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EMP-Shielded Power Grids Under Development
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from MarketWatch:
"A one-megaton nuclear bomb detonated 250 miles over Kansas could cripple many modern electronic devices and systems in the continental US and take out the power grid for a long time. ... A solar storm similar to the one that occurred in 1859, which shorted out telegraph wires in the United States and Europe, could wreak havoc on electrical systems. Each of the above scenarios can create a powerful electromagnetic pulse that overloads electronic devices and systems.
IAN staff and Frostburg State University physics and engineering professor Hilkat Soysal are teaming — through a $165,000 project recently approved by the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program — to create renewable energy-powered, electromagnetic pulse (EMP)-protected microgrids that could provide electricity for critical infrastructure facilities in the event of a disaster."
Also available are an EMP threat assessment (PDF) written for the US Congress and an estimate of economic impact (PDF).
About time, George Clooney is thinking of using an EMP device to rob a bank...
Why settle for tin foil hats when you can have tin foil powerplants, houses, cars, etc. It just makes sense.
Sometimes I wish we could throw away technology, and go back to the old days...less stress. Just as long as they don't take my cell phone, wi-fi, internet, DVD's LOL.
... be supporting the governments and their military for which an EMP would most likely come from.
Just more terrorism from those we pay taxes to.
If the grid was shielded, could it be used for broadband Internet?
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
will burying the cables under ground help? sorry if its a dumb question
through a $165,000 project recently approved by the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program
Sounds like pork to me... I hope McCaine shuts this down!
Soon nobody will want to waste an expensive bomb on your broke asses anyway.
This is great news ... as Russia, the middle east and Asia align their nuclear capabilities ... we're investing a whopping $160k on this technology. In case you worried you can probably bet that wall street will be shielded first.
Anyone else having problems? Content from genweb.ostg.org (or .com?) takes forever, holding up page loading.
erm isn't the price somewhat high for technology which already exists? , like a faraday cage?
So if someone wants to screw up the US, and they have one atomic bomb to do so, doesn't defending against an EMP attack just make it more likely they'll go the traditional route and nuke a big city.
Am I the only one who read "IAN staff" as "I Am Not staff" and then thought I am not staff? That doesn't make sense. Fucking slashdot summary!
Ohhhhh... wait a minute... I.A.N... fucking slashdot abbreviations!
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Your car has electronic parts too, dipshit.
Yes, disabling a power plant in Kansas would make my gasoline powered car fail to start.
Yes, disabling a power plant in Kansas would make your gasoline powered, computer controlled, car fail to start.
If you happen to live close enough to the blast.
solar flares need to be shielded from as well.
Umm, nice trolling. Yes it would disable cars in Kansas, but the vast majority of people are not located in Kansas and it wouldn't really take that much time to get unaffected cars from elsewhere.
Yes, disabling a power plant in Kansas would make my gasoline powered car fail to start.
..um don't most/all cars have electronic emission systems...? *eyeroll*
that could provide electricity for critical infrastructure facilities in the event of a disaster."
"Critical infrastructure" had better include the Wal-marts, fire, police, gas stations...
And most importantly: the internet.
The potential effects of a massive EMP or power outage are so bad, that the traditional notion of "critical infrastructure" may not be enough.
I.E. If businesses are down (no power) for months, then you have a situation where people can't purchase essential supplies, AND since a large EMP would effect a large area, noone nearby can spare them.
What do they teach kids in schools these days. Let me explain. The scenario is the detonation of a 1 megaton nuclear device at 250 miles. That's in space, btw. It would not directly kill a single person. When that happens the EMP field would actually cover the US and a good chunk of Canada, and parts of Mexico. Wait, he's gonna say that I'm full of crap.... proof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosion Look at the effects while you're there. And if you say that it can't happen.... You'll see that it already has been done.
EMP 250 miles over Kansas means that many electrical devices in the entire US would be destroyed, and your fucking useless car would either (1) be among them or (2) not have any gas to run on since the refineries would also be non-operational.
That'll pay a staff of 2 or 3 for a year. Hope they didn't actually plan on buying any equipment...
As a person who has to deal with Kansas drivers every day, I have to say disabling every car in Kansas might not be a bad thing.
create renewable energy-powered, electromagnetic pulse (EMP)-protected microgrids that could provide electricity for critical infrastructure facilities in the event of a disaster
Ummm. Might they be referring to shielded backup generators? Can I have a $160,000 grant now too?
From the Wikipedia page on EMP (which quotes a Federation of American Scientists article):
"The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. The first recorded EMP incident accompanied a high-altitude nuclear test over the South Pacific and resulted in power system failures as far away as Hawaii. A large device detonated at 400â"500 km (250 to 312 miles) over Kansas would affect all of the continental U.S. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point."
The test mentioned is the Starfish 1.4 megaton high altitude test. That link has many more details.
EMP affects all sorts of electrical devices. Car computers would likely be more seriously affected than vintage, non-computer cars unless they have been EMP shielded as most military equipment is. Most regular cars have no such protection.
No part of the objective seems to require the solution to be renewable energy-powered. It wouldn't be unconscionable to power the thing by burning caribou in order to preserve the nation's power grid, and communications...
But somebody had money earmarked to "renewable energy" and somebody else knew, how to craft a proposal.
Your taxes hard at work — at getting wasted.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yes, protecting electronics from solar storms and nuclear explosions is impressive and all, but what I really need is something to stop the brrp-brrp-brrp-brrp from my BlackBerry.
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
We're all panicking because some streetlights went out in Hawaii after one test. (Oh look it up!)
I agree, EMP=bad, & solar flares could do darn near the same thing.
BUT let's try to remember: a megaton class weapon exploded at the edge of the atmosphere is the work of a grown-up nu-ku-ler power. The Axis of Eagerness is not likely to generate this threat anytime soon. By that time, we'll have other solutions and problems.
Let's just try NOT to piss off France, 'k?
The goal should not be to SHIELD stuff from an EMP, the goal should be to ABSORB the EMP and convert it into useful power! (Also, we get shielding automatically as a side-effect.)
... I don't think MIPS means Maryland Industrial Partnerships to the slashdot crowd.
During the cold war US created resistant military hardware to withstand soviet nuclear attack of x megajoules of EMP. This was extremely costly and soviets simply replied on cheap by designing EMP-boosted nukes that would fry any hardened system.
Soviets used vacuum tubes in many mission critical military systems. Not just because their tech was way behind but vacuum tubes are much more EMP resistant than microelectrics.
...I welcome our overload overlords.
Have gnu, will travel.
Katrina.
Great example of the times involved to fix massive infrastructure problems....
Takes one to spot one.
That money spent "upgrading" the electrical grid needs to be spent right now on better failovers in conventional incidents. More redundancy and distribution around bottlenecks, more intelligence and messaging. We just watched the 2003 Northeast Blackout, and others are all too common. If the grid upgrades are to be focused on individual cities, like with this EMP shielding project, they should first protect cities from blackouts that happen inside them during heat waves.
If there's money for EMP shielding, that should get spent first on the higher, more immediate risks. Which investment will also make the grid a better infrastructure for further investments in all kinds of upgrades from our catastrophic 20th Century systems. Otherwise, there might not be a usable grid to nuke if that unlikely catastrophe ever comes to pass.
--
make install -not war
Hurricane Ike knocked out power across Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. We need to divert this money away from worrying about preventing a power grid outage due to an extremely unlikely nuclear strike and towards finding ways to keep natural, regularly occuring forces from bringing down power for 6 million people across the center of the US.
Yes, disabling a power plant in Kansas would make my gasoline powered car fail to start.
Yes, disabling a power plant in Kansas would make your gasoline powered, computer controlled, car fail to start. If you happen to live close enough to the blast.
No, disabling a power plant in Kansas would not make your gasoline powered car fail to start. The EMP blast itself would cause all the electronic parts to keep the car from starting. It's important to use cause and effect and not correlation and effect.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
(...) renewable energy-powered, electromagnetic pulse (EMP)-protected microgrids that could provide electricity for critical infrastructure facilities (...)
Critical infrastructure facilities powered by renewable energy? So you'll be protected from extremely rare solar storms and high-altitude nuclear explosions but not from weather? That doesn't sound very clever to me, unless we're talking about hydro power. It seems that they thrown in "renewable energy powered" to be buzzword compliant. On top of that, if the goal is reliability, it's generally better not to go with bleeding edge technology.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
There are many other ways to form EMPs. The problem is making them powerful enough. A shorted out magnetotron in a microwave generates enough EM to screw up any nearby electronics (blew out my microwave, killed my computer, TV, router, and stereo. Everything else in other rooms were fine, just the kitchen and living room were affected, and they're on separate circuits.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Most new cabling, even high voltage up to a point is underground, ie no EMP. The EMP pulses are so short anyway (like ns) that they aren't likely to propagate very far on overhead wires either, as the energy is just radiated back out into space or turned into heat down the line a bit.
I would worry more about unshielded smaller scale electronics like server farms, consumer electronics, wireless communications of all types including public service. Anything that has an antenna that receives in the ns range will likely be fried.
However, those courageous hams who are still using vacuum tube equipment in their hobby will be unaffected. Ham radio will save the day again.
EMP threat is way exaggerated
http://www.alternet.org/story/25738/
A 1.4 megaton thermonuclear weapon detonated 250 miles above Johnston Island in the Pacific affected street lamps, circuit breakers, cars and radio stations in Hawaiian, 800 miles to the north. Starfish Prime was a thermonuclear device with a yield over a hundred times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Minimal damage 800 miles away. 1% of street lights and some fused ignitions in cars.
We simply do not have the technology to guarantee protecting power distribution grids against EMP attack. The very best we can do is to encourage solar power generation for each home, and demand higher standards of impulse protection in all consumer equipment. One large EMP today would take us back to the horse and buggy era.
A good old fashion car should be immune to an EMP, as should a house. Books and vinyl should also be immune, and fortunately you can crank a record by hand. Holograms and photographs should be cool too.
It's all the data and conductors that need to be protected or forgotten. Sooner would be better than later especially with all the apes looking towards space.
Just more terrorism from those we pay taxes to.
It's a trick! He's from the USSR, just trying to get us to stop paying our taxes, THEN the commies will win!
Hurricane Ike knocked out power across Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. We need to divert this money away from worrying about preventing a power grid outage due to an extremely unlikely nuclear strike and towards finding ways to keep natural, regularly occuring forces from bringing down power for 6 million people across the center of the US
The outages caused by Hurricane Ike WERE PREVENTABLE!
In Houston, there are trees completely growing around power poles. The news doesn't talk about this, but regular trimming/maintenance WAS NOT DONE. It is no wonder the branches snapped the lines.
Look at it this way: Natural Gas sevice was not interrupted. Water was only interrupted for 1-2 days due to issues in the pumping station. Why was electricity out for 2 weeks? Because all other utilities have enough sense to BURY their lines. Can you imagine what would have happened if water pipes were run on poles 20 feet off the ground?
Had Houston and other areas buried electrical lines, we wouldn't have been in this mess.
It wouldn't make much difference. A car that doesn't work and a car driven by your average Kansan both move at about the same speed.
What do they teach kids in schools these days.
Obviously not enough about punctuation or weapons of mass destruction.
Great, so it'll be protected from an EMP. But what if they stop your renewable resource?
*whoosh*
To all the dumb asses who modded me down: please read the article before moderating. Same to all the ACs who replied with "your car is electronic" - no duh. But the article is about an EMP protected power grid, so it has nothing to do with my car, which is neither in Kansas, nor connected to the power grid.
I was making fun of the stupid journalism, and anyone actually read the article noticed that.
The article, once you get into it, is about some grant awards to universities for studying a second power grid that would be EMP protected and designed for emergency situations. But the author wasn't content with that, so they made-up an irrelevant example about cars everyone failing, just to scare the reader.
Thanks to everyone who tried to clarify about the power of EMP devices and the scale of the damage and such. Too bad the author of the article didn't cite any of that relevant information.