Ex-CIA Director: We're Not Doing Nearly Enough To Protect Against the EMP Threat

An anonymous reader writes: Last week saw the release of an open letter written to President Obama 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.

Executive Director of the EMP Task Force Dr Peter Pry said, "Well, the short answer to [why we aren't defending against EMPs] is called the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. They used to be a trade association or a lobby for the 3,000 electric utilities that exist in this country. ... There is no part of the U.S. government that has the legal powers to order them to protect the grid. This is unusual, because in the case of every other critical infrastructure, there's an agency in the U.S. government that can require them to take actions for public safety. For example, the Food & Drug Administration can order certain medicines kept off shelves to protect the public safety. ... The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission doesn't have those legal powers or authorities."

Comments

Don't forget the Carrington Event!

[InterGuru]

In 1859 the world was hit by an EMP from a massive solar flare, called the Carrington Event. From a comment by Sampenny in the original article.

The Carrington event was a direct hit of a solar-generated EMP, and it destroyed some portion of the very primitive electronics of the time: the telegraph that connected batteries through a coding key to an electrical line stretching across the country-side. The electrostatic disturbances lasted more than a day, and the most obvious effects were the aurora borealis shining around the world. A few years ago the earth missed an equivalent event by just a couple of days of orbit, only now our entire society depends on electronics that fries when subjected to the kind of EM fields that will enter our grids when such as event does occur
 

More recently in March 1989 we had a geomagnetic storm which caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It was repaired in 9 hours, but a more massive widespread storm could take months.

Oak Ridge National Lab's take on it

[smpoole7]

Really interesting reading, found the link at the Wiki article on NEMP.

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/ees/et...

I think, as usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle (as the ORNL study points out). A few things to keep in mind:

1. Even a small nuclear weapon can cause a significant EMP. Larger weapons cause a more widespread affect, but even a relatively small 2KT weapon, targeted over a key facility, could knock out power to a large area.

2. The weapon needs to be detonated above dense atmosphere.

As far as electromagnetic pulses in general, shielding is effective ... and those who say it isn't don't understand that there are right and wrong ways to shield and ground. In my work (radio engineer), I have to do some odd-looking things to protect against lightning. A single loop in a feedline to an AM tower, for example, attenuates the lightning that comes back into my facility. Thus, I have big honkin' ball gaps at the tower base, but can get by with a smaller "horn gap" at the entry to my equipment.

Our grid could be protected with reasonable expenditures. We couldn't prevent all damage, but we could limit it. Solid-state electronics have to be protected two ways: overall shielding, and limiting/protection at the I/O points. For example, an old desktop computer in a heavy metal case, with a good ground, probably wouldn't notice the EMP ... *except* for induced voltages coming in on the video, mouse and printer cables. Those would probably send the motherboard screaming into the shrubbery. :)

NASA agrees

[Twinbee]

The bottom line direct from NASA is that there's a 12% chance every decade (or 72% chance every century if you do the math) of a direct hit from the sun. Such an event could send us back to the middle ages, or at least cause widespread destruction and panic (no water, electricity, transport, etc. for days, weeks, possibly months, and all or most computer circuitry, including SSDs (though not optical media) would be frazzled).

I'm going to temper that apocalyptic-looking premise with a quote from that NASA article which may provide a little... comfort.

The worst geomagnetic storm of the Space Age, which knocked out power across Quebec in March 1989, registered Dst=-600 nT. Modern estimates of Dst for the Carrington Event itself range from -800 nT to a staggering -1750 nT.

So, that's 'only' up to 3x as bad as an event that happened in 1989, and we seemed to have got through that okay (their power was cut for 11 hours apparently).

Maybe even NASA is over-reacting a bit on this then..... But like CO2 emissions, it's best not to take the chance. It is possible to protect the grid to a large extent if the world cared enough the risk. I think we're talking in the range of $billions of investment to save $trillions of damage when the inevitable happens (definitely a question of when, rather than if).

Re:Telling it straight

[guises]

Well you can read the wikipedia article if you want, but all of these procedural rules boil down to pretty much the same thing: good rules which exist to foster informed consideration and thoughtful discussion of pending legislation become tools of abuse when the goal stops being about passing good legislation and starts being about pleasing your campaign donors.

The Senate hold was originally about giving a senator time to gather additional information on an issue, now it's a way to stop bills which a senator doesn't like without needing or allowing a vote on them. It can be defeated by a cloture vote, but this requires 60/100 senators rather than a simple majority. This rule has been used to great effect over the last six years to stop anything and everything. You may have heard that our congress over that time has been the least productive congress ever? This is what they've been using to achieve that. Most famously though, Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd used secret holds to stop an anti-corruption transparency bill (temporarily - they were found out pretty quickly). Stevens was later convicted for corruption related to taking money from oil companies, though that conviction was later thrown out for procedural reasons.

Great book on the topic

[JigJag]

If you like the topic of EMP and how it would affect the society, check this fiction from William R. Forstchen. It's called One Second After and it's written from the perspective of the US being brought to its knees after a terrorist EMP strike and its effects on all societal levels.

Re:Telling it straight

[dj245]

and the person can put a hold on the bill so it can't come to the floor for a vote and they can do it anonymously

Wait what? Can someone explain this to an outsider? Snide comments aside this sounds like the exact opposite of a democracy. I thought only the President had, what it sounds like, something akin to veto powers over bills.

There are two different bills that the GP referenced, the Grid Act and the SHIELD Act.

The GRID act gives special emergency powers to The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to order utilities to do something. This was widely rejected by the industry because some of the powers could force the utility to keep their plants online, even if their machines were being damaged. That's not reasonable. If a grid problem gets to the point where it is damaging generators and other grid infrastructure, we should shut it down. Intentionally damaging a bunch of generators isn't going to keep the grid online if things get to that point.

The SHIELD act was about electromagnetic interference. FERC asked NERC last month to look into this some more. I would rather a government agency with some knowledge and experience on the matter write the rules, rather than a bunch of politicians who are pushing a bill that a lobbyist wrote.

Re:Causes on EMP

[Luckyo]

Solar flares are far weaker than high altitude nuclear detonation EMP, and only contain one of it's three main components.

As a result, grid doesn't need anywhere near the same kind of hardening against them.