are trying to protect. This electromagnetic sensitivity varies greatly with
every electronic device, and the sensitivity changes rapidly as technologies
change.
A few days after an EMP attack, a lot of people will become really terrified
as their food and water supplies run out, and they discover that there is no way
to obtain fresh supplies. Within two or three weeks, the military services will
likely come to the rescue for many people. If the size of the attack has been
very large, though, that period of relief will probably not last very long. An
even larger problem for food distribution is that any kind of centrally-directed
distribution, no matter how well-intentioned, is highly inefficient. If you
drive into any very large city with enough food for everyone, no centralized
organization has ever figured out how to devise a mechanism that is anything
close to being as efficient as the marketplace to get the food to everyone. In
any case, most people will soon simply begin to starve to death.
For many people, their first concern regarding an EMP attack or a solar
superstorm is the protection of their personal electronics, or even their
automobiles. For nearly everyone, though, the first real problem they
will face will come from the loss of power to the pumps that supply their
water -- and with the computers that maintain the only local food supplies.
Although most individuals cannot do anything to protect critical infrastructure
computers or to protect the power to critical central utility water pumps and
sewage systems, some advanced planning can increase the chances that you will
have an adequate supply of food and water.
Whatever the scope of the EMP attack, the longer that you can remain at home
and be fairly self-sufficient, the better things will be for you. This is
likely to be especially true during the first few weeks after the EMP event. In
most industrialized countries, it is not customary for individuals to keep very
much in the way of emergency supplies in their homes. In fact, many people who
do keep many emergency supplies are regarded with some suspicion, thought to be
"survivalists" or some other strange breed of humans. Disasters are frequent
enough, though, that any prudent individual should maintain some basic level of
self-sufficiency. Most people in industrialized countries see large-scale
emergencies happening frequently on television, while maintaining the irrational
and completely unwarranted assumption that it will never happen to them.
Therefore, it is the people who do not plan for personal emergencies who ought
to be regarded with suspicion as a strange and irrational breed of human.
There are several very reliable companies that specialize in these emergency
supplies. The MREs (meals ready to eat) used by military services, especially
during emergencies, have to be made on an industrial scale, and they are
available for sale to individuals during non-emergency times. The MREs are
not the best choice for emergency supplies, though, because of the
limited lifetime compared to canned dehydrated and canned freeze-dried food.
Many of these same companies that make MREs also make freeze-dried food in cans,
which have a far longer shelf life and a much lower daily relative cost. After
any sort of large-scale disaster, these supplies are only going to be available
from government agencies, and government agencies will only have a finite
supply. Many basic emergency supplies can be purchased in advance of the
emergency from reputable companies that have been making these emergency food
supplies for years. The food that these companies sell normally has a shelf
life of 5 to 25 years or more, depending upon exactly how it is prepared and
packaged. Although I do not want to get into the process of naming companies,
one that I believe to be one of the best, especially for those who have not
thought about the subject before, is Emergency Essentials.
For any emergency food supplies that you do get, it is important to get
food that you personally like and are actually likely to use, even if a personal
emergency never happens. Then, if an emergency does happen, it will be you,
not distant relief workers, who will determine what the content of your food
supply is. If you get food that you actually like, you will be motivated to
actually use it, and you won't have to throw it out as it approaches its maximum
storable life.
Some people keep only grains as an emergency food supply. Although some raw
grains have a very long shelf life and a high calorie density, they do not have
an adequate spectrum of nutrients for long-term use. In any emergency situation
where scarcity of food is a long-term problem, we are likely to see the return
of long-forgotten nutritional diseases such as scurvy and various kinds of other
vitamin deficiencies, especially of the B vitamins and vitamin D.
Don't forget about water. Few people keep an emergency supply
of water, in spite of the fact that it is inexpensive and easy to do. Almost
every country of the world has a period of days every year where many people in
some large area are without drinkable water. In most countries, nearly all
of the water is pumped by electric motors. After a major EMP attack or a solar
superstorm, electricity for most of those pumps is going to be unavailable for a
very long period of time. It would be easy for most cities to have a protected
emergency electrical supply in place for critical pumps; but, like most EMP
protection activity, although it is easy and could possibly save millions of
lives, it is not being done.
A good source of information and products in a situation where the electric
grid is down, especially for obtaining well water in such a situation, is the Lehmans web site. Lehmans
sells galvanized well buckets, which are long narrow metal buckets that will
retrieve water from a well when the pumps aren't working. Metal well buckets
can also be used to retrieve fuel from underground fuel tanks when the pumps are
not working. Lehmans is often out of stock of these galvanized well buckets.
They have been getting to be difficult to find since people have gotten
concerned about the fragility of the electric grid, but having a well bucket can
be life-saving.
It is also a good idea to have plenty of fire extinguishers. The immediate
aftermath of either a nuclear EMP attack or a large solar superstorm is likely
result in a number of fires, along with the elimination of the water necessary
to extinguish the fires. Both the E3 component of a nuclear electromagnetic
pulse, as well as the DC-like currents induced by a large solar superstorm, are
likely to overheat thousands of transformers that are connected to long wires.
Although it is the destruction of the very large transformers in the power grid
that could keep the power grid from being restored for many years -- many much
smaller transformers, such as those on utility poles, and spread throughout
suburban neighborhoods, are at risk of overheating to the point that they cause
fires. Although the great majority of the smaller transformers are likely to
survive, many of these transformers are very old, and some small fraction of
them are likely to severely overheat.
Medicine is another very important thing that must be considered. If there
are medicines that are required by someone in your household, it is always
prudent to have an extra supply on hand. In many countries, insurance restricts
the amount of medicine that you can buy. It is often actually less expensive to
pay the full price for prescription medicine, especially when generics are
available. Buying prescription medicine out of your own pocket makes it much
easier to stockpile a supply for emergencies. There is a fairly new web site
operated by a physician that discusses the problem of medicine storage for use
during disasters. See the Armageddon Medicine site.
If you want to really be part of the solution, instead of part of the
problem, and increase the probability that the country can return to normal
within a few years after an EMP attack, then you can be prepared to become part
of the new infrastructure. The more electronics equipment that you can store
under nested faraday shielding, the better. If you want to be able to use that
electronics equipment after the batteries run down, you will need a personal
power source. A simple small electric generator, one that does not depend upon
electronics to start or run, is always a good idea. After an EMP attack,
though, fuel for the generator will be a scarce commodity. Solar panels can be
used to supply a small amount of electricity indefinitely, especially if you
also have some good rechargeable batteries that match the voltage of your solar
panel. I don't know how resistant solar cells are to EMP (mostly because solar
panel technology is ever-changing and rapidly evolving at the present time), but
if you have something like a 50 watt solar panel, you can store it in a nested
faraday cage. Only very rare individuals are going to be able to have full
electric power after an EMP attack, no matter what advance preparations they
might like to make. In a post-pulse world, though, any amount of reasonably
reliable electricity is going to be a real personal luxury.
If you have solar panels that are now in use, you can obtain some EMP
protection by proper shielding and transient protection on the wires going to
the panels, and by surrounding the panels with aluminum wire cloth (also known
as hardware cloth). Aluminum wire cloth is somewhat difficult to find, but it
is available. Aluminum wire cloth with openings of 0.4 to 0.5 inches will not
only supply a certain amount of EMP protection, but can provide some protection
against larger hailstones that can cause damage in severe weather. The wire
cloth will block some of the sunlight, but the right size of wire cloth will
block less than 15 to 25 percent of the sunlight. If you are making a new solar
panel system, some consideration should be given to putting the solar panels
inside of a cage made of aluminum wire cloth. This is much easier to do during
the original installation. The cage of aluminum wire cloth should completely
surround the panels. If your solar panels are mounted just above the ground (as
opposed to a rooftop system), don't make the mistake of assuming that the soil
below is a mystical perfect ground into which EMP magically vanishes. In a
ground-mounted solar panel system, the wire cloth enclosure needs to go
underneath the system, preferably underground.
If you plan to use solar cells or battery power, you will probably want to
keep a small inverter under shielding. Inverters that can step up ordinary 12
volt DC power to a few hundred watts of household AC are not terribly
expensive. For people who own protected photovoltaic solar cells, a number of
DC-powered appliances have recently become available. Transient protection
(capable of reacting to the fast E1 pulse) must be supplied on the electronic
components of any solar cell system, such as the inputs and outputs of charge
controllers and inverters. Any wire runs of any length should be shielded.
If you're trying to protect an existing solar panel system, protecting the
wiring (even if it is shielded) from transients will require the services of
someone knowledgeable in EMP transient protection. In most cases, the most
economical solution is to keep spare components, especially inverters and charge
controllers, stored under electromagnetic shielding.
If you do have access to post-EMP electricity sufficient to run a microwave
oven occasionally, that can be a very efficient way of cooking food in many
situations. Microwave ovens are about 30 times as efficient as conventional
means for cooking food. The problem is that most microwave ovens couldn't be
turned on after an EMP event due to the sensitivity of the solid-state control
circuitry. The magnetron that generates the heat in a microwave oven would
probably survive an EMP just fine. Microwave ovens are heavily shielded, but
the sensitive control circuits are outside of the shielding. A few microwave
ovens are controlled by a mechanical timer, and these would probably be fully
functional after an EMP (assuming that you can occasionally get enough
electricity to operate them). You can still find mechanical-timer-controlled
microwave ovens occasionally, although they are getting harder to find every
year. I bought one about five years ago at K-Mart for $40 for post-EMP use. I
have recently seen small microwave ovens with electro-mechanical controls come
back onto the market.
The chamber of an older microwave oven is an efficient faraday cage for most
purposes which can be used for shielding small electronic items. It is
important that any microwave oven used for this purpose should have its power
cord cut off close the the body of the microwave oven. This should be done
both to prevent accidentally turning on the microwave oven with electronics
inside and to prevent the power cord from acting as an antenna to conduct EMP
into the interior of the oven. Some newer microwave ovens have a chamber that
is designed to shield microwaves, but may not effectively shield some lower
frequencies. Anything that you are hoping to use as an electromagnetic shield
should be tested by putting a radio inside of the shield tuned to a strong FM
station. If you can hear the FM station while the radio is inside of the
shield, then the shield is not adequate. There are so many things that can go
wrong with electromagnetic shielding that any shielding that you are using
should be tested first using the FM radio test. This test should be repeated
using a strong local AM station. (Be sure to remove the batteries from any
equipment before putting it in permanent storage, though.)
Laptop computers are generally much easier to protect from EMP than desktop
computers. This is true both because of the smaller size of laptop computers
and the fact that desktop computers have numerous cables which act as antennas
for EMP -- and which conduct the pulse directly to the very sensitive
electronics inside the computer. Even laptop computers must be well-shielded
and without any connections to unprotected wires. The U.S. military contractors
have developed shielding devices so that laptop computers can continue to be
used during EMP attacks. Devices such as these, however, are not available on
the commercial market.
If you want to store larger items in a faraday cage, you can use copper
screen or aluminum screen. Most commercial faraday cages use copper screen, but
copper screen is expensive and is difficult for most individuals to obtain.
Bright aluminum screen works almost as well, and aluminum screen can be obtained
in rolls at many building supply stores such as Home Depot. Don't worry about
the fact that this screen is not a solid material. The size of the tiny
ventilation holes in the mesh of ordinary window screen is irrelevant to EMP
protection. Aluminum screen can make a very effective
electromagnetic shield. Ordinary ferrous (iron-containing) window screen is
not a good material for a faraday cage because it is a poor electrical
conductor. Iron-containing material such as steel can be an excellent EMP
shield, but the problem with things such as iron-containing screen is the
difficulty of getting a good connection between various parts of the screen.
Do keep in mind, though, that anything even approaching a room-sized faraday
cage is likely to only be a partial shield unless it is carefully and
professionally designed and maintained, something that is completely impractical
for most individuals. A partial shield, though, can often reduce
electromagnetic signals from the outside by a critical amount. When I was
working at a broadcast transmitter site that had an unacceptable level of
electromagnetic radiation from the FM broadcast antenna into the area at ground
level where the vehicle was commonly parked, I had a carport built with copper
screen imbedded into the roof of the carport. The reduction in electromagnetic
radiation beneath the carport was quite dramatic -- as actually measured using
professional equipment. Since nuclear EMP comes in from a fairly high angle, it
is likely that a similar arrangement, but using aluminum screen, would reduce
the EMP substantially, possibly enough to protect vehicles and other large items
stored below the shielded structure. In the case of the carport that I had
built, I grounded the imbedded screen because I knew that the wire leading to
ground would not act as more of an antenna than a ground for the shield. (I
also knew that the ground at the bottom of the carport was an extremely
well-designed ground.) Although most small faraday cages should not be
grounded because of the "accidental antenna" problem, if a carport shield can be
well-grounded at all four corners, then a direct wire going to a ground rod at
each corner would probably be a good idea.
One question that most people don't think about is how to test the shielding
efficiency that you are using. Most people don't have access to professional
electromagnetic field measuring equipment, and they certainly don't have any
nuclear weapons laying around the house. The most damaging part of a nuclear
EMP has frequency components that run roughly from the AM broadcast band to the
FM broadcast band. The components that are most likely to damage ordinary small
electronic items are near the FM broadcast band. Therefore, you can make a
rough test of your shielding effectiveness by tuning a radio to a strong FM
station and see if your shielding silences the radio so that you can't receive
the FM station. You can try the same thing with AM. In general, the good
electrical conductors like copper or aluminum will be better at shielding the
higher frequencies in the FM range, while steel cases may perform better in the
lower-frequency AM band. The AM and FM reception test is an imperfect test, but
it will give you some valuable information, and it is the only thing available
at any reasonable cost to most people.
It is important to have all of the computer data that is important to you
backed up onto optical media, like CD or DVD. Paper printouts are
fine, but after an EMP attack, most of the data on paper printouts will simply
never get typed back into computers, so those paper printouts will just become
your personal mementos.
CD and DVD data (in other words, optical media) is not affected by
EMP. Even if your computers are destroyed, if the country's economy can get
re-built after an EMP attack, then new computers can be purchased from other
continents. If all the computer data is gone, then recovery is going to be many
years later than it would be if the data could just be reloaded from optical
media. Computer data runs our modern world. It is a major part of the
invisible magic that I mentioned at the top of this page. If you own a small
business, that computer data can be especially important. (It is probably not a
good idea to use double-sided DVDs, though, since there is the remote
possibility of arcing between layers during electronic attacks. It is best to
just use single-sided single-layer media.) For long-term storage of data,
archival grade CD-R and DVD-R media are available at a reasonable
price from manufacturers such as Verbatim and Memorex. The archival grade media
are much more likely to last for many years or decades, and they don't cost that
much more than standard media. Most stores don't carry archival grade media,
but they aren't that difficult to find, especially on larger electronics stores
on the internet.
Protecting most of the electronic appliances in your house against EMP, if
they are plugged in and in use, is probably hopeless. There is always the
possibility, though, that you will be near the edge of an area that is affected
by an EMP attack. For this possibility, the combination of ordinary surge
suppressors and ferrite suppression cores could be very valuable. There is at
least one company that makes surge suppressors that look much like ordinary
retail store surge suppressors, that are designed to be fast enough for nuclear
EMP.
Ferrite suppression cores are those imbedded cylindrical things that make the
cylindrical protrusion in the power cords on sensitive electronics equipment.
They can be very effective to protect your equipment against ordinary
transients --such as the type that occur constantly on the power lines and
slowly damage your electronics equipment. The ferrite suppressors on power
cords (and inside of many surge protectors) are usually the common type 43
ferrite material, which offers a considerable amount of protection against
ordinary transients, but would do only a little to protect against the very fast
E1 component of a nuclear EMP. You can buy separate snap-on ferrite
suppressors, including snap-on ferrite suppression cores with type 61 ferrite,
which will absorb much faster pulses. The ferrite cores with material 61 don't
cost all that much more than the older ferrite, and they should attenuate the
spike from a nuclear EMP much better than type 43 material. If you're in an
area where there is a strong EMP, it won't attenuate it enough to do any good at
all, but if you're at the edge of the affected area, or just get a nearby
lightning strike, or have a lot of ordinary voltage spikes on your power line,
these snap-on ferrite cores with material 61 could be extremely valuable. They
are sold by companies such as Mouser Electronics. Look for items such as Fair-Rite part
number 0461167281 or 0461164281.
Items like surge suppressors and ferrite suppression cores are only going to
be effective against relatively small pulses that come in through the power
line. A large EMP will totally and completely fry your large screen television
by directly inducing currents in the equipment itself that are far too large for
it to handle. The same is true for much of the other electronics in your home.
There is no reason to assume, though, that any EMP attack will be maximally
effective -- or that you will never be right at the edge of the affected area.
Also, even if an EMP attack never happens, an endless barrage of small
voltage spikes is eating away at your electronics equipment every day unless you
are doing something to protect against it.
There are all kinds of EMP attack scenarios. There are many situations one
can imagine where the area around the edges of the EMP zone is extremely large.
There could be entire large cities where even the unshielded equipment with
minimal protection mostly survives, but everything unprotected is fried.
There is actually quite a lot that can be done to protect your electronics
from a small EMP attack or if you happen to be at the edge of the EMP-affected
area. If you live in a lightning-prone area, many of these things will give
your electronics equipment a much longer lifetime. Repeated hits from small
electrical transients is a major cause of electronic failures, ranking second
only to heat as a cause of most types of electronic failure.
It is important to read the EMP
Commission Report on Critical National Infrastructures, so you'll have some
idea of the scope of the EMP problem. Note: This is a 200-page
report (7 megabytes), and could take a half-hour or more to download if you are
on a slow dial-up connection.
This EMP Commission report is the best information, but definitely not the
last word, on likely EMP effects on today's infrastructure and equipment. The
EMP Commission relied heavily on data from simulators, and this data does not
explain all of the effects that were actually seen in the 1962 nuclear tests,
especially in the Soviet EMP tests over Kazakhstan.
One thing that you'll discover in that Critical National Infrastructures
Report is that automobiles and trucks seem to be more resilient against EMP
attacks that what is portrayed in most fiction. Although many vehicles
would be rendered inoperative, and it will be a regular "demolition
derby" on streets and highways, many (but not all) vehicles that are not
running at the time of an EMP will be likely to run after they are started
(although there is a very high probability that your car will experience
electronic damage outside of the electronic ignition system, and your car may
have to be started in an unconventional way. It is also possible that you may
have to momentarily disconnect the battery so that electronic modules can
recover from an EMP-caused latch-up condition, a situation unique to EMP.) It
may be necessary to have a maintenance manual for your car so that you, or
someone you know, can figure out how to bypass the damaged modules in your
car.
Vehicles, especially gasoline vehicles, have to have a robust amount of
electromagnetic shielding around the entire electronic ignition system.
Otherwise, the ignition noise from all the automobiles would render radio and
television sets unusable (especially car radios). Today's automobiles have
published standards for electromagnetic shielding, but there is not much
consistency in shielding requirements. You can check this
list from Clemson University for a partial list of the many and varied
standards for electromagnetic shielding of automobiles.
Some additional information on vehicles may be found on the EMP
Effects on Vehicles Page.
The most difficult part of operating a car after an EMP event (or even a
solar superstorm) is likely to be obtaining gasoline. It is very foolish to
ever let the level of gasoline in your tank get below half full. In a wide
range of emergencies, one of the most valuable things to have is a full tank of
gasoline. A solar superstorm will NOT damage your automobile; but by
knocking out the power grid, it can make fuel almost impossible to find.
It is important to remember that the last time an automobile was
actually tested against nuclear EMP was in 1962. Everything since then
has been in simulators that we hope are close to the real thing.
One common question people ask is about grounding the frames of cars. In
most situations, attempts to ground the frame of a car are more likely to just
make matters worse by providing an accidental antenna for EMP. The
safest way to provide a modest amount of EMP protection for a car is to keep it
parked inside a metal shed.
Retrofitting an automobile to make it EMP-resistant is a project that would
be too difficult and expensive for most people. For those who want to try, the
only authoritative document that I know to be available is one called "EMP
Mitigation - Protecting Land Mobile Vehicles from HEMP Threat Environment" which
was published in March, 2011. To find this document, go to the Protection Technology Group
page, then click on the Knowledge Base link at the top of the page. Scroll down
on the Knowledge Base page until you get to the article that you want. The
article specifically applies to military vehicles, but has relevance to
commercial vehicles as well. Note that the part of the referenced article that
refers to bonding of "all metallic structures to a single point ground system"
is referring to an electrical chassis ground on the vehicle, not
to an earth ground.
(I'm not giving a direct internal link to that page on protection of vehicles
because the Protection Technology Group has been making extensive changes to its
web site in recent months, and the exact location of the article on their site
may change.)
I highly recommend any of the articles on the Protection Technology Group
Knowledge Base page as an excellent source of information about EMP and/or
lightning protection.
In the 1962 Soviet high-altitude nuclear tests over Kazakhstan, even military
diesel generators were damaged. This process was apparently started by a large
voltage spike from the fast E1 component of the pulse punching through the
insulation on the wiring at a single point. According to Vladimir M. Loborev,
one of the chief scientists who studied this phenomenon, "The matter of this
phenomenon is that the electrical puncture occurs at the weak point of a
system. Next, the heat puncture is developed at that point, under the action of
the power voltage; as a result, the electrical power source is put out of action
very often." (From his report at the 1994 EUROEM Conference in Bordeaux,
France.)
This should be a warning to anyone who is planning to use any very old
vehicle for possible use after an EMP event. If you have a
pre-electronic-ignition era vehicle, it is important that you also have an
electrical wiring diagram for the vehicle, and plenty of fuses (and I do mean
plenty of fuses) and some critical electrical spare parts. My own
personal experience in maintaining a 1959 model RCA high-power television
transmitter until the year 2000 tells me that it is very easy for high voltages
to punch through old insulation. Although post-EMP repair of these older
vehicles may be easier than repair of a modern vehicle, it can be very
frustrating, since very old insulation on electrical wiring can become extremely
brittle.
To protect small generators from the kind of insulation puncture in the
windings that was experienced in the 1962 Soviet tests, it is likely that simple
MOV transient protectors (wired across one of the 120-volt outlets) on most
generators would provide sufficient protection. The MOVs are not fast enough to
capture the leading edge of the EMP spike, but it takes a lot more energy to
punch through enamel insulation than to damage microelectronics, so it is likely
that these MOVs would provide adequate protection for the insulation. Small
MOVs are readily available from companies such as Radio Shack (part number
276-568). (It is unlikely that these MOVs would be fast enough to protect any
microelectronics that may be in the generator, though.)
If you are constructing any kind of EMP protection that does need a ground
connection, make sure that it is a good-quality ground. If the soil is dry,
rocky, or otherwise likely to be of poor conductivity, proprietary commercial
grounding compounds are available to enhance the conductivity of your ground rod
to the earth. Bentonite is a material that is widely used in drilling
industries that can also greatly enhance conductivity between the grounding
system and the earth. I have found bentonite to be very effective as a
grounding material. For most people, bentonite is easier to obtain and much
more practical than the proprietary commercial grounding compounds. If it is
not feasible to bury a ground rod vertically, a fairly good ground can be made
by digging a trench as long and deep as is feasible, then placing flexible
copper tubing (such as is used in plumbing) in the trench, covering the copper
tubing with bentonite or other grounding compound, covering with topsoil, then
using the above-ground part of the copper tubing for the ground connection. (I
have done a lot of grounding, and I have never in my entire career pounded a
grounding rod into hard or rocky soil. That is an exercise in futility. Either
drill a hole for the grounding rod so that you can surround it with bentonite or
grounding compound, or use a long horizontal trench.)
I have the first draft on-line now of a separate page on this web site about
grounding for EMP, and how to construct a ground that is
likely to avoid the "accidental antenna" problem that is so common when
non-engineers try to construct an electrical ground for EMP. (If you think that
a water pipe or the ground wire on an AC outlet is a good ground for EMP, then
you should definitely forget about grounding. Neither of these connections is
anything close to being an effective EMP ground.)
Steel enclosures of various kinds are often suggested for use as an EMP
shield for storing electronics equipment. Although steel can be a good
electromagnetic shield for lower-frequency components, I have found it to be
considerably inferior to better electrical conductors such as copper and
aluminum in actual measurements in intense electromagnetic environments. Steel
has different characteristics from better electric conductors such as
copper and aluminum, so the best situation if you are using an steel enclosure
is to add a layer of copper or aluminum screen or foil as an additional layer of
shielding. (Steel tends to be better at shielding lower frequency components,
but aluminum and copper are better at shielding the higher frequency components
that are more likely to damage smaller items.) Actually, there is evidence that
the very best EMP shields would be alternating layers of steel and aluminum or
copper, with an insulating material separating the layers of metal. (This is
how some electromagnetically shielded buildings are actually constructed.) The
main problem with consumer steel enclosures is that they are usually painted to
resist corrosion, and the paint is an electrical insulator that keeps the steel
from really electrically surrounding the objects inside. This is why a
galvanized garbage can with a lid works quite well as an EMP shield, but a
painted steel cabinet doesn't work nearly as well.
One very effective means for isolating disturbances on the power line from
electronics equipment is the use of a "double-conversion" type of "true online"
UPS (uninterruptable power supply). Any very large E1 pulse coming in on the
power line would destroy the UPS, but the UPS would have isolated the equipment
from the power line transient before failing. It is important to note that most
uninterruptable power supplies on the market are NOT the "true online"
type, and are of very limited usefulness for isolating the equipment from the
power line (even for ordinary voltage spikes). Most inexpensive uninterruptable
power supplies let much of the voltage spike hit the equipment before switching
to internal battery power after the AC line power has failed.
The best of the small true online UPS units are those made by SOLA, but they
are also rather expensive. Tripp-Lite makes a series of true-online
double-conversion UPS units that are less expensive and are easier to for most
people to find. (Many major UPS manufacturers have been rather deceptive in the
past about whether their UPS units are actually the true-online
double-conversion type, although most companies are becoming more honest about
the architecture of their UPS units since the difference in actual equipment
protection is quite considerable.)
The true online UPS units can also isolate equipment from the effects of the
solar-storm-like E3 pulse or the effects of an actual solar superstorm.
Although the principal effects of E3-type events for the individual is total
loss of power from the power grid, these events could cause extreme distortions
in the AC power waveform for a short amount of time until the grid collapses.
This extremely-distorted AC could burn out motors and damage electrical and
electronics equipment in a very short amount of time unless measures are taken
to isolate the equipment from the power line by using a true online UPS or a
ferro-resonant transformer. Certain types of ferro-resonant transformers, such
as the SOLA CVS series, can isolate equipment from power line distortions by
insuring that the equipment gets either a pure sine wave or nothing at all. The
SOLA CVS transformers are also extremely effective at blocking most voltage
transients from getting into equipment, although they won't completely block
extremely large and fast transients such as those from the fast E1 component of
a nuclear EMP.
One very important consideration for anyone using a UPS or a
ferro-resonant transformer for protection any equipment containing a motor of
any size (even a refrigerator) is that motors have very high start-up currents,
and neither UPS units nor ferro-resonant transformers are designed for motor
operation. If you are trying to use either a UPS or a ferro-resonant
transformer to protect any appliance where a motor is a significant part of the
load, you have to select a UPS or ferro-resonant transformer that has several
times the rated load of the appliance.
Because electronics equipment is becoming more vulnerable to voltage
transients all the time, the surge suppressors that are sold for protecting
expensive consumer electronics are getting better all the time. Today's
consumer AC plug-in transient suppressors are much faster than those sold just a
two or three years ago, and many of the newer units will absorb much larger
voltage spikes. Although none of the consumer-type surge protection devices are
likely to be completely effective against EMP, they may be helpful in protecting
some types of household appliances.
If you have a small business with too much critical data to routinely back up
onto optical media, you should consider looking for a data center with EMP
protection and plenty of backup power. Many data centers are actually quite
fragile, and many have proven to lack even the ability to survive a severe rain
storm. Some data centers, though, occupy former military facilities and claim
to be EMP-hardened. You may want to consider backup data centers such as Infobunker and Cyberbunker.
Those who trust in the inherently fraudulent concept of "cloud computing"
will find that, after a major electromagnetic disturbance, the "cloud" will have
dissipated into the clear skies. When you send your data away into a mystical
"cloud," it actually goes onto real servers; and the vast majority of them are
much more fragile than the computing industry will admit; and this fragility has
been proven by real-world failures.
For anyone with two-way radio equipment or radio receivers that are already
extremely well-shielded and also well isolated from the power line, but left
with the vulnerability of a connection to an external antenna, EMP protection
devices can be obtained that are made by Polyphaser. The
Polyphaser EMP protection devices for antenna connections generally use only
type N connectors (so you may need an adapter), and the cost is generally about
$125. Polyphaser does not sell these devices directly to the customer in small
quantities, but they can be purchased through some specialty electronics
retailers if you know exactly what model number of Polyphaser device that
you want.
For conveniently protecting small electronics, such as laptop computers, when
they are not in use, an aluminum briefcase should be very useful, but there are
large differences in the shielding ability among different metallic briefcases.
First, the briefcase needs to be a solid metal aluminum briefcase (not
the less expensive "aluminum briefcase" that is actually made largely of
aluminum-colored plastic). (The aluminum-colored plastic briefcases are useless
as an EMP shield unless a considerable amount of additional electromagnetic
shielding is added.) If you are unsure of the electromagnetic integrity of your
aluminum briefcase, a layer of electromagnetically shielding metallic spray
paint can be added to the exterior of the briefcase. The cans of
electromagnetically shielding spray paint tend to be rather expensive, but they
can be purchased from companies such as Mouser Electronics. For maximum
effectiveness, there needs to be good electrical contact between the two halves
of the briefcase, especially at the hinges and the latches. A well-shielded
briefcase should be able to completely eliminate reception of an FM radio
receiver that is tuned to a strong FM station and placed inside the briefcase
with the latches secured. Repeat the test with an AM station.
Many lessons about what to expect after an electromagnetic event can be
learned from the aftermath of the March 2011 tsunami in Japan. Unfortunately,
the information about these events after the initial earthquake and tsunami by
the news media in the United States has ranged from horrible to non-existent.
Nearly all of the deaths and suffering after the first hour of the tsunami have
been due to the absence of electricity and electronic communications. Just
about the only place to get accurate information about the aftermath of the
tsunami has been from NHK
World. NHK has shown things like what happens when you try to open the
grocery stores after power is restored after a prolonged outage, and the
difficulties of supplying the grocery stores from the food warehouses when the
inventory control and computerized ordering systems are not working.
It should also be noted that the problems experienced in Japan by certain
nuclear power plants are likely to be serious problems for any country in the
aftermath of a severe solar storm or nuclear EMP. This has been discussed in
connection with EMP long before the tsunami in Japan. Nuclear reactors require
a reliable external source of electricity for cooling systems after any sort of
scram shutdown.
It is important to remember that ionizing radiation from a high-altitude
nuclear EMP detonation will not reach ground level (unless, of course,
the weapon fails to reach "high-altitude.") The following information is
included because of the possibility of an electromagnetic event leading to a
nuclear power plant accident (and because I've been frequently asked about
it).
For any type of moderately large radioisotope exposure, there are basically
three ways to reduce the medical impact of the exposure. One method is with a
chelating agent. Chelating agents bind to the radioactive element and aid in
its excretion from the body. Chelating agents also bind to a broad range of
chemically similar elements in addition to the radioactive substance that you
are targeting, including elements that are necessary for human life. Chelating
agents should generally not be taken continuously for any long period of time
because they will cause deficiencies of important mineral nutrients if they are
taken continuously for too long.
The second way of overcoming a radioisotope exposure is to consume a large
amount of a stable (non-radioactive) isotope of the element being targeted. The
most common use of this method is the use of stable iodine to block the body's
absorption of radioactive iodine by taking large doses of stable iodine, usually
in the form of potassium iodide. This general method can be extended to
minimize the absorption of other radioisotopes as well, but you have to use the
right elements to target the right radioisotopes.
The third way of minimizing damage by radiation is to consume powerful
antioxidant mixtures. Except for neutron radiation, ionizing radiation (alpha,
beta and gamma radiation and X-rays) cause biological damage through oxidation
damage. Animal studies have shown certain combinations of common nutritional
antioxidants to be very effective in minimizing radiation damage. Single
antioxidants do not work nearly as well as well-formulated combinations of
antioxidants. In the separate page on antioxidants for
radiation, there is information about the combination of nutrients that
have good evidence of being very helpful in cases of radiation exposure (and
that are readily available in many countries).
In the event of a nearby nuclear power plant meltdown, there are three
radioisotopes that pose most of the danger to humans. One is radioactive
iodine, which is easily taken up by the thyroid gland. Potassium iodide tablets
are readily available that can saturate the body with iodine and prevent most of
the absorption of radioactive iodine in the human body.
Another radioisotope is cesium-137 (as well as cesium-134, which has a much
shorter half-life and is generally produced in much smaller quantities).
The standard antidote for radioactive isotopes of cesium is pharmaceutical
grade Prussian Blue. (Do not use any kind of Prussian Blue that
is not made for human consumption, or you are likely to just make yourself
sicker.) The United States, and most other major countries, maintain stockpiles
of pharmaceutical grade Prussian Blue. In the United States, these stockpiles
are deployed at various sites across the country. Nevertheless, the doses of
Prussian Blue are unlikely to reach individuals before they have already
absorbed a significant dose of radioactive cesium.
An alternative antidote for radioactive cesium is potassium. A healthy human
body will try to tightly regulate its internal levels of potassium. If
potassium levels are not saturated in the presence of radioactive cesium, the
human body will try to absorb the cesium instead. Although potassium is a
common element in the human diet, taking too much potassium can be
dangerous, or even fatal. A potassium intake that
overloads the body's regulatory system can result in heart rhythm problems that
can be fatal. This is the reason that, in the United States, the Food and Drug
Administration limits the amount of potassium that can be sold in
over-the-counter supplements to no more than 99 mg. per capsule. Timed-release
potassium tablets are available by prescription in larger doses. The
prescription timed-release tablets release potassium slowly over time to prevent
a dangerous potassium overload. One simple way to saturate your body with
potassium with very little risk of potassium overload is by eating bananas.
Bananas have a large amount of potassium, but the human digestive system cannot
absorb the bananas from potassium too rapidly. So potassium overload from
bananas is very rare. (It is true that all bananas are naturally slightly
radioactive, but if there is a lot of radioactive cesium in the environment, the
very tiny amount of radiation from bananas is the least of your problems.)
In any kind of nuclear event (or any event where the electric power grid is
down in an advanced country), you are unlikely to be able to go to the store to
purchase bananas. If the power is out, then buying any kind of food in most
advanced countries is likely to become quite impossible. Fortunately,
freeze-dried banana slices in cans are readily available from nearly any company
that sells freeze-dried foods for long-term storage. The thickly-cut
freeze-dried banana slices maintain their taste quite well. (In fact, you may
have difficulty in resisting the temptation to simply consume them as a snack.)
Consider keeping some freeze-dried bananas in your long-term food storage.
The third radioisotope that is a significant problem after severe reactor
accidents is strontium-90. Strontium-90 is not generally as widely dispersed in
reactor accidents as it is from nuclear weapons detonations within the lower
atmosphere. Strontium-90 can be particularly dangerous, though, since it is
likely to be taken up by the bone, where it can remain in the body for long
periods of time. The absorption of strontium-90 can be limited by taking
adequate calcium. The human body has difficulty distinguishing between calcium
and strontium, and is more likely to absorb strontium-90 when there is an
inadequate amount of calcium in the body.
Another way of limiting the absorption of strontium-90 is by taking natural
(non-radioactive) strontium. In the United States, and some other countries,
natural strontium is available as a nutritional supplement, usually as strontium
citrate. In many other countries, strontium is available as a prescription
medicine in the form of strontium ranelate. Both the nutritional supplement and
the prescription medicine containing strontium are used to strengthen bones.
Human bone that has some of the calcium replaced by natural strontium has been
shown to be significantly more fracture resistant that bone that contains only
calcium.
(Although the subject is outside the scope of the material on this page: for
the unknown radioisotopes that may be present in a "dirty bomb" detonated at
ground level, the antioxidant mix may be the best medical defense. The same can be
said for the detonation of a salted bomb, which could be produced by a country intending
for the weapon to be used by terrorists at ground level. A salted bomb would
not be a militarily useful weapon, but could be easily built by a nation
intending to use it as a terrorist weapon simply by constructing a simple
fission bomb with a cobalt tamper.)
For more information on health matters related to radiation, see the Radiation
Emergencies - Health Effects and Treatments page at the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
The aftermath of the 2011 tornados in the United States has exposed the
vulnerability of the cellular telephone system. Most cell phones are too small
to intercept enough EMP to damage them; but the cellular repeaters, which are
necessary to the operation of the cellular telephone system, are very vulnerable
in a wide range of disaster situations. Unfortunately, the cellular telephone
system was not designed with any peer-to-peer (direct cell-phone-to-cell-phone)
capability. This means that if the cellular repeater stations go down, your
working cell phone becomes useless.
Some cellular telephone companies have developed mobile repeater stations for
use in disaster situations. These have proven themselves to be mostly for show,
and quite inadequate in any real-life large-scale emergency situation. Although
these mobile cellular repeaters work quite well, there just aren't enough of
them, and they can't get to the proper locations fast enough.
Your personal EMP and solar storm protection plan is likely to be very
different depending upon where you live, and how many other people live with
you. The only way to make an effective plan is to try to imagine an unpleasant
future where you are suddenly thrust back into the middle ages. One thing that
an EMP or a severe solar storm won't destroy is the knowledge of how to re-build
effectively. Hopefully, even if we don't get an robust and permanent
infrastructure built in time to prevent a catastrophe, the rebuilt post-pulse
electrical and electronic infrastructure will be something that is permanent,
and that all of us can finally trust, unlike the very fragile infrastructure
that we have today.
Other EMP pages at this web site:
For additional information on preparedness, especially as it relates to
electromagnetic pulse, there were a special series of excellent internet radio
programs on the subject produced by EMPactAmerica in September, 2011. Those
radio programs are available free at http://www.empactradio.org.
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National
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National
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