This weekend I wrote this diary pointing out that North Korea has the ability to end life as we know it.
The reaction I got from the Daily Kos community surprised me. Instant denial, “tin foil hat”, etc. Yet there is clear scientific evidence on the effects of EMP on the power grid and it is also a scientific fact that all you need to cause an EMP is a nuclear bomb and a rocket that can put it in orbit about 250-300 miles over the earth.
No one here denies that global warming is real, based on scientific evidence, yet this subject got instantly brushed off as a “tin foil hat” subject even tho I linked to no “tin foil hat” sites. The reaction of Daily Kos users is akin to the climate change deniers. I never expected such hypocrisy here and I really didn’t expect the knee-jerk reactions, willfully brushing off scientific research and total ignorance of the subject.
It was even compared to Y2K. But what is not mentioned is that everyone with a computer upgraded and tested the hell out of their systems for two or more years so that the disaster would not happen. Had that work not been done, you could have bet on some serious issues. Meanwhile, tin foil hat wearers like myself are laughed at on the very real threats to the power grid, while it could be prevented if people took the threat seriously, like they did with Y2K. However, nothing at all is being done.
I can understand why it got that reaction. The subject has been co-opted by the tin foil hat wearers on the far right. Do a google search these days on the subject and you have to filter thru hundreds of tin foil hat links.
The threat from CME, EMP or hackers on the power grid is just as real as the threat to humanity from global warming and, like global warming, there are things we can do now to eliminate or mitigate the threat.
This subject needs to be taken seriously. In this diary I will attempt to explain why we are so vulnerable to an event that disables the power grid for months or years. There will be no links to tin foil hat sites. And no advice on how to survive it.
My intention is not to cause panic, or to cause people to go stock their basements with food and buy more guns and ammo. My intention is to bring to light the dependence of life as we know it on the power grid.
The threat to the power grid is very real and must be eliminated or minimized before it’s too late.
Continue below for the details based on scientific research.
There are three things that could cause a nationwide power blackout that would take several months or even years to get the lights back on.
* CME – Coronal Mass Ejection
* EMP – Electomagnetic Pulse
* Hackers
The causes are different, but the effects are the same. All 3 could damage hundreds of large transformers across the country that could take months or years to replace. It takes 6 months for one transformer to be made and there is no ability to make them faster or to make more at the same time. You don’t buy one of these off the shelf at Walmart. There is not enough inventory to replace the hundreds of them that could be damaged in the event.
I’m not including physical attacks because it would be unlikely that some group could damage enough transformers across a wide geographical area to take out the entire power grid for a long period of tme. However, physical attacks could be used in conjunction with hackers or EMP.
CME, a natural event, would be the most devastating. The effects would be worldwide. CME is not expected to damage electronics, however, there would be no ability to rebuild the power grids for years. According to the scientists at NASA on May 6, 2008:
At 11:18 AM on the cloudless morning of Thursday, September 1, 1859, 33-year-old Richard Carrington—widely acknowledged to be one of England's foremost solar astronomers—was in his well-appointed private observatory. Just as usual on every sunny day, his telescope was projecting an 11-inch-wide image of the sun on a screen, and Carrington skillfully drew the sunspots he saw.
…
Just before dawn the next day, skies all over planet Earth erupted in red, green, and purple auroras so brilliant that newspapers could be read as easily as in daylight. Indeed, stunning auroras pulsated even at near tropical latitudes over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii.
Even more disconcerting, telegraph systems worldwide went haywire. Spark discharges shocked telegraph operators and set the telegraph paper on fire. Even when telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to be transmitted.
…
The explosion produced not only a surge of visible light but also a mammoth cloud of charged particles and detached magnetic loops—a "CME"—and hurled that cloud directly toward Earth. The next morning when the CME arrived, it crashed into Earth's magnetic field, causing the global bubble of magnetism that surrounds our planet to shake and quiver. Researchers call this a "geomagnetic storm." Rapidly moving fields induced enormous electric currents that surged through telegraph lines and disrupted communications.
"More than 35 years ago, I began drawing the attention of the space physics community to the 1859 flare and its impact on telecommunications," says Louis J. Lanzerotti, retired Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories and current editor of the journal Space Weather. He became aware of the effects of solar geomagnetic storms on terrestrial communications when a huge solar flare on August 4, 1972, knocked out long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables. A similar flare on March 13, 1989, provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada, blacking out most of the province and plunging 6 million people into darkness for 9 hours; aurora-induced power surges even melted power transformers in New Jersey. In December 2005, X-rays from another solar storm disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes. That may not sound like much, but as Lanzerotti noted, "I would not have wanted to be on a commercial airplane being guided in for a landing by GPS or on a ship being docked by GPS during that 10 minutes."
Another Carrington-class flare would dwarf these events. Fortunately, says Hathaway, they appear to be rare:
"In the 160-year record of geomagnetic storms, the Carrington event is the biggest." It's possible to delve back even farther in time by examining arctic ice. "Energetic particles leave a record in nitrates in ice cores," he explains. "Here again the Carrington event sticks out as the biggest in 500 years and nearly twice as big as the runner-up."
These statistics suggest that Carrington flares are once in a half-millennium events. The statistics are far from solid, however, and Hathaway cautions that we don't understand flares well enough to rule out a repeat in our lifetime.
Phew, thankfully they are rare. Wait a second!
On July 23, 2014, NASA scientists report:
Two years ago, Earth experienced a close shave just as perilous, but most newspapers didn't mention it. The "impactor" was an extreme solar storm, the most powerful in as much as 150+ years.
"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," says Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado.
Baker, along with colleagues from NASA and other universities, published a seminal study of the storm in the December 2013 issue of the journal Space Weather. Their paper, entitled "A major solar eruptive event in July 2012," describes how a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) tore through Earth orbit on July 23, 2012. Fortunately Earth wasn't there. Instead, the storm cloud hit the STEREO-A spacecraft.
"I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did," says Baker. "If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.
…
Before July 2012, when researchers talked about extreme solar storms their touchstone was the iconic Carrington Event of Sept. 1859, named after English astronomer Richard Carrington who actually saw the instigating flare with his own eyes. In the days that followed his observation, a series of powerful CMEs hit Earth head-on with a potency not felt before or since. Intense geomagnetic storms ignited Northern Lights as far south as Cuba and caused global telegraph lines to spark, setting fire to some telegraph offices and thus disabling the 'Victorian Internet."
A similar storm today could have a catastrophic effect. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair.
"In my view the July 2012 storm was in all respects at least as strong as the 1859 Carrington event," says Baker. "The only difference is, it missed."
In February 2014, physicist Pete Riley of Predictive Science Inc. published a paper in Space Weather entitled "On the probability of occurrence of extreme space weather events." In it, he analyzed records of solar storms going back 50+ years. By extrapolating the frequency of ordinary storms to the extreme, he calculated the odds that a Carrington-class storm would hit Earth in the next ten years.
The answer: 12%.
"Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high, but the statistics appear to be correct," says Riley. "It is a sobering figure."
So, now, according to scientists, the threat to humanity from CME is greater and more immediate than the threat from global warming (not to minimize the threat from global warming).
EMP is a man-made event caused by a nuclear blast in orbit above the earth. The area affected is within the line of sight of the nuclear blast. It is not a worldwide event, but could be if enough bombs are exploded in orbit to cover the earth. A more likely scenario would be an attack to affect aligned nations or a single nation. The affects from a single bomb exploded at 250-300 miles above the central US would affect the entire US. EMP is said to be able to disable equipment that relies on microchips, even if they are not plugged in. The affect on the power grid would be the same as a CME, however, the event would probably not be a global event, so outside help would eventually arrive, but it would still take years to rebuld the power grid.
In order to create an EMP, you need two things, a nuclear bomb and a rocket that can put it in orbit. Before December 2012, the only countries with that ability where NATO, Russia, China and India. It was highly unlikely that those countries would do such a thing as they know that we would still have the ability to retaliate with a full nuclear strike. Our nuclear forces are hardened against EMP since the only time it was thought that EMP would be used was in the minutes before full blown nuclear war.
If you remember the 1983 movie “The Day After”, just before the mushroom clouds, you see an explosion in the sky, then Jason Robards car dies and the lights go out. Then a few minutes later, you see the mushroom clouds. The lights went out and his car stalled because of an EMP which was caused by nuclear bombs going off in a high altitude above the city, not the ones detonated over land that caused the mushroom clouds. In real life, you would not notice the blast from a high altitude nuke that causes an EMP during daytime.
So what happened in 2012 that elevated this threat? An unstable, emotionally insecure dictator got ahold of both nuclear bombs and rockets capable of putting them in orbit high above the US. The Guardian, December 13, 2012
A satellite that North Korea launched on a long-range rocket is orbiting normally, South Korean officials say, following a defiant liftoff that drew a wave of international condemnation.
Washington and its allies are pushing for punishment over the launch, which they say is a test of banned ballistic missile technology.
The launch of a three-stage rocket similar in design to a model capable of carrying a nuclear-tipped warhead as far as California raises the stakes in the international standoff over North Korea's expanding atomic arsenal. As Pyongyang refines its technology, its next step may be conducting its third nuclear test, experts warn.
The Guardian doesn't get into the EMP threat from this launch, but think about it. If North Korea has a choice of launching a couple of nukes at west coast cities vs taking out the US power grid and bringing the entire US to its knees with those same nukes and rockets, which do you think they are working on? With their arsenal, they cannot take out the entire US by using the bombs to destroy a couple of cities, but they sure can with an EMP attack.
The US Government is well aware of this new threat. But it’s not something they are going to advertise. Think about the panic if people realized that Kim Dong-Nun is now much, much closer to being able to take out the power grid.
So this news is no surprise if it is true. I know it is a link from the Daily Mail, but I don’t doubt the existence of the report mentioned:
North Korea has the capability to deliver on its threats to carry out a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, it has been claimed.
Dr Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, has reportedly seen a long-suppressed government report that concludes North Korea is capable of using an Unha-3 rocket to carry out an attack on the U.S..
…
The leaked Department of Homeland Security report allegedly claims that North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un already successfully practiced an electromagnetic pulse attack on the U.S. in early 2013.
I’m not sure about Dr Peter Vincent Pry tho. The article says he is “executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security”. But that is a privately-funded and operated body. Not a government entity.
However, from the website (pdf)
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry (Executive Director): Served on the staffs of the Congressional EMP Commission, Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, House Armed Services Committee, Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; currently Director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum. Drafted much of the EMP Commission Reports, published numerous books and articles on nuclear weapons and national security issues, featured expert on BBC and National Geographic documentaries and numerous television interviews.
I’ll get into the EMP Commission later. They are not bunch of tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists.
Hackers can also cause damage to the power grid as severe as an EMP or CME. If hackers can get into the computer networks that control the electrical infrastructure and walk around as easily as they did at Sony, they could cause serious harm to equipment that could take months or years to repair and get the lights back on.
As noted in this December 19, 2014 Rueters article, North Korea has long placed priority on hacking the telecom and utility infrastructure.
"They have trained themselves by launching attacks related to electronic networks," said Jang Se-yul, a defector from North Korea who studied at the military college for computer sciences before escaping to the South six years ago, referring to the North’s cyber warfare unit.
For years, North Korea has been pouring resources into a sophisticated cyber-warfare cell called Bureau 121, run by the military's spy agency and staffed by some of the most talented computer experts in the country, he and other defectors have said.
Most of the hackers in the unit are drawn from the military computer school.
"The ultimate target that they have been aiming at for long is infrastructure," Jang said.
ATTACKS ON THE SOUTH
In 2013, South Korea blamed the North for crippling cyber-attacks that froze the computer systems of its banks and broadcasters for days.
More than 30,000 computers at South Korean banks and broadcast companies were hit in March that year, followed by an attack on the South Korean government's web sites.
An official at Seoul's defense ministry, which set up a Cyber Command four years ago, said the North's potential to disrupt the South's infrastructure with cyber-attacks is an emerging threat but declined to give details.
So, it appears that North Korea is not only looking at EMP to take out the grid, it also appears they are looking at hacking to take it out. Even if North Korea was not responsible for the Sony hack, it appears they were able to successfully attack South Korean infrastructure in 2013.
North Korea has the ability to change life as we know it. To brush them off as a backwater dictatorship with a cartoonish leader is the height of ignorance. Very similar to denying global warning as a tin foil hat conspiracy theory.
And the government ignoring this threat would be similar to ignoring this threat.
Now that I explained how it can happen, let’s get into why it would end life as we know it. To do this, I am going to use the 2008 Report of the Commission to Assess the
Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. This report works for all three events as the effects to the power grid are similar for all three.
But before I do, let’s examine the commission to make sure they are not a tin foil hat organization.
From the EMP Commission’s web site:
The EMP Commission was established pursuant to title XIV of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (as enacted into law by Public Law 106-398; 114 Stat. 1654A-345). Duties of the EMP Commission include assessing:
* The nature and magnitude of potential high-altitude EMP threats to the United States from all potentially hostile states or non-state actors that have or could acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles enabling them to perform a high-altitude EMP attack against the United States within the next 15 years;
* the vulnerability of United States military and especially civilian systems to an EMP attack, giving special attention to vulnerability of the civilian infrastructure as a matter of emergency preparedness;
* the capability of the United States to repair and recover from damage inflicted on United States military and civilian systems by an EMP attack; and
* the feasibility and cost of hardening select military and civilian systems against EMP attack.
The Commission is charged with identifying any steps it believes should be taken by the United States to better protect its military and civilian systems from EMP attack.
Multiple reports and briefings associated with this effort have been produced by the EMP Commission including an Executive Report (PDF, 578KB) and a Critical National Infrastructures Report (PDF, 7MB) describing findings and recommendations.
The EMP Commission was reestablished via the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 to continue its efforts to monitor, investigate, make recommendations, and report to Congress on the evolving threat to the United States from electromagnetic pulse attack resulting from the detonation of a nuclear weapon or weapons at high altitude.
Seems like a legitimate government organization to me. But who are the commission members? Tin foil hat wearing, conspiracy theorist, Tea Party preppers? Hardly…
Dr. William R. Graham
Dr. William R. Graham is Chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack. He is the retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of National Security Research Inc. (NSR), a Washington-based company that conducted technical, operational, and policy research and analysis related to US national security. He currently serves as a member of the Department of Defense’s Defense Science Board and the National Academies Board on Army Science and Technology. In the recent past he has served as a member of several high-level study groups, including the Department of Defense Transformation Study Group, the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, and the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. From 1986–89 Dr. Graham was the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, while serving concurrently as Science Advisor to President Reagan, Chairman of the Federal Joint Telecommunications Resources Board, and a member of the President’s Arms Control Experts Group.
Dr. John S. Foster, Jr.
Dr. John S. Foster, Jr., is Chairman of the Board of GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, and consultant to Northrop Grumman Corporation, Technology Strategies & Alliances, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Intellectual Ventures, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Ninesigma, and Defense Group. He retired from TRW as Vice President, Science and Technology, in 1988 and continued to serve on the Board of Directors of TRW from 1988 to 1994. Dr. Foster was Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the Department of Defense from 1965–1973, serving under both Democratic and Republican administrations. In other distinguished service, Dr. Foster has been on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, the Army Scientific Advisory Panel, and the Ballistic Missile Defense Advisory Committee, Advanced Research Projects Agency. Until 1965, he was a panel consultant to the President’s Science Advisory Committee, and from 1973–1990 he was a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He is a member of the Defense Science Board, which he chaired from January 1990–June 1993. From 1952–1962, Dr. Foster was with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLL), where he began as a Division Leader in experimental physics, became Associate Director in 1958, and became Director of LLL and Associate Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1961.
Mr. Earl Gjelde
Mr. Earl Gjelde is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Summit Power Group Inc., and several affiliated companies, primary participants in the development of over 5,000 megawatts of natural gas fired electric and wind generating plants within the United States. He has served on the boards of EPRI and the US Energy Association among others. He has held a number of USA government posts, serving as President George Herbert Walker Bush’s Under (now called Deputy) Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the US Department of the Interior (1989) and serving President Ronald Reagan as Under Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the US Department of the Interior (1985–1988), the Counselor to the Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the US Department of Energy (1982–1985); and Deputy Administrator, Power Manager and Chief Operating Officer of the Bonneville Power Administration (1980–1982). While in the Reagan administration he served concurrently as Special Envoy to China (1987), Deputy Chief of Mission for the US-Japan Science and Technology Treaty (1987–1988), and Counselor for Policy to the Director of the National Critical Materials Council (1986–1988). Prior to 1980, he was a principal officer of the Bonneville Power Administration.
Dr. Robert J. Hermann
Dr. Robert J. Hermann is a Senior Partner of Global Technology Partners, LLC, a consulting firm that focuses on technology, defense aerospace, and related businesses worldwide. In 1998, Dr. Hermann retired from United Technologies Corporation (UTC), where he was Senior Vice President, Science and Technology. Prior to joining UTC in 1982, Dr. Hermann served 20 years with the National Security Agency with assignments in research and development, operations, and NATO. In 1977, he was appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Communications, Command, Control, and Intelligence. In 1979, he was named Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research, Development, and Logistics and concurrently was Director of the National Reconnaissance Office.
Mr. Henry (Hank) M. Kluepfel
Mr. Henry (Hank) M. Kluepfel is a Vice President for Corporate Development at SAIC. He is the company’s leading cyberspace security advisor to the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC). Mr. Kluepfel is widely recognized for his 30-plus years of experience in security technology research, design, tools, forensics, risk reduction, education, and awareness, and he is the author of industry’s de facto standard security base guideline for the Signaling System Number 7(SS7) networks connecting and controlling the world’s public telecommunications networks. In past affiliations with Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore), AT&T, BellSouth and Bell Labs, he led industry efforts to protect, detect, contain, and mitigate electronic and physical intrusions and led the industry’s understanding of the need to balance technical, legal, and policy-based countermeasures to the then emerging hacker threat. He is recognized as a Certified Protection Professional by the American Society of Industrial Security and is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Gen Richard L. Lawson, USAF (Ret.)
Gen Richard L. Lawson, USAF (Ret.), is Chairman of Energy, Environment and Security Group, Ltd., and former President and CEO of the National Mining Association. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Atlantic Council of the U.S.; Chairman of the Energy Policy Committee of the US Energy Association; Chairman of the United States delegation to the World Mining Congress; and Chairman of the International Committee for Coal Research. Active duty positions included serving as Military Assistant to the President; Commander, 8th Air Force; Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe; Director for Plans and Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Deputy Director of Operations, Headquarters US Air Force; and Deputy Commander in Chief, US European Command.
Dr. Gordon K. Soper
Dr. Gordon K. Soper is employed by Defense Group Inc. There he has held various senior positions where he was responsible for broad direction of corporate goals relating to company support of government customers in areas of countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons effects and development of new business areas and growth of technical staff. He provides senior-level technical support on a range of task areas to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and to a series of Special Programs for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the White House Military Office. Previously, Dr. Soper was Principal Deputy to the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs (ATSD(NCB)); Director, Office of Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces Command, Control and Communications (C3) of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (C3I); Associate Director for Engineering and Technology/Chief Scientist at the Defense Communications Agency (now DISA); and held various leadership positions at the Defense Nuclear Agency (now DTRA).
Dr. Lowell L. Wood, Jr.
Dr. Lowell L. Wood, Jr., is a scientist-technologist who has contributed to technical aspects of national defense, especially defense against missile attack, as well as to controlled thermonuclear fusion, laser science and applications, optical and underwater communications, very high-performance computing and digital computer-based physical modeling, ultra-high-power electromagnetic systems, space exploration and climate-stabilization geophysics. Wood obtained his Ph.D. in astrophysics and planetary and space physics at UCLA in 1965, following receipt of bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and math in 1962. He has held faculty and professional research staff appointments at the University of California (from which he retired after more than four decades in 2006), and is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He has advised the US Government in many capacities, and has received a number of awards and honors from both government and professional bodies. Wood is the author, co-author or editor of more than 200 unclassified technical papers and books and more than 300 classified publications, and is named as an inventor on more than 200 patents and patents-pending.
Dr. Joan B. Woodard
Dr. Joan B. Woodard is Executive Vice President and Deputy Laboratories Director for Nuclear Weapons at Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia’s role is to provide engineering support and design to the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, provide our customers with research, development, and testing services, and manufacture specialized non-nuclear products and components for national defense and security applications. The laboratories enable safe and secure deterrence through science, engineering, and management excellence. Prior to her current assignment, Dr. Woodard served as Executive Vice President and Deputy Director, responsible for Sandia’s programs, operations, staff and facilities; developing policy and assuring implementation; and strategic planning. Her Sandia history began in 1974, and she rose through the ranks to become the Director of the Environmental Programs Center and the Director of the Product Realization Weapon Components Center; Vice President of the Energy & Environment Division and Vice President of the Energy Information and Infrastructure Technologies Division. Joan has been elected to the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and has served on numerous external panels and boards, including the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, the National Academy of Sciences’ Study on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism, the Secretary of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Council, the Congressional Commission on Electromagnetic Pulse, and the Intelligence Science Board. Joan has received many honors, including the Upward Mobility Award from the Society of Women Engineers, and was named as “One of Twenty Women to Watch in the New Millennium” by the Albuquerque Journal. She also received the Spirit of Achievement Award from National Jewish Hospital.
They don’t appear to be tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists. In fact they all look fairly well qualified on this subject. Some of them are even physicists and the last time I checked they were still considered scientists even if they are in management postitions.
So I am going to assume that this report was produced by people who know WTF they are talking about and are not tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists.
Let’s get started.
Preface
The physical and social fabric of the United States is sustained by a system of systems; a complex and dynamic network of interlocking and interdependent infrastructures (“critical national infrastructures”) whose harmonious functioning enables the myriad actions, transactions, and information flow that undergird the orderly conduct of civil society in this country. The vulnerability of these infrastructures to threats — deliberate, accidental, and acts of nature — is the focus of greatly heightened concern in the current era, a process accelerated by the events of 9/11 and recent hurricanes, including Katrina and Rita.
This report presents the results of the Commission’s assessment of the effects of a high altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on our critical national infrastructures and provides recommendations for their mitigation. The assessment is informed by analytic and test activities executed under Commission sponsorship, which are discussed in this volume. An earlier executive report, Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) — Volume 1: Executive Report (2004), provided an overview of the subject.
…
Because of the ubiquitous dependence of U.S. society on the electrical power system, its vulnerability to an EMP attack, coupled with the EMP’s particular damage mechanisms, creates the possibility of long-term, catastrophic consequences. The implicit invitation to take advantage of this vulnerability, when coupled with increasing proliferation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, is a serious concern. A single EMP attack may seriously degrade or shut down a large part of the electric power grid in the geographic area of EMP exposure effectively instantaneously. There is also a possibility of functional collapse of grids beyond the exposed area, as electrical effects propagate from one region to another.
The time required for full recovery of service would depend on both the disruption and damage to the electrical power infrastructure and to other national infrastructures. Larger affected areas and stronger EMP field strengths will prolong the time to recover. Some critical electrical power infrastructure components are no longer manufactured in the United States, and their acquisition ordinarily requires up to a year of lead time in routine circumstances. Damage to or loss of these components could leave significant parts of the electrical infrastructure out of service for periods measured in months to a year or more. There is a point in time at which the shortage or exhaustion of sustaining backup systems, including emergency power supplies, batteries, standby fuel supplies, communications, and manpower resources that can be mobilized, coordinated, and dispatched, together lead to a continuing degradation of critical infrastructures for a prolonged period of time.
Electrical power is necessary to support other critical infrastructures, including supply and distribution of water, food, fuel, communications, transport, financial transactions, emergency services, government services, and all other infrastructures supporting the national economy and welfare. Should significant parts of the electrical power infrastructure be lost for any substantial period of time, the Commission believes that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic, and many people may ultimately die for lack of the basic elements necessary to sustain life in dense urban and suburban communities. In fact, the Commission is deeply concerned that such impacts are likely in the event of an EMP attack unless practical steps are taken to provide protection for critical elements of the electric system and for rapid restoration of electric power, particularly to essential services. The recovery plans for the individual infrastructures currently in place essentially assume, at worst, limited upsets to the other infrastructures that are important to their operation. Such plans may be of little or no value in the wake of an EMP attack because of its long-duration effects on all infrastructures that rely on electricity or electronics.
The ability to recover from this situation is an area of great concern. The use of automated control systems has allowed many companies and agencies to operate effectively with small work forces. Thus, while manual control of some systems may be possible, the number of people knowledgeable enough to support manual operations is limited. Repair of physical damage is also constrained by a small work force. Many maintenance crews are sized to perform routine and preventive maintenance of high-reliability equipment. When repair or replacement is required that exceeds routine levels, arrangements are typically in place to augment crews from outside the affected area. However, due to the simultaneous, far-reaching effects from EMP, the anticipated augmenters likely will be occupied in their own areas. Thus, repairs normally requiring weeks of effort may require a much longer time than planned.
The consequences of an EMP event should be prepared for and protected against to the extent it is reasonably possible. Cold War-style deterrence through mutual assured destruction is not likely to be an effective threat against potential protagonists that are either failing states or trans-national groups. Therefore, making preparations to manage the effects of an EMP attack, including understanding what has happened, maintaining situational awareness, having plans in place to recover, challenging and exercising those plans, and reducing vulnerabilities, is critical to reducing the consequences, and thus probability, of attack. The appropriate national-level approach should balance prevention, protection, and recovery.
The United States faces a long-term challenge to maintain technical competence for understanding and managing the effects of nuclear weapons, including EMP. The Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration have developed and implemented an extensive Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship Program over the last decade. However, no comparable effort was initiated to understand the effects that nuclear weapons produce on modern systems. The Commission reviewed current national capabilities to understand and to manage the effects of EMP and concluded that the Country is rapidly losing the technical competence in this area that it needs in the Government, National Laboratories, and Industrial Community.
An EMP attack on the national civilian infrastructures is a serious problem, but one that can be managed by coordinated and focused efforts between industry and government. It is the view of the Commission that managing the adverse impacts of EMP is feasible in terms of time and resources. A serious national commitment to address the threat of an EMP attack can develop a national posture that would significantly reduce the payoff for such an attack and allow the United States to recover in a timely manner if such an attack were to occur.
That gives a very good overview. It is hardly tin foil hat material. It does not just apply to EMP, but to anything that can damage enough of the power grid to make repairs take months or years.
Now we can take a look at individual pieces of infrastructure effected by a prolonged nationwide power outage.
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) Systems
What Is a SCADA?
SCADAs are electronic control systems that may be used for data acquisition and control over large and geographically distributed infrastructure systems. They find extensive use in critical infrastructure applications such as electrical transmission and distribution, water management, and oil and gas pipelines. SCADA technology has benefited from several decades of development. It has its genesis in the telemetry systems used by the railroad and aviation industries.
In November 1999, San Diego County Water Authority and San Diego Gas and Electric companies experienced severe electromagnetic interference to their SCADA wireless networks. Both companies found themselves unable to actuate critical valve openings and closings under remote control of the SCADA electronic systems. This inability necessitated sending technicians to remote locations to manually open and close water and gas valves, averting, in the words of a subsequent letter of complaint by the San Diego County Water Authority to the Federal Communications Commission, a potential “catastrophic failure” of the aqueduct system. The potential consequences of a failure of this 825 million gallon per day flow rate system ranged from “spilling vents at thousands of gallons per minute to aqueduct rupture with ensuing disruption of service, severe flooding, and related damage to private and public property.” The source of the SCADA failure was later determined to be radar operated on a ship 25 miles off the coast of San Diego.
EMP Simulation Testing
In this section, we provide a brief summary of the results of illuminating electronic control systems in the simulator.
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The bottom line observation at the end of the testing was that every system tested failed when exposed to the simulated EMP environment. The failures were not identical from system to system or within a system. For example, a device with many input-output ports might exhibit degraded performance on one port, physical damage on another, and no effect on a third. Control units might report operating parameters at variance with their post illumination reality or fail to control internal flows. The Commission considered the implications of these multiple simultaneous control system failures to be highly significant as potential contributors to a widespread system collapse.
This chapter continues with a few real life examples of serious failures of SCADA systems at pipelines and refineries that resulted in explosions and spills. This chapter discusses the impact of an EMP on these devices based on the results of the commissions testing. CME could take these out if they are plugged in at the time. Hackers taking down the power gird wouldn’t affect them, however, the resulting power outage would.
All infrastructure is dependent on the power grid.
As a simple example, the telecommunications infrastructure requires power that is delivered by the power infrastructure. If power delivery is disrupted by disturbances in the power grid, telecommunication substations will run for a while on reserve battery power but would then need to switch to reserve backup generators (if they have them). The generator’s operation would rely on fuel, first from on-site storage and then conveyed to a central distribution point by the energy distribution infrastructure and delivered to the telecommunications substation by the transportation infrastructure and paid for by the components of the financial infrastructure. The technicians who show up, through the transportation infrastructure, to make repairs would not do so unless they have been sustained by the food and water delivery infrastructures, and so forth. In turn, a functioning telecommunications system provides critical situational awareness and control to a power infrastructure that must keep its power generation in balance with its load in a dynamic control process over a very large geographical area. Telecommunications also plays a critical role in controlling the transportation system and is the basis of data exchange within the financial infrastructure.
So, in other words, even if EMP does not cause your car to stop running or your tablet to stop working, without a working power grid, those things will still eventually become useless.
So now let’s go to Chapter 2, Electric Power
Introduction
The functioning of society and the economy is critically dependent upon the availability of electricity. Essentially every aspect of American society requires electrical power to function. Contemporary U.S. society is not structured, nor does it have the means, to provide for the needs of nearly 300 million Americans without electricity. Continued electrical supply is necessary for sustaining water supplies, production and distribution of food, fuel, communications, and everything else that is a part of our economy. Continuous, reliable electrical supply within very tight frequency boundaries is a critical element to the continued existence and growth of the United States and most developed countries.
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No other infrastructure could, by its own collapse alone, create such an outcome. All other infrastructures rely on electric power. Conversely, the electric power infrastructure is dependent on other infrastructures that are themselves vulnerable to the direct effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) in ways that are described elsewhere in this report. No infrastructure other than electric power has the potential for nearly complete collapse in the event of a sufficiently robust EMP attack. While a less robust attack could result in less catastrophic outcomes, those outcomes would still have serious consequences and threaten national security.
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Should the electrical power system be lost for any substantial period of time, the Commission believes that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic to civilian society. Machines will stop; transportation and communication will be severely restricted; heating, cooling, and lighting will cease; food and water supplies will be interrupted; and many people may die. “Substantial period” is not quantifiable but generally outages that last for a week or more and affect a very large geographic region without sufficient support from outside the outage area would qualify. EMP represents such a threat; it is one event that may couple ultimately unmanageable currents and voltages into an electrical system routinely operated with little margin and cause the collapse of large portions of the electrical system. In fact, the Commission is deeply concerned that such impacts are certain in an EMP event unless practical steps are taken to provide protection for critical elements of the electric system and to provide for rapid restoration of service, particularly to essential loads.
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The Commission recognizes that EMP is one of several threats to the overall electrical power system. Some of these threats are naturally occurring, such as geomagnetic storms. Others, like attacks using information operations on the system’s controls, are manmade. There are strong similarities in the types of damage resulting from the occurrence of such threats. There are also similarities in the measures that are appropriate to be undertaken to reduce the electrical power system’s vulnerability to each of these threats. The Commission believes that the measures it recommends will both reduce the vulnerability of the electrical power system to these threats and improve the Nation’s ability to recover the system.
The magnitude of an EMP event varies with the type, design and yield of the weapon, as well as its placement. The Commission has concluded that even a relatively modest-to small yield weapon of particular characteristics, using design and fabrication information already disseminated through licit and illicit means, can produce a potentially devastating E1 field strength over very large geographical regions. This followed by E2 impacts, and in some cases serious E3 impacts operating on electrical components left relatively unprotected by E1, can be extremely damaging. (E3 requires a greater yield to produce major effects.) Indeed, the Commission determined that such weapon devices not only could be readily built and delivered, but also the specifics of these devices have been illicitly trafficked for the past quarter-century. The field strengths of such weapons may be much higher than those used by the Commission for testing threshold failure levels of electrical system components and subsystems.
Additionally, analyses available from foreign sources suggest that amplitudes and frequency content of EMP fields from bomb blasts calculated by U.S. analysts may be too low. While this matter is a highly technical issue that awaits further investigation by U.S. scientific experts, it raises the specter of increased uncertainty about the adequacy of current U.S. EMP mitigation approaches.
Yikes. So it’s not the size of the blast that matters for EMP. Remember back in 2009, North Korea had a “failed” underground nuke test that the world laughed at? Well, there are some reports (from experts that I can’t find due to the right wing clutter on this subject in Google searches) that state that the test may not have been a failure and that they may be designing a nuke to maximize an EMP pulse as opposed to yield.
A key issue for the Commission in assessing the impact of such a disruption to the Nation’s electrical system was not only the unprecedented widespread nature of the outage (e.g., the cascading effects from even one or two relatively small weapons exploded in optimum location in space at present would almost certainly shut down an entire interconnected electrical power system, perhaps affecting as much as 70 percent or possibly more of the United States, all in an instant) but more significantly widespread damage may well adversely impact the time to recover and thus have a potentially catastrophic impact.
For highly dependent systems such as commercial telecommunications and the financial system, electric power is frequently filtered through batteries. These act to condition the power as well as to provide limited backup. Local, at-site emergency generators are used quite extensively for high priority loads. These include hospitals, cold storage, water systems, airport controls, rail controls and similar uses. These systems, however, are themselves increasingly dependent on electronics to initiate start up, segregate them from the larger power system, and control their operating efficiency, thereby rendering them vulnerable to EMP.
Furthermore, emergency generators have relatively short-term fuel supplies, generally less than 72 hours. Increasingly, locally stored fuel in buildings and cities is being reduced for fire safety (after 9/11) and environmental pollution reasons, so that emergency generation availability without refueling is becoming even more limited. Batteries normally have a useful life well short of emergency generators, often measured in a few hours. All of these tools for maintaining a stable and adequate power supply, even to high priority loads, are intended to be temporary at best – bridging the time until restoration can take place.
The impact of such an EMP-triggered outage would be severe but not catastrophic if the recovery was rapid or the geographic impact sufficiently limited. The recovery times from previous large-scale outages have been on the order of one to several days.
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On the other hand, a geographically widespread blackout that involves physical damage to thousands of components may produce a persistent outage that would far exceed historical experience, with potentially catastrophic effect. Simulation work sponsored by the Commission at the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) has suggested that, after a few days, what little production that does take place would be offset by accumulating loss of perishables, collapse of businesses, loss of the financial systems and dislocation of the work force. The consequences of lack of food, heat (or air conditioning), water, waste disposal, medical, police, fire fighting support, and effective civil authority would threaten society itself.
Chapter 2 goes into some detail on the vulnerabilities of the power grid to EMP (which also applies to CME and to some extent, hackers). Then it goes into the difficulties of restarting power plants after the grid collapses.
System Restoration — Generation
The restoration of the system from collapse is very complex in operation, almost an art rather than a science, and it requires highly trained and experienced operators with considerable information and controls at hand. Basically, in isolated cases or when beginning restoration, a load and generation source has to be identified and interconnected without interference from other loads or generation. These are then matched and gradually restored together. Thereafter, each increment of generation and load is added in turn to a larger operating system of generation and load. As each component of load and generation are included, the frequency will be impacted. If it varies outside very tight limits, it will all trip off and have to be put back together again. In most system disruptions leading to blackouts, there are large amounts of system still intact on the periphery of the disruption, which are able to greatly assist in the restoration, more easily allowing and absorbing each addition of generation and load until all is restored.
Every generator requires a load to match its electrical output as every load requires electricity. In the case of the generator, it needs load so it does not overspin and fail, yet not so much load it cannot function. In a large integrated system, where increments of load and generation are not sufficient to cause the frequency to drop or rise above acceptable margins, it is relatively straightforward and commonplace, just as turning on a lightswitch causes a generator someplace to pick up the load. In the case where the system is being restored and there are few loads and generators connected, this matching requires careful management and communication between load and generation.
Generation start-up for most plants requires power from another source to drive pumps, fans, safety systems, fuel delivery, and so on. Some, like hydroelectric and smaller diesels can start directly or from battery sources assuming they can control their access to matching load. In the case of EMP, large geographic areas of the electrical system will be down, and there may be no existing system operating on the periphery for the generation and loads to be incrementally added with ease. Furthermore, recovery of lost generation would be impacted by the loss of other infrastructure in varying degrees according to the type of plant. In that instance, it is necessary to have a “black start”: a start without external power source. Coal plants, nuclear plants, large gas- and oil-fired plants, geothermal plants, and some others all require power from another source to restart. In general, nuclear plants are not allowed to restart until and unless there are independent sources of power from the interconnected transmission grid to provide for independent shutdown power. This is a regulatory requirement for protection rather than a physical impediment. What might be the case in an emergency situation is for the Government to decide at the time.
Black-start generation is that kind of generator that is independent of outside power sources to get started, hence the term black start. Most black start units today are hydroelectric plants, small gas peaking units, small oil-fired peaking units and diesel units. In some cases the black start unit may be collocated with a larger power plant in order to get the larger one started for system restoration. Fuel supply would then be the only issue from the generation perspective; for example, a gas plant might not have the fuel due to EMP damage someplace in the delivery system. Assuming the black start units were not damaged by EMP or have been repaired and assuming they are large enough to be significant, workers can begin the system restoration as building blocks from the generation side of the equation. E1 may have also damaged their startup electronics, which will need to be repaired first. It is often the case that generation capable of black start is not manned, so if they fail to start remotely, a person will need to be dispatched to find the problem, locate the needed parts, and get it operating. There are not many black start-capable units in locations that are suitable to independent restoration at this time. Recovery in most regions therefore needs to wait for other areas to restore power and then be reconnected increment by increment.
Even if partially disabled control systems successfully protect the critical generating equipment, all affected plants would face a long process of testing and repairing control, protective, and sensor systems. Protective and safety systems have to be carefully checked out before start up or greater loss might occur. Repair of furnaces, boilers, turbines, blades, bearings, and other heavy high-value and long lead-time equipment would be limited by production and transportation availability once at-site spares are exhausted.
While some spare components are at each site and sometimes in spare parts pools domestically, these would not cover very large high-value items in most cases, so external sources would be needed. Often supply from an external source can take many weeks or several months in the best of times, if only one plant is seeking repair, and sometimes a year or more. With multiple plants affected at the same time, let alone considering infrastructure impediments, restoration time would certainly become protracted.
So, once the damaged components of the electrical grid are repaired, restarting the power plants will require vast amounts of other infrastructure that cannot function without the power grid, making it a catch 22 situation.
And all that’s before we even start talking about transmission of that power. This must be fixed first, while the power grid is down and all other infrastructure is crippled.
Transmission
Yet power must be routed to where it is needed, so there are nodes called substations where the power lines join and are switched, and where power is moved from one voltage level to another level, interconnected with other transmission system components, and sent on to distribution systems. Finally as it gets closer to load, power is stepped down (reduced in voltage) and then down again and often down yet again to and within the distribution system and then normally down again to the delivery point for the load. Each of those step-down points requires a transformer to effect the change and breakers to isolate the transformer when necessary
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Substation control systems at the nodes or hubs in the transmission system are inherently more exposed to the E1 pulse than their power plant counterparts, which are often not in buildings at all. The sensors, communications, and power connections are outdoors and cables (i.e., antennas in the sense of an EMP receptor) which may be hundreds of meters long may be buried, run along the ground, or elevated. The control devices themselves, including the protective relays, may even be in remote structures that provide little electromagnetic attenuation. Most substations do not have operators present but are remotely controlled from power dispatch centers, in some instances hundreds of miles away.
Operation of transmission substations depends on various communications modalities, including telephone, microwave, power line communications, cell phones, satellite phones, the Internet, and others. Typically, these modes are used for dedicated purposes; they do not necessarily provide a multiple redundant system but are “stove piped.” From the point of view of managing routine system perturbations and preventing their propagation, NERC advises us that the telephone remains the most important mode. If the voice communications were completely interrupted, it would be difficult, but still reasonably possible, to successfully continue operations — provided there were no significant system disruptions. However in the case of an EMP event with multiple simultaneous disruptions, continued operation is not possible. Restoration without some form of communication is also not possible. Communication is clearly critical in the path to restoration.
Just as in the case involving power plants, the first critical issue is the proper functioning of the protective elements, specifically relays, followed by the local control systems. These elements protect the high-voltage breakers and transformers that are high-value assets. High-value assets are those that are critical to system functioning and take a very long time to replace or repair. Other protected devices, such as capacitors and reactive power generators, are also high value and nearly as critical as the transformers. E1 is likely to disrupt and perhaps damage protective relays, not uniformly but in statistically very significant numbers. Left unprotected, as would likely result from E1 damage or degradation to the protective relays, the high-value assets would likely suffer damage by the transient currents produced during the system collapse, as well as potentially from E2 and E3 depending upon relative magnitudes. Commission testing of some typical protective relays with lower than expected EMP levels provides cause for serious concern.
The high-value transmission equipment is subject to potentially large stress from the E3 pulse. The E3 pulse is not a freely propagating wave like E1 and E2, but the result of distortions in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by the upper atmosphere nuclear explosion. The distortion couples very efficiently to long transmission lines and induces quasi-direct current electrical currents to flow. The currents in these long lines can aggregate to become very large (minute-long ground-induced currents [GIC] of hundreds to thousands of amperes) sufficient to damage major electrical power system components. With respect to transformers, probably the hardest to replace quickly, this quasi-direct current, carried by all three phases on the primary windings of the transformer, drives the transformer to saturation, creating harmonics and reactive power. The harmonics cause transformer case heating and over-currents in capacitors potentially resulting in fires. The reactive power flow would add to the stresses on the grid if it were not already in a state of collapse. Historically, we know that geomagnetic storms, which can induce GIC flows similar to but less intense than those likely to be produced by E3, have caused transformer and capacitor damage even on properly protected equipment (see figure 2-3). Damage would be highly likely on equipment unprotected or partially protected due to E1.
Test Results
Based on the testing and analysis outlined in this chapter, we estimate that a substantial and highly significant fraction of all control and protective systems within the EMP affected area will experience some type of impact. As the test results were briefed to industry experts at NERC and the Argonne National Laboratory, it became apparent to the Commission that even minor effects noted during the testing could have significant impacts on the processes and equipment being controlled.
Chapter 2 continues with some historical examples including Hurricane Katrina, the August 2003 Blackout, the 1996 Western States Blackout and the 1989 Geomagnetic Storm.
Recovery and Restoration
Restoration is complicated in the best of circumstances, as experienced in past blackouts. In the instance of EMP attack, the complications are magnified by the unprecedented scope of the damage both in nature and geographical extent, by the lack of information post attack, and by the concurrent and interrelated impact on other infrastructures impeding restoration.
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Recovery from transmission system damage and power plant damage will be impeded primarily by the manufacture and delivery of long lead-time components. Delivery time for a single, large transformer today is typically one to two years and some very large special transformers, critical to the system, are even longer. There are roughly 2,000 transformers in use in the transmission system today at 345 kV and above with many more at lesser voltages that are only slightly less critical. </ strong>No transformers above 100 kV are produced in the United States any longer. The current U.S. replacement rate for the 345 kV and higher voltage units is 10 per year; worldwide production capacity of these units is less than 100 per year. Spare transformers are available in some areas and systems, but because of the unique requirements of each transformer, there are no standard spares. The spares also are owned by individual utilities and not generally available to others due to the risk over the long lead time if they are being used. Transformers that will cover several options are very expensive and are both large and hard to move. NERC keeps a record of all spare transformers.
Recovery will be limited by the rate of testing and repair of SCADA, DCS, and PLC and protective relay systems. With a large, contiguous area affected, the availability of outside assistance, skilled manpower, and spares may well be negligible in light of the scope of the problem. Information from power industry representatives enables us to place some limits on how long the testing and repair might take. Determining the source of a bad electrical signal or tiny component that is not working can take a long time. On the low side, on-site relay technicians typically take three weeks for initial shakedown of a new substation. Simply replacing whole units is much faster, but here too, inserting new electronic devices and ensuring the whole system works properly is still time consuming. It must be noted that the substations are typically not manned so skilled technicians must be located, dispatched, and reach the site where they are needed. Many of these locations are not close to the technicians. It is not possible to readily estimate the time it will take in the event of an EMP attack since the aftermath of an EMP attack would not be routine and a certain level of risk would likely be accepted to accelerate return to service. It seems reasonable, then, to estimate an entire substation control system recovery time to be at least several days, if not weeks. This assumes that the trained personnel can reach the damaged locations and will be supported with water, food, communication, spare parts, and the needed electronic diagnostic equipment.
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Without communication, both voice and data links, it is nearly impossible to ascertain the nature and location of damage to be repaired, to dispatch manpower and parts, and to match generation to load. Transportation limitations further impede movement of material and people. Disruption of the financial system will make acquisition of services and parts difficult. In summary, actions are needed to assure that difficult and complex recovery operations can take place and be effective in an extraordinarily problematic post attack environment.
Chapter 2 then goes into the work needed to be done to rebuild the power grid and ways to protect it. Recovery times would be lengthy, in the months or even years. Those transformers are not quick to replace.
Keep in mind, if the power is out across the country, there will not be any outside help as all regions are impacted. Utilities will have to work on their own recovery without being able to borrow resources from an unaffected area. We will eventually get some help from outside the US, but it will take a while to get here and it’s a very big country. In the event of CME, there won’t be anyone to help.
Even if they could get the lights back on in 90 days, there would be considerable loss of life. People who depend on electrical medical devices would die once fuel for the generators ran out. The pipelines that deliver the fuel to keep generators running are highly dependent on the power grid (see Chapter 5. Petroleum and Natural Gas). Dialysis patients would be expected to die quickly after the backup power stopped.
People who rely on drugs to stay alive will have difficulty getting them (see Chapter 6. Transportation Infrastructure, plus they rely on the power grid in the manufacturing process). Diabetics would start dying once the local supplies of insulin are gone and will have a hard time refrigerating any insulin they can get.
Food will be difficult to produce and distribute, See Chapter 5. Petroleum and Natural Gas, Chapter 6. Transportation Infrastructure and Chapter 7. Food Infrastructure) without a functioning power grid.
How will people pay for anything? Do they all have hundreds of dollars in cash on hand and printouts of their daily banking activity? Of course not. They probably pay for most purchases with plastic. See Chapter 4 - Banking and Finance. The financial system his highly dependent on the power grid.
Now you are starting to get a better picture of how the power grid is the base for everything in modern life. Modern man cannot live without it. And it would be incredibly difficult and would take considerable time to repair it in any event that damaged a large number of substation transformers.
The rest of the report covers the Telecommunications, Banking and Finance, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Transportation Infrastructure, Food Infrastructure, Water Infrastructure and Emergency Services, all of which are dependent on the power grid to function.
I doubt anyone has read this far into this obviously tin foil hat stuff, but just in case, I’ll give some highlights.
Chapter 3. Telecommunications
Telecommunications provides the connectivity that links the elements of our society together. It is a vital capability that plays an integral role in the normal day-to-day routine of the civilian, business, and government sectors of society. It is a critical enabler for the functioning of our national financial infrastructure, as transactions representing trillions of dollars flow daily via telecommunications. It enables agencies of local, state, and federal government to discharge their duties. People can communicate on the go, almost anytime and virtually anywhere because of telecommunications, as exemplified by more than 100 million cellular subscribers in the United States (U.S.). Telecommunications provides a vital pathway between emergency response personnel in crisis situations. It has transformed, via the Internet and advances in technology, the way business and society in general operate.
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In a power outage, telecommunications carriers typically depend on battery supplies that last from 4 to 8 hours and in some cases fixed and mobile generators that may have up to 72 hours of operating fuel. A key concern is the potential that major telecommunications facilities may not have primary power in the event of a long-term power outage of several weeks over a wide geographic area. Among the major concerns in such events are:
* The potential that major telecommunications facilities will not have prioritized access to fuel supplies on a long-term basis in the event of a long-term, wide-scale power outage.
* Facilities running on backup generators on a long-term basis will eventually require maintenance.
These concerns proved prescient when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. Katrina caused a prolonged blackout that resulted in telecommunications failures precisely because of the above concerns regarding fuel supplies and maintenance for emergency generators.
The phones may work so long as the generators can stay running, but how long can they stay running? See Chapter 5. Petroleum and Natural Gas and Chapter 6. Transportation Infrastructure
Chapter 4. Banking and Finance
Today, most significant financial transactions are performed and recorded electronically; however, the ability to carry out these transactions is highly dependent on other elements of the national infrastructure. According to the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), “The financial services industry has evolved to a point where it would be impossible to operate without the efficiencies of information technology and networks.”
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The technological revolution has not been limited to giant corporations. The individual consumer has witnessed the growth of convenient, on-demand money-dispensing automated teller machines (ATM) in the United States from less than 14,000 in 1979 to more than 371,000 in 2003.
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Vulnerability to EMP
The financial infrastructure is highly dependent on electronic systems, which should be clear from the preceding discussion. Virtually all transactions involving banks and other financial institutions happen electronically. Virtually all record keeping of financial transactions are stored electronically. Just as paper money has replaced precious metals, so an electronic economy has replaced the paper one. The financial infrastructure is a network of simple and complex electronic machinery, ranging from telephones to mainframe computers, from ATMs to vast data storage systems.
The electronic technologies that are the foundation of the financial infrastructure are potentially vulnerable to EMP. These systems also are potentially vulnerable to EMP indirectly through other critical infrastructures, such as the power grid and telecommunications
When the power is out, people will not be able to use ATM or credit cards to purchase anything. They will not be able to go to a bank branch and have a teller give them money since they will not be able to prove they have an account, let alone any money in the account.
Chapter 5. Petroleum and Natural Gas
While the closely related petroleum and natural gas infrastructures comprise a variety of production, processing, storage, and delivery elements, as described in the next section, the focus of this chapter will be on the delivery system. In particular, we shall focus on the potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) vulnerability of the more than 180,000 miles of interstate natural gas pipelines and the more than 55,000 miles of large — 8-inch to 24-inch diameter — oil pipelines.2 We shall point to the potential vulnerabilities of the electronic control systems — supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA) — that were discussed in general terms in Chapter 1, but whose criticality and centrality for the operation of the petroleum and natural gas infrastructure distribution systems are particularly prominent. Control system components with low voltage and current requirements, such as integrated circuits, digital computers, and digital circuitry, are ubiquitous in the U.S. commercial petroleum and natural gas infrastructures, and EMPcaused failures can induce dangerous system malfunctions resulting in fires or explosions.
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Direct Effects of EMP on Petroleum and Natural Gas Infrastructure
The infrastructure described in the previous section is dependent on the continuous operation of a wide variety of electrical components: pumps to extract fuel from wells and manage its movement through pipelines, electrically driven systems to process materials in refineries, transportation systems to deliver fuels to users from storage sites, point-of-sale electronics to process transactions to retail customers, and so on — all of which represent potential points of vulnerability to an EMP pulse.
Without the power grid, there won’t be any natural gas or any oil based fuels flowing to distribution or storage facilities.
Chapter 6. Transportation Infrastructure
To gauge the degree of vulnerability of the long-haul railway, trucking and automobile, maritime shipping, and commercial aviation infrastructures to EMP, the Commission has assessed selected components of these infrastructures that are vital to their operations. Our assessment is based on both data collected from testing conducted under the auspices of the Commission and other available test data that have direct applicability to transportation infrastructure assessment. For critical components of these infrastructures that we were unable to test—notably airplanes, air traffic control centers, locomotives, railroad control centers and signals, and ports—our assessment relies on surveys of equipment and communications links.
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Railroad control center operations rely on modern IT equipment — mainframe and personal computers, servers, routers, local area networks (LAN), tape storage units—some of which are similar to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment that has been EMP-tested. Based on this similarity, we expect anomalous responses of the IT equipment to begin at EMP field levels of approximately 4 to 8 kV/m. We expect damage to begin at fields of approximately 8 to 16 kV/m.
The CSXT railroad control center buildings rely on diesel power generators for standby power and central uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems to provide continuous power to critical loads. Some buildings require chilled water for continuing computer operations.
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The three railroad control center nodes are almost totally dependent on telephone lines (copper and fiber) for communications and data transfer. If all landlines fail, they still can communicate over a small number of satellite telephones, but data transfers would be severely limited.
Concerns about terrorist attacks and hurricanes have motivated CSXT to make provisions to operate for an extended period without support from the infrastructure. These provisions include diesel generators in case the two independent commercial power feeds should fail, fuel and food stored for 25 to 30 days of operation, beds for 50 people, and on-site wells to provide water
In addition, all three of the key nodes have remote backup sites
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In the case of EMP-caused outages of the three key facilities and the failure of the backup sites, railroad operations would be severely degraded. Customers could not place shipping orders, data processing would cease, and, most important, train orders could not be generated. Train orders define the makeup of trains, their routes, and their priorities on the track. Trains cannot operate without orders and would revert to fail-safe procedures. The first priority would be to stop the trains. If it were apparent that the outages would last for more than a few hours, efforts would be made to move the trains to the yards. This process could take up to 24 hours.
Once the trains and their crews are secured, plans would be made to resume operations under manual procedures. Implementation of manual procedures could take several days or longer, during which time it would be difficult to operate at more than approximately 10 to 20 percent of normal capacity. Train orders can be issued manually using satellite telephones. The biggest challenge is maintaining communications with trains that are underway. Train yards can communicate with trains by radio. If the trains are within about 20 miles of the yard, the entire communication path is wireless. However, longer range communications use landlines to repeater stations along the train routes. The repeater station batteries provide only about 24 hours of standby power.
Shipment of critical supplies likely could resume under manual control operations. Transporting food from farms to storage warehouses and from storage warehouses to cities would be a high priority. Trains also deliver chemicals that cities use to purify drinking water and treat waste water. As discussed above, power plants generally have some reserve of coal on hand, but eventually it would become crucial to resume coal shipments to power plants.
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Railroad Signal Controls
The major effect of railroad signal control failures will be delayed traffic. For centrally controlled areas of track, if block signals were inoperative, manual block authority would be implemented. Where possible, signal teams would be sent out to manually control failed switches. Crews also would set up portable diesel units to power railroad crossings that had lost power. Railroad crossing generators are on hand for emergencies, such as hurricanes. Repair and recovery times will be on the order of days to weeks. If commercial power is unavailable for periods longer than approximately 24 hours, degraded railroad operations will persist under manual control until batteries or commercial power is restored.
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Locomotives
In summary, we consider the older generation of locomotives to be generally immune to EMP effects. Newer, electronically controlled locomotives are potentially more vulnerable. Based on construction practices, we expect that these vulnerabilities may manifest at EMP levels greater than 20 to 40 kV/m. While vulnerabilities may cause the locomotives to malfunction, fail-safe procedures ensure they can be stopped manually by engineers. Hence, we do not anticipate catastrophic loss of life following EMP exposure. Rather, we anticipate degraded operations, the severity of which depends on the incident EMP field levels. Normal locomotive operations can be restored on time scales from days to weeks or even longer. Restoration time scales could extend to months if computers, for which there are few spares, must be manufactured and replaced.
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Automobile and Trucking Infrastructures
The consequences of an EMP attack on the automobile and trucking infrastructures would differ for the first day or so and in the longer term. An EMP attack will certainly immediately disable a portion of the 130 million cars and 90 million trucks in operation in the United States. Vehicles disabled while operating on the road can be expected to cause accidents. With modern traffic patterns, even a very small number of disabled vehicles or accidents can cause debilitating traffic jams. Moreover, failure of electronically based traffic control signals will exacerbate traffic congestion in metropolitan areas. In the aftermath of an EMP attack that occurs during working hours, with a large number of people taking to the road at the same time to try to get home, we can expect extreme traffic congestion. Eventually, however, people will get home and roads will be cleared as disabled cars are towed or pushed to the side of the road.
After the initial traffic congestion has subsided, the reconstitution of the automobile and trucking infrastructures will depend primarily on two factors—the availability of fuel and commercial power. Vehicles need fuel and service stations need electricity to power pumps. Few service stations have backup generators. Thus, replenishing the fuel supply and restoring commercial power will pace the return to normal operations. Similarly, restoration of traffic control systems will depend on the availability of commercial power and on the repair of damaged traffic control signals.
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Automobiles
Based on these test results, we expect few automobile effects at EMP field levels below 25 kV/m. Approximately 10 percent or more of the automobiles exposed to higher field levels may experience serious EMP effects, including engine stall, that require driver intervention to correct. We further expect that at least two out of three automobiles on the road will manifest some nuisance response at these higher field levels. The serious malfunctions could trigger car crashes on U.S. highways; the nuisance malfunctions could exacerbate this condition. The ultimate result of automobile EMP exposure could be triggered crashes that damage many more vehicles than are damaged by the EMP, the consequent loss of life, and multiple injuries.
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Trucks
Of the trucks that were not running during EMP exposure, none were subsequently affected during our test. Thirteen of the 18 trucks exhibited a response while running. Most seriously, three of the truck motors stopped. Two could be restarted immediately, but one required towing to a garage for repair. The other 10 trucks that responded exhibited relatively minor temporary responses that did not require driver intervention to correct. Five of the 18 trucks tested did not exhibit any anomalous response up to field strengths of approximately 50 kV/m.
Based on these test results, we expect few truck effects at EMP field levels below approximately 12 kV/m. At higher field levels, 70 percent or more of the trucks on the road will manifest some anomalous response following EMP exposure. Approximately 15 percent or more of the trucks will experience engine stall, sometimes with permanent damage that the driver cannot correct.
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Maritime Shipping
Our assessment of maritime shipping infrastructure focuses on ports. EMP assessments were conducted for the Port of Baltimore in Maryland and ports in the Hampton Roads, VA, area.
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An EMP event could affect operations in every phase of the transfer of container cargo from ships at sea to the highways and rails of the United States.
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Once container ships are in port, they are dependent on the dockside cranes to load and unload containers. Most of the container cranes in the Hampton Roads area are powered by commercial power; the few remaining diesel-powered cranes are being replaced by electric cranes. All the dockside cranes at Seagirt also are powered by commercial power. The cranes using commercial power have no backup for commercial power. Thus, loading and unloading of containers would stop at these docks until commercial power is restored. The 10 dockside cranes at Dundalk Marine Terminal are diesel/electric and independent of commercial power.
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Equipment not damaged by EMP will be able to operate as long as it has diesel fuel. Typically, a 10-to-20 day supply of fuel is stored at the terminals. They normally rely on commercially powered electric pumps to move fuel out of the storage tanks, but would improvise alternate methods if there was an extended outage of commercial power.
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Commercial Aviation
If the FAA air traffic control system is damaged by exposure to EMP environments, its reconstitution would take time. The FAA does not have sufficient staff or spare equipment to do a mass rapid repair of essential equipment.
It seems most cars and trucks will continue to run, but will have electrical glitches. But, getting gas for them will be difficult with an inoperable power grid. It will take some time to get relief cargo into the ports because of lack of electricity needed to off load the ships.
Chapter 7. Food Infrastructure
Introduction
A high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack can damage or disrupt the infrastructure that supplies food to the population of the United States. Food is vital for individual health and welfare and the functioning of the economy.
Dependence of Food on Other Infrastructures
The food infrastructure depends critically for its operation on electricity and on other infrastructures that rely on electricity. An EMP attack could disrupt, damage, or destroy these systems, which are necessary in making, processing, and distributing food.
Agriculture for growing all major crops requires large quantities of water, usually supplied through irrigation or other artificial means using electric pumps, valves, and other machinery to draw or redirect water from aquifers, aqueducts, and reservoirs. Tractors and farm equipment for plowing, planting, tending, and harvesting crops have electronic ignition systems and other electronic components. Farm machinery runs on gasoline and petroleum products supplied by pipelines, pumps, and transportation systems that run on electricity or that depend on electronic components. Fertilizers and insecticides that make possible high yields from croplands are manufactured and applied through means containing various electronic components. Egg farms and poultry farms typically sustain dense populations in carefully controlled environments using automated feeding, watering, and air conditioning systems. Dairy farms rely heavily on electrically powered equipment for milking cattle and for making other dairy products. These are just a few examples of how modern food production depends on electrical equipment and the electric power grid, which are both potentially vulnerable to EMP.
Food processing also requires electricity. Cleaning, sorting, packaging, and canning of all kinds of agricultural products are performed by electrically powered machinery. Butchering, cleaning, and packaging of poultry, pork, beef, fish, and other meat products also are typically automated operations, done on electrically driven processing lines. An EMP attack could render inoperable the electric equipment and automated systems that are ubiquitous and indispensable to the modern food processing industry.
Food distribution also depends heavily on electricity. Vast quantities of vegetables, fruits, and meats are stored in warehouses, where they are preserved by refrigeration systems, ready for distribution to supermarkets. Refrigerated trucks and trains are the main means of moving perishable foods to market; therefore, food distribution also has a critical dependence on the infrastructure for ground transportation. Ground transportation relies on the electric grid that powers electric trains; runs pipelines and pumping stations for gasoline; and powers signal lights, street lights, switching tracks, and other electronic equipment for regulating traffic on roads and rails.
Because supermarkets typically carry only enough food to supply local populations for 1 to 3 days and need to be resupplied continually from regional warehouses, transportation and distribution of food to supermarkets may be the weakest link in the food infrastructure in the event of an EMP attack. The trend toward modernization of supermarkets may exacerbate this problem by deliberately reducing the amount of food stored in supermarkets and regional warehouses in favor of a new just-in-time food distribution system. The new system relies on electronic databases to keep track of supermarket inventories so that they can be replaced with fresh foods exactly when needed, greatly reducing the need for large stocks of warehoused foods.
The electric power grid, on which the food infrastructure depends, has been component- tested and evaluated against EMP and is known to be vulnerable. Moreover, power grid blackouts induced by storms and mechanical failures on numerous occasions have caused massive failure of supermarket refrigeration systems and impeded transportation and distribution of food, resulting in spoilage of all perishable foods and causing food shortages lasting days or sometimes weeks. These storm- and accident-induced blackouts of the power grid are not likely to have consequences for the food infrastructure as severe or as geographically widespread as an EMP attack would.
In the face of some natural disasters like Hurricane Andrew in 1992, federal, state, and local emergency services combined have sometimes been hard pressed to provide the endangered population with food. Fortunately, there are few known instances of actual food starvation fatalities in the United States. In such localized emergencies as Hurricane Andrew, neighboring areas of the disaster area are usually able to provide needed emergency services (e.g., food, water, fire, and medical) in a timely fashion.
In the case of Hurricane Andrew, for example, although the area of the damage was relatively small, the level of damage was extraordinary and many people were affected. Consequently, emergency services were brought in, not just from neighboring states, but from many distant states. For example, electric transformers were brought in from other states to help rebuild the local power grid. The net result was a nationwide shortage of transformers for 1 year until replacements could be procured from overseas suppliers, who needed 6 months to build new transformers.
Hurricane Katrina, one of the greatest natural disasters ever to strike the United States, afflicted a much larger area than Andrew. Consequently, the ability to provide food and other emergency aid was a much greater challenge. The area disrupted by Hurricane Katrina is comparable to what can be expected from a small EMP attack.
Recent federal efforts to better protect the food infrastructure from terrorist attack tend to focus on preventing small-scale disruption of the food infrastructure, such as would result from terrorists poisoning some portion of the food supply. Yet an EMP attack potentially could disrupt or collapse the food infrastructure over a large region encompassing many cities for a protracted period of weeks, months, or even longer. Widespread damage of the infrastructures would impede the ability of undamaged fringe areas to aid in recovery. Therefore, it is highly possible that the recovery time would be very slow and the amount of human suffering great, including loss of life.
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In 1900, 39 percent of the U.S. population (about 30 million people) lived on farms; today that percentage has plummeted to less than 2 percent (only about 4.5 million people). The United States no longer has a large labor force skilled in farming that could be mobilized in an emergency. The transformation of the United States from a nation of farmers to a nation in which less than 2 percent of the population is able to feed the other 98 percent is made possible only by technology. Crippling that technology would be injurious to the food infrastructure with its security depending on the characteristics of an EMP attack.
The dependency of the U.S. food infrastructure on technology is much greater than implied by the reduction in the percentage of farmers from 39 percent in 1900 to less than 2 percent of the population today. Since 1900, the number of acres under cultivation in the United States has increased by only 6 percent, yet the U.S. population has grown from about 76 million people in 1900 to 300 million today. In order for a considerably reduced the number of U.S. farmers to feed a U.S. national population that has grown roughly fourfold from approximately the same acreage that was under cultivation in 1900, the productivity of the modern U.S. farmer has had to increase by more than 50-fold. Technology, in the form of machines, modern fertilizers and pesticides, and high-yield crops and feeds, is the key to this revolution in food production. An attack that neutralized farming technology would depress U.S. food production.
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Regional warehouses are probably the United States’ best near-term defense against a food shortage because of the enormous quantities of foodstuffs stored there. For example, one typical warehouse in New York City daily receives deliveries of food from more than 20 tractor trailers and redistributes to market more than 480,000 pounds of food. The warehouse is larger than several football fields, occupying more than 100,000 square feet. Packaged, canned, and fresh foods are stored in palletized stacks 35 feet high. Enormous refrigerators preserve vegetables, fruits, and meats and the entire facility is temperature controlled.
However, regional warehouses potentially are vulnerable to an attack that collapses the power grid and causes refrigeration and temperature controls to fail. Moreover, the large quantities of food kept in regional warehouses will do little to alleviate a crisis if it cannot be distributed to the population promptly. Distribution depends largely on trucks and a functioning transportation system. Yet storm-induced blackouts have caused widespread failure of commercial refrigeration systems and massive food spoilage.
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An EMP attack that disrupts the food infrastructure could pose a threat to life, industrial activity, and social order. Absolute deprivation of food, on average, will greatly diminish a person’s capacity for physical work within a few days. After 4 to 5 days without food, the average person will suffer from impaired judgment and have difficulty performing simple intellectual tasks. After 2 weeks without food, the average person will be virtually incapacitated. Death typically results after 1 or 2 months without food.
This timeline would not start until food stockpiles in stores and homes were depleted. Many people have several days to weeks of food stored in their homes. For example, in 1996 when a snowstorm in the Washington, D.C., area virtually paralyzed the food infrastructure for a week, the general population was forced to live off of private food larders and had sufficient stores to see them through the emergency. However, a significant number of people, those with little or no home food supply, would have to begin looking for food immediately
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Blackouts of the electric grid caused by storms or accidents have destroyed food supplies. An EMP attack that damages the power grid and denies electricity to warehouses or that directly damages refrigeration and temperature control systems could destroy most of the 30-day regional perishable food supply. Blackouts also have disrupted transportation systems and impeded the replenishment of local food supplies.
Looks like no power = no food.
Oh shit, and no water too…
Chapter 8. Water Infrastructure
Introduction
The water infrastructure depends for its operation on electricity. To the extent possible, aqueducts, tunnels, pipelines, and other water delivery systems are designed to rely on gravity. However, since the invention and proliferation of the electric water pump early in the last century, urban growth, planning, and architecture have been liberated from dependence on gravity-fed water systems. By making water move uphill, the gravity pump has made possible the construction and growth of cities and towns in locations that, in previous centuries, would have been impossible. Skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, which would be impractical if dependent on a gravity-fed water system, have been made possible by the electric pump.
Electrically driven pumps, valves, filters, and a wide variety of other electrical machinery are indispensable for the purification of water for drinking and industrial purposes and for delivering water to consumers. An EMP attack could degrade or damage these systems, affecting the delivery of water to a very large geographic region.
Electrical machinery is also indispensable to the removal and treatment of wastewater. An EMP attack that degraded the processes for removing and treating wastewater could quickly cause public health problems over a wide area.
Supervisory and Control Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA) are critical to the running and management of the infrastructure for delivery of pure water for drinking, for industry, and for the removal and treatment of wastewater. SCADAs enable centralized control and diagnostics of system problems and failures and have made possible the regulation and repair of the water infrastructure with a small fraction of the work force required in earlier days. As discussed in greater detail in Chapter 1, an EMP attack could damage or destroy SCADAs, making it difficult to manage the water infrastructure and to identify and diagnose system problems and overwhelming the small work force with system wide electrical failures.
The electric power grid provides the energy that runs the water infrastructure. An EMP attack that disrupts or collapses the power grid would disrupt or stop the operation of the SCADAs and electrical machinery in the water infrastructure. Some water systems have emergency power generators, which could provide continued — albeit greatly reduced — water supply and wastewater operations for a short time.
Little analysis has been conducted of the potential vulnerability of the water infrastructure to EMP attack. However, SCADAs supporting the water infrastructure are known not to have been hardened, or in most cases even tested, against the effects of an EMP attack.
The electric power grid, on which the water infrastructure is critically dependent, is known to be vulnerable to feasible levels of EMP. Moreover, blackouts of the power grid induced by storms and mechanical failures are known to have disrupted the water infrastructure on numerous occasions. These storm- and accident-induced blackouts of the power grid are not likely to be as severe or as geographically widespread in their consequences for the water infrastructure as would an EMP attack.
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People are likely to resort to drinking from lakes, streams, ponds, and other sources of surface water. Most surface water, especially in urban areas, is contaminated with wastes and pathogens and could cause serious illness if consumed. If water treatment and sewage plants cease operating, the concentration of wastes in surface water will certainly increase dramatically and make the risks of consuming surface water more hazardous.
One possible consequence of the failure of water treatment and sewage plants could be the release of sludge and other concentrated wastes and pathogens. Typical industrial wastes include cyanide, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals.
Boiling water for purification would be difficult in the absence of electricity. Even most modern gas stoves require electricity for ignition and cannot be lighted by match. In any event, gas also may not be available to light the stoves (see Chapter 5). Boiling could be accomplished by open fires, fueled by wood or other flammables. Other possible mitigators are hand-held pump filters, water purification kits, iodine tablets, or a few drops of household bleach.
A prolonged water shortage may quickly lead to serious consequences. People preoccupied with finding or producing enough drinking water to sustain life would be unavailable to work at normal jobs. Most industrial processes require large quantities of water and would cease if the water infrastructure were to fail.
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The many homeowners with private wells also would face similar problems. There would be fewer workarounds to get their pumps operating
The rest of the chapters cover Emergency Services and Space systems. But by now, you get the drift.
Prior to December 2012, the threat from EMP was unlikely and the threat from a Carrington-class CME event hitting earth was thought to be even more unlikely.
The good news is there are ways to mitigate the threat to the power grid. However, it will require a lot of work and political will power. That is not going to happen if the threat to the power grid from EMP or CME is considered a tin foil hat subject.
The threat to the power grid is not some crazy conspiracy theory or far-fetched sci-fi fantasy. It is a very real threat backed up by scientific research. EMP is not just for wingnuts anymore.