Guest post by Steven Goddard
The Effects of One Nuclear Bomb at High Altitude
From Wikipedia
Yesterday’s missile launch from nuclear power North Korea raised particular concern in the military, due to the possibility of EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attack. Almost every piece of technology in our lives is dependent on semiconductors, which contain circuitry that is extremely vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses. From the Federation of American Scientists:
During the Cold War, the US military was very concerned about the fact that US planes used solid state circuitry and Soviet planes used vacuum tubes. It was known that nuclear war would likely cause American planes to drop out of the sky. Since then, we all have become completely reliant on semiconductor technology which controls our transportation, power, satellites, information technology and communication systems. Transistors have evolved over time to smaller and smaller geometries and lower voltages, which make them increasingly vulnerable to EMP.
The US and Russia conducted many nuclear detonations at high altitude prior to 1962, but the integrated circuit had not yet been invented. Some experts believe that an effective EMP attack would send the US and/or Europe instantly back to the dark ages. Civilian planes could lose control and fall from the sky, and cars made since 1980 might instantly and permanently lose steering, engine and brake control. Many phones, computers and Internet switches would become permanently disabled. Newt Gingrich spoke about the danger on Fox News this morning.
Gingrich replied: “There are three or four techniques that could have been used, from unconventional forces to standoff capabilities, to say: ‘We’re not going to tolerate a North Korean missile launch, period.’ … look at electromagnetic pulse, which changes every … equation about how risky these weapons are.”
More from Wikipedia
Ever wonder why (“Axis of Evil”) North Korea and Iran have been rushing to develop nuclear weapons and missile delivery capabilities? It has nothing to do with stopping global warming or making friends with Washington and Whitehall. Some references below. I recommend that everyone read them before they go to the voting booth next time. It is important to have leaders who can do more than talk, because we have bigger and tougher enemies than people who use incandescent light bulbs, and bankers who take holidays in Las Vegas.
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE THREATS TO U.S. MILITARY AND CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE
http://superconductors.org/emp-bomb.htm
http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/emp-terror.htm
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/future-weapons-emp-bomb.html
http://www.electronics-related.com/usenet/design/show/98485-1.php
http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Strategic-Weapon-Systems/EMP-Bomb-Australia.html
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has197010.000/has197010_1.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/mctl98-2/p2sec06.pdf
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp/toc.htm
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1281421.html
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Alright, I did not read the directions correctly. Let’s try that again.
Well, I for one am very happy that I happen to have this little baby in my garage:
http://s712.photobucket.com/albums/ww124/hugh59/?action=view¤t=greeniegreen.jpg
And this little prize on my wrist:
http://s712.photobucket.com/albums/ww124/hugh59/?action=view¤t=ExplorerSmall.jpg
Because after the North Korean or Iranian EMP nuke goes off, I will still be able to drive around and be able to tell time.
It is no fun living without technology. In 1995, I was living on St. Thomas after hurricane Marilyn hit. We spent two months living without electricity! No fun at all. You can survive; you would be amazed at how fast people can adapt, but it was NO fun.
According to NORAD the launch failed. I’m glad whatever it was didn’t make orbit – I keep thinking about a well-timed nuclear explosion doing a massive EMP number on the electronic infrastructure of the US. Here’s hoping the Navy’s got salvage crews trying to track it down and see just what WAS in the nose of that sucker.
And you have to ask yourself – would countries like North Korea and Iran DO that? Would Iran EMP Europe if they could? Knowing what the retaliation would be?
Civilization depends on a lot of things at the present time, but we’ve made ourselves VERY dependent on the microprocessor to control everything from telecommunications and power grids to cars and watches. Destroy the microprocessor – and we’re gonna be in deep trouble.
An EMP is any eco-terrorists wet dream for initiating a sharp reduction in CO2 emmissions and a quick dive in the human population without drastic effects to the rest of the eco-system.
Fortunately eco-terrorists are very unlikely to get hold of a weapon and the delivery system.
Mind you – if a small group were able to hijack a single russian ICBM missile facility and launch with a fresh targetting info for a series of air-bursts from MIRV launchers – could the nascent USA ABM technology (SM3s, Boeing – Lasers, etc) take it out in time..?
(I feel an airport thriller coming on…)
JLawson (17:47:45) :
And you have to ask yourself – would countries like North Korea and Iran DO that? Would Iran EMP Europe if they could? Knowing what the retaliation would be?
MAD works for rational players.
What happens if you have a leader who truely believes that he is on a mission from GOD to rid the world of the godless unbelievers and has sufficient control locally to ensure that his orders are obeyed without question?
The US ballistic submarine fleet will ensure guaranteed retaliation – provided they can be given orders from the President to do so (questionable if there is little response time for the attack).
But retaliation saves no one.
Interesting you should mention this. Seems a magazine meant to recruit and train terrorists was recently published in North Carolina. One of the articles was about EMP and how it could be used by a terrorist.
You are probably right when it comes to eco-terrorists, Graeme. But what about a state like Iran or North Korea? If they shoot off one missile at the US, they may hope that we don’t respond with massive retaliation. It may take a while for the military to realize the damage that has been done by an EMP. By then, it will be hours after the detonation…will they still want to retaliate?
Sorry but I have to correct an error in the story;
“…and cars made since 1980 might instantly and permanently lose steering, engine and brake control.” NNNNNNNo…Yes – the engine would quit if it had electronic ignition *HOWEVER* you would still have control of the steering and brakes even if they were power assisted, it would just be a bit more difficult to steer and brake but you still could.
There are ideas of full ‘drive-by-wire’ systems where even the steering & brakes are digitally controlled (why?!?!). In fact, in my 2003 Suburban, the gas peddle is already that way. The accelerator does not connect to the throttle body by a cable but it turns a potentiometer which is read by a computer which digitally controls a servo/stepper motor on the throttle body. But why in the workd would they do that for the steering & brakes?? Auto-drive? They had better have a manual backup!!
Just my $.02 – back to your regular programming…
Jeff
Steve,
In the 90s I worked for a company developing high speed processor chips using gallium arsenide (GaAs). They were testing the initial samples in a lab, with the covers off the chips. The testing was not going well, they were working late and a security guard saw the lab lights on, and just opened the door and shut off the lights. Suddenly the problem that was bugging the test team went away. The electrical noise from the florescent lights in the lab ceiling was enough to disrupt the function of the chips. They replaced the florescent lights with regular incandescent bulbs and continued the testing.
I spent 20 years in the Air Force as an electronics warfare officer and was in the early FB-111 program, one of the first aircraft with a full digital bombing and navigation system. The computers continued to fail in flight and no one had an explanation. One day flying in formation, the lead aircraft entered a cloud, one of those pre-thunderclouds over the Texas Hill Country, when the lead Navigator declared his computer dead in the water. Actually he said some thing else, but this is a family rated blog. As we entered the same cloud and our computer failed, the lat-long counters stopped moving. I just could not believe that was a coincidence, there was something in the cloud that caused the failure. After an extensive investigation General Electric discovered that a digital computer cable that passed over the pitot boom was getting an energy pulse down the boom, causing some extra ones and zeros in the cable, and the computer diagnostics did not know how the handle the extra information.
Early Volvos has an electronic ignition system. Truckers could pull up next to the Volvos on the freeway and key their high power CB sets and the Volvo engine died. All this demonstrates how vulnerable our computers systems are, even those early military computers. Huge efforts have been put into making military computers less vulnerable, but our home computers and many internet servers are very vulnerable to EMP.
The interesting thing is, that this is a threat that has been well known for about 30 years but outside the military and Civil Defense community has seen little exposure. The first indications of EMP effects and its threat occurred in the shot that effected Hawaii in 1962, but it took some time to study the problem and what protective actions are possible in a modern society. We were actually more vulnerable in some respects in the early 1980’s because much of our installed electronics then had very poor ESD protection (electrostatic discharge) and weak EMI protection (ElectroMagnetic Interference). That was the time period where you heard reports of peoples cars shutting off, or garage doors opening when a nearby trucker key’d his CB radio.
Both EMI and ESD protection on consumer electronics has improved substantially since then, as has consumer level power surge protection. Today many consumer electronics are protected against power line surges with plug in surge protectors. These will help survivability of electronics in the low signal strength areas outside the primary impact area of the EMP, but will not have a lot of value when high field strengths are developed in the areas most effected by EMP.
It is also important to understand the very short warning times that this sort of attack would give. If an ICBM were launched over intercontinental distances (ie Korea or Iran to the U.S.) the flight time from detection of the launch to detonation over a major industrial country would range from roughly 20-30 minutes depending on trajectory and target/launch point distances. If launched from near by land based locations (ie Venezuela -toward- U.S. or Iran -toward- Israel or Europe, or Korea -toward- Japan) the time on target would be much less, closer to 15-20 minutes. If launched from a sea based platform (some of these countries now have submarines and are working on sea launched ballistic missile technology), time on target would be on the order of 10-12 minutes total elapsed time from launch detection to detonation. If you consider the time for the warning messages to be issued, maximum warning time to the general public would range from zero to 3-5 minutes. The Military might get 5-8 minutes.
There are relatively simple protective measures that can significantly harden even domestic consumer electronics but it would take years to implement them on a major scale.
There are also low tech actions that can be used during periods of high threat for isolated systems like PC’s, such as unplugging them and placing them in a low EM environment like a shielded container or wrapping them with layers of aluminum foil to provide some Faraday shielding.
Some recent changes in technology are improving the picture, moving to fiber optic from Cat5 ethernet for example, but all connections to electronics must be protected and even near by “non-traditional” conductors like water and gas pipes and other long metallic structures that can carry currents into and induce currents in near by signal and power lines.
Large installations like switching centers must be protected in layers with both individual component protective devices and system level (the whole building or room) shielding and surge protection. They also may be un-protectable without some re-engineering of ground designs for example.
Ham radio operators have a handle on some of these techniques, in the sort of protective measures they take for lightning strike and EMI protection on their equipment, but the very fast rise time of EMP pulses compared to lightning and other power surge pulses require much more attention to detail on install and location of the protection, and also magnetic shielding as well as typical EMI Faraday shielding.
Steel bodied autos are relatively unaffected until field strengths get very high due to the inherent Faraday and magnetic shielding of the car bodies, and the fact that they float free of local ground paths and are typically are not located close to long conductors which can act as antennas for the EMP energy. At high field strengths they do become sensitive and the damage would typically not be repairable immediately post attack.
Same goes for consumer electronics. Properly installed power surge arresters like MOV’s at the power panel are the best protection but plug in surge Arresters will provide some limited protection. But those protective devices like MOV’s and Zenier Diodes need to be properly installed (very low inductance leads — ie very short leads) to allow them to react quickly enough to handle nanosecond rise time pulses typical of EMP.
Faraday shielding of the electronics themselves — such as older style computer cases which have all steel cases, rather than all plastic cases would be helpful in shielding sensitive internal components from surge voltages. Likewise high quality shielded leads on connections to the computer are necessary to reduce signal strength of both EMF and currents induced in the leads which interconnect devices and power leads.
Larry
I have heard that the military has taken steps to “harden” their systems to protect against EMP. How do they do that?
“The electrical noise from the florescent lights in the lab ceiling was enough to disrupt the function of the chips.”
That’s one reason why the space shuttle uses i386 microprocessors for all the critical gear. There wasn’t a rad hard Pentium (Pentium I) project until the late 1990’s. I am not sure anyone actually builds them. To the best of my knowledge, manned programs use i386 microprocessors.
One word: Silverplate.
I also laughed at this:
Absolutely wrong. For the vast, vast majority of road vehicles, braking and steering are mechanical, NOT in any way shape or form electronic. The closest would be cruise control, which is STILL vacuum actuated in the majority of vehicles.
Actually, my 1987 Daytona Shelby Z has its engine control electronics in a heavily shielded metal container inside the car, also surrounded by the chassis. In addition I made a few modifications as recommended by a friend who did a lot of work with “Silverplating”, and I’m confident my car would still be running. Not so for the 89-93’s, where they put the engine controllers at the very nose in a plastic case… that made no sense to me.
Meanwhile, if I had to I could convert my vehicles to low-tech ignition with just a few hours of soldering and some simple components… unless someone wants to try to convince me that my soldering iron and disconnected components would be destroyed by EMP also.
Once again, an interesting article heavy with hyperbole and low on facts… but entertaining all the same.
is it just me or does that first map seem happy 😉
They use a systematic process of establishing multiple layers of protection.
EMP induces very fast rise time voltage and current pulses on any long conductor exposed to the EMP pulse.
The first level of protection is to place protective devices at all entry points to a facility and to bring all penetrations into the building at a single point if possible. At that entry point they provide a very high quality ground that has very low impedance to fast rise time transients and they “single point” ground things that should be grounded to that point, and then provide protective devices on all the “hot side” conductors that cannot normally be grounded.
The first layer is typically large high energy MOV’s attached with very short leads between the power conductor and the ground. MOV’s act like a non-linear resistor, and their design voltage they have a very high resistance but at high voltages they “break down” and act like a very low resistance. In low power circuits they would typically use ziener diodes for the same function. In the case of RF circuits (radio antennas) they use what are called fast acting gas gap diodes with behave much like a neon light. At voltages below their turn on voltage they are essentially an open circuit, at high voltages the gas ionizes and shorts the voltage spike to ground.
These measures essential “peak clip” the surge.
They also have to in the case of facilities provide a shielded enclosure — basically a large Faraday cage room and place sensitive equipment in side that cage. The cage also is designed to provide magnetic shielding so large magnetic fields cannot induce currents inside the structure. At this point again all penetrations are passed through an entry panel that has additional protective devices on all conductors passing through the panel.
At the device level they harden the design itself so it is tolerant of over voltage on the signal and power leads, and the case of the component provides another layer of Faraday shielding.
The shielded enclosure we had at our emergency operations center had something like 100 db of attenuation. We were only a few miles from a 50,000 watt AM radio station and the antenna towers of multiple megawatt class FM and TV stations, and with the door closed you could not receive any of them on radios that did not have external connections through the penetration panel.
Protection against EMP is not trivial as many normally safe paths become conductors to fast rise time pulses due to inductive and magnetic coupling.
The best low cost protection for consumer level equipment is to turn it off and un plug it , and place it inside a conductive shell (Faraday cage). The simple expedient of wrapping a device with multiple layers of aluminum foil will greatly increase its tolerance to EMP effects.
If the device must be plugged in, the best low cost protection is to install power panel surge protectors and plug in surge protectors at the wall plug, and UPS systems. Their protection is additive, the power panel MOV’s would clip the voltage down to manageable levels for the wall surge protectors and UPS system. High quality lightning surge protection goes a long way toward protecting consumer equipment.
There are lots of paths for interaction so it is hard to setup “expedient” protection for commercial power equipment without testing and good engineering.
If operation under power is critical and the device itself is critical, a DC powered device connected to a protected DC batter pack or free floating battery system would be the best way to go.
Larry
Oh lookey, figure 2 is a mutated cyclops nuclear smiley face.
MUCH over-hyped term.
What most people mean when they use the holy words Faraday shielding is (what I will call) simple EM shielding which is effective against both electric and magnetic fields, because, there are “Faraday shields” that strictly shield the electric component of a field while allowing the magentic to proceed, unimpeded.
So, I don’t think you strictly mean a Faraday shielding in the classic Physics sense, and I wish everyone would school themselves on this aspect.
Look, even wikipedia has it right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_shielding
Also, the literature is rich in the application of “Faraday shields” in induction heaters; the shield is placed between the coil and the workpiece and prevents de-tuning of the coil due to capacitive coupling to the workpiece while allowing the magentic field to be effective on the workpiece.
“There are also low tech actions that can be used during periods of high threat for isolated systems like PC’s, such as unplugging them and placing them in a low EM environment like a shielded container or wrapping them with layers of aluminum foil…”
And people laugh at my tin foil hat.
CodeTech (18:52:47) :
I also laughed at this:
and cars made since 1980 might instantly and permanently lose steering, engine and brake control
Absolutely wrong. For the vast, vast majority of road vehicles, braking and steering are mechanical, NOT in any way shape or form electronic. The closest would be cruise control, which is STILL vacuum actuated in the majority of vehicles.
I happen to know of a simulated EMP test against automobiles, it is over 10 year old now. I don’t know the pulse length or the field strength used in the test. All the late model automobiles engines died after being subjected to the EMP. This would also cause power steering and power brakes systems to fail on vehicles so equipped.
Interestingly, some of the vehicles functioned again after disconnecting the battery and waiting for the engine control computer to reset.
If you’re worried about this:
http://www.lessemf.com/mag-shld.html
The comments are mainly concerned with individual devices or automobiles. My memory says that the early discussions of EMP indicated the power grid was very susceptible. And if we take out a bunch of transformers there are only a limited number of spared on hand.
@CodeTech Once again, an interesting article heavy with hyperbole and low on facts… but entertaining all the same.
Now just how well are the power brakes and the power steering going to work when the engine stops?
A minor point, but the circuit depicted (from Professor Ehsan Afshari, Cornell) was fried by too much current pushed through too little metal….
One common argument that often I heard from left leaning people is that “there is no way Iran would attack the US with one nuke because the US response would wipe them off the face of the earth”.
Then you try the futile excercise in explaining to these people that Shiite Islamists who truely believe in the return of the 12th Imam and the Islamic “end of days” – requires 2 things:
1) that THEY initiate the final battle. Not that we attack them, but they initiate the final battle
2) that we are all destroyed as part of the final battle
Only then will Mohammed return and they get their 72 virgins
People need to understand that for the Islamic extremists – dying as a result of this battle is not only what they want, but what is REQUIRED for them to succeed.
M.A.D. worked because the Russians wanted to live. The Islamists want to die, and they want to take us with them.
The power assist goes away when the prime mover is no longer running, but one can, if capable, armstrong those into
‘compliance’. I lose power steering briefly when turning right into water puddles with a mid 90’s Detroit product …
Gosh, you mean I might actually have to think and act for myself, instead of letting machines do it? I might have to make calculations on paper? I would have to read the books on my shelves or in a library instead of words on a lit screen. I would have to interact face-to-face with others to acomplish my work? I might have to walk somewhere or make things with my hands?
Wait, isn’t that how I started out – lo, those many decades ago?
Yes, I believe I could do that, again. I seem to remember I was good at it.
You?