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Former CIA Director: We’re Not Doing Nearly Enough To Protect Against The EMP Threat
Former CIA Director: We’re Not Doing Nearly Enough To Protect Against The EMP Threat
On Monday we covered the release of an open letter written to President Obama, issued by a committee of notable political, security and defense experts — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — on the country’s concerning level of vulnerability to a natural or man-made Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP).
An EMP has very real potential for crippling much of our electrical grid instantaneously. Not only would that immediately throw the social order into chaos, but the timeline to repair and restart the grid in most estimated scenarios would take months to a year or more. Those curious on learning exactly how devastating an EMP can be can read our report on the topic from last summer.
This week, we’ve been fortunate enough to get several of the authors of that open letter to join us and explain in depth what they conclude needs to be done to protect against the EMP risk: former CIA Director and current Ambassador James Woolsey, Executive Director of the EMP Task Force Dr Peter Pry, and security industry entrepreneur Jen Bawden.
What’s frightening in this story is not just the carnage an EMP could wreak, but the apparent rabid intransigence with which the electrical power lobby is fighting any responsibility for defending against one:
Chris Martenson: Now, we’ve had a commission to assess the threat to the United States from an EMP attack, which delivered a report back in 2008. In fact, I found no less than two congressional commissions, a National Academy of Science report, other U.S. government sponsored studies, including your own. All have raised heightened concerns about this issue. All have found, all of them, that the EMP threat poses a significant and existential threat to the United States, and yet here we are still talking about this. Why is that?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP
Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP
In the past here at Peak Prosperity, we’ve written extensively on the threat posed by a sustained loss of electrical grid power. More specifically, we’ve warned that the most damaging threat to our grid would come from either a manmade or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
A good friend of mine, Jen Bawden, is currently sitting on a committee of notable political, security and defense experts — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — who are equally concerned about this same threat and have recently sent a letter to Obama pleading for action to protect the US grid.
Before we get to that letter, here’s a snippet from what we wrote on the matter roughly a year ago:
We talk a lot about Peak Cheap Oil as the Achilles’ heel of the exponential monetary model, but the real threat to the quality of our daily lives, if not our lives themselves, would be a sustained loss of electrical power. Anything over a week without power for any modern nation would be a serious problem. A month would lead to chaos and many deaths.
When the power goes out, everything just stops. For residential users, even a few hours begins to intrude heavily as melting freezers, dying cell phones, and the awkward realization that we don’t remember how to play board games nudge us out of our comfort zone.
However, those are just small inconveniences.
For industrial and other heavy users, the impact of even a relatively short outage can be expensive or even ghastly. Hospitals and people on life-assisting machinery are especially vulnerable. Without power, aluminum smelters face the prospect of the molten ore solidifying in the channels from which it must be laboriously removed before operations can be restarted.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP
Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP
Last year, Elliott Management’s Paul Singer highlighted “one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence”– an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). As Michael Snyder previously details, our entire way of life can be ended in a single day. And it wouldn’t even take a nuclear war to do it. All it would take for a rogue nation or terror organization to bring us to our knees is the explosion of acouple well-placed nuclear devices high up in our atmosphere. The resulting electromagnetic pulses would fry electronics from coast to coast.
As PeakProsperity.com’s Chris Martenson explains, the country is extremely vulnerable to an EMP…
In the past here at Peak Prosperity, we’ve written extensively on the threat posed by a sustained loss of electrical grid power. More specifically, we’ve warned that the most damaging threat to our grid would come from either a manmade or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
A good friend of mine, Jen Bawden, is currently sitting on a committee of notable political, security and defense experts — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — who are equally concerned about this same threat and have recently sent a letter to Obama pleading for action to protect the US grid.
Before we get to that letter, here’s a snippet from what we wrote on the matter roughly a year ago:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The EMP Threat: All It Would Take Is A Couple Of Explosions To Send America Back To The 1800s
The EMP Threat: All It Would Take Is A Couple Of Explosions To Send America Back To The 1800s
Our entire way of life can be ended in a single day. And it wouldn’t even take a nuclear war to do it. All it would take for a rogue nation or terror organization to bring us to our knees is the explosion of a couple well-placed nuclear devices high up in our atmosphere. The resulting electromagnetic pulses would fry electronics from coast to coast. Of course this could also be accomplished without any attack. Scientists tell us that massive solar storms have hit our planet before, and that it is inevitable that there will be more in the future. As you will read about below, the most recent example of this was “the Carrington Event” in 1859. If a similar burst from the sun hit us today, experts tell us that life in America could suddenly resemble life in the 1800s, and the economic damage caused could potentially be in the trillions of dollars. This is one of the greatest potential threats that we are facing as a nation, and yet Barack Obama has essentially done nothing to get us prepared.
The technology necessary to conduct such an electromagnetic pulse attack against the United States has become much more accessible in recent years. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, even rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran either already have or will soon have the capability to hurt us in this way…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
EMP-Hardened Ham Radio Communications, by PrepperDoc
EMP-Hardened Ham Radio Communications, by PrepperDoc
EMP attack is often considered the most rigorous of survivalist situations, due to the likely complete loss of electrical grid, many vehicles, and many transistorized/computerized products. Our group worked to provide post-EMP communications that would allow effective communications post-event. We had two major requirements:
- Short Range Communications. Two, separate, defense-hardened homes that were approximately 30 miles apart had to be able to communicate across a medium-sized city, and
- Long Range Communications. Both homes had to be able to receive news from in-state and out-of-state sources. These were considered necessary to receive adequate advance warning of defense issues, such as advancing bandits or armies.
This article describes how we accomplished these goals.
Three of our group possessed or obtained Ham radio licenses of varying levels. Passing the Technician license requires only a few hours of study, allowing voice communications in the VHF bands and limited communications in the high frequency (HF) bands. While long-range (>500 miles) communications can usually be easily accomplished by Ham radio communications in the high frequency bands capable of “skip” communication, survival of that equipment through an EMP attack had to be assured. Cross-city communications initially proved to be more difficult, because of the rolling terrain over the 30 miles between the homes. In fact, using hand-held VHF transceivers, we found it impossible even to achieve direct communications across a 6-mile range that included 200-foot hills.
We assumed that it is unlikely that established VHF repeaters will remain functional after one or more EMP attacks. Therefore, direct radio communications had to be achieved. While we could conceivably place our own repeaters, they would likely be destroyed by subsequent attacks. Thus, everyday 2-meter Ham radio contact via repeater stations does not solve either of our goals. High frequency (HF) communications became the ticket to success.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Secret Homeland Report Warns Solar Storm Could Leave 100 Million Without Power: “We Are Running Out of Time to Prepare”
Homeland Security officials are warning that a major coronal mass ejection, solar flare or electromagnetic pulse may be inevitable and catastrophic to modern civilization. The devastation to the electric grid and modern infrastructure could impact the lives of more than 100 million, and cause untold casualties during prolonged outages.
Homeland Security conducted a study assessing the risks with these extreme solar events (as well as manmade EMPs).
Via Free Beacon
DHS’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) stated in an internal 2012 fact sheet outlining its response plan for severe “space weather” that the actual impact and damage from a future solar storm is not known.
[…]
The report outlines the scenario for a major “coronal mass ejection” from the Sun that will first be detected by U.S. satellites. The magnetic band reaches the earth within 24 to 72 hours, affecting up to 100 million people.
The largest such storms, called G-5s, would cause transformers and transmission lines to be “severely damaged.”
The storms last from hours to a day but can disrupt electric power grid operations, GPS satellites, aircraft operations, manned space flight, satellite operations, natural gas distribution pipelines, and undersea communications cables.
Though acknowledging they lack sufficient information about what exactly might happen, it is clear enough what kind of damage and disruption of service it might pose for the infrastructure that everyone depends upon.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
