Looking at how Russia has taken out Ukraine's electrical grid, I don't suppose anyone in our government has given any thoughts on our system??? It's no longer a plausible scenario, it's happened. But I guess that would be too much to expect.....

Like what? There’s not a whole lot you can do if an invader blows up a bunch of your power generation capacity.

Or hacks into your control systems?

Based on past readings, I know the .gov/.mil have looked into what happens if we get an EMP attack (i.e. take out electrical grid and all nonshielded electronics).

^quote^ Based on past readings, I know the .gov/.mil have looked into what happens if we get an EMP attack (i.e. take out electrical grid and all nonshielded electronics).

^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^ EMP Burst? ^^^^^^

I like this guy, Practical Engineering, on YouTube. He has ~ 3 million subscribers. I enjoy his videos and have learned a lot.


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I imagine this is why Japan gets so nervous when the norks fire their test missiles that go anywhere near their islands; it would be easy to disrupt and damage the grid of a nation that relies heavily on electrical systems for every facet of life. The real quest is what would anyone do about such an attack?

Several years ago, I read One Second After.
I never thought much about EMPs before that.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
I imagine this is why Japan gets so nervous when the norks fire their test missiles that go anywhere near their islands; it would be easy to disrupt and damage the grid of a nation that relies heavily on electrical systems for every facet of life. The real quest is what would anyone do about such an attack?

Tests don’t carry warheads, typically, or munitions of any kind for the most part. I understand one might think, “how does Japan know the difference between R&D and operational?”

The first few seconds would be hard to tell, after that it’s fairly easy to discern.

Little pucker factor at the beginning, but the main reason for not wanting a test over your homeland is collateral damage.

To answer the OP’s question, yes. The grid and its security along with many other aspects of Americans lives that most won’t think about get thought about daily.

I think EMP's are related to Nukes and that means all out war.
I that case I'd expect electrical issues but you'd probably have a lot more serious stuff in the mean time.
The Norks like too threaten using both nukes and conventional warfare on the south since they are right on the border and capitol city but against other countries the wouldn't last long or have many friends.

The Russians are doing their damage with conventional explosive damage and have a much more credible nuclear arsenal but it's hard to envision them using it beyond the threatening level.

Y’all may or may not agree on this or not but I think the old idea of EMP is a thing of the past.

With increasing reliance on technology and computers, one can sit at a desk and cause the same havoc a nuclear detonation can cause if we’re talking about EMPs. All while the enemy has plausible deniability. Todays war is an electronic one on the fronts one would use an EMP for.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
I think EMP's are related to Nukes and that means all out war.

Related to nukes, but not necessarily all out war. Like Muddflap, I read One Second After and then went down a rabbit hole for a few evenings reading about EMPs. One of the interesting scenarios that stuck with me was rogue nation outfitting an ubiquitous ship (e.g. container ship) with launchers, and launching 3 high altitude nukes over CONUS - east coast, midwest, and west coast. Not so easy to figure out who did it and wipe 'em off the face of the earth, but meanwhile much of CONUS is living like 100 years ago.

The excellent Practical Engineering video linked above focused on the grid since it was funded by the Electric Power Research Institute, and showed the possibility of a multi-month grid outage. Practical Engineering did a recent video on long-term grid outage. At about 7:01, the follow-up video starts looking at implaction of more than a few days outage:


The implications of a long-term grid outage are staggering, and it didn't even consider the impacts of nonshielded devices on other parts of energy sector such as the SCADA/DCS for pipelines (e.g. crude oil, natural gas, and refined product), refineries, chem plants, etc. It also didn't look at impacts on non-shielded devices at places of work, in vehicles, at home, etc.

As we've all learned during COVID that vehicles contain thousands of microprocessors which has taken 2.5 years to get new cars back to normal. Now, imagine millions new and used vehicles needing multiple microprocesssors replaced, grocery stores needing cooling and freezing microprocessors replaced, hospitals needing medical device microprocessors replaced, millions of home and office HVAC needing microprocessors replaced, millions of kitchens needing appliance microprocessors replaced, infrastructure (e.g. water treatment and sewage treatment plants) needing microprocessors replaced, etc. That's just normal life and commerce microprocessors and not entertainment microprocessors.

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:
Y’all may or may not agree on this or not but I think the old idea of EMP is a thing of the past.

...Todays war is an electronic one on the fronts one would use an EMP for.

In war, perhaps. EMPs can be caused by other sources than a high-altitude nuclear weapon, however. I give you the Carrington Event:

quote:

The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1 to 2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations. The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere.

The geomagnetic storm was associated with a very bright solar flare on 1 September 1859. It was observed and recorded independently by British astronomers Richard Christopher Carrington and Richard Hodgson—the first records of a solar flare.

A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid.

Fun part is, there was another such flare ten years ago that narrowly missed Earth, according to the article. I wonder how well shielded our electrical grid is against such an event.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bean:
Looking at how Russia has taken out Ukraine's electrical grid, I don't suppose anyone in our government has given any thoughts on our system??? It's no longer a plausible scenario, it's happened. But I guess that would be too much to expect.....

Yes, I am sure that no one - no one at all - in the government or military has given even one moment's thought to protecting the power grid or recovering it if damaged. I am sure you are right and all they are doing is sitting around the Pentagon Officer's Club or some capital hill lounge sipping martinis and pinching cocktail waitresses on the ass.

There was a show on a few months ago about this very thing and there are 5 locations if hit would wipe out power millions of people for a long time.

Many of these sites are out in the middle of no where and you can drive right up to them.

Also a good reason not to have all your eggs in one Electric pot.

Well, we took out the Iraq grid for the first gulf war pretty quick and easy just by dropping thousands, or millions? of wires on the uninsulated power lines and power stations to short them out, so the .gov has been thinking about this for decades... yea, nothing to worry about... I expect Homeland Security has got this...

What we (the US military) did in Iraq was brilliant (assuming it worked as claimed) and caused little lasting damage.

I'm ready with my Honda IU3000 and 5 gallons of gas.

Trust me , the gov. is thinking hard about protecting the grid but it's an impossible task in reality . Utility companies are spending major dollars on CIP requirements . Critical Infrastructure Protection .The grid is too vulnerable in too many ways to feel warm and fuzzy about the efforts though . I was a Foreman in High Voltage Substations before I retired and all CIP accomplished was to make my job more difficult while trying to work around all the bullshit chains , locks , cameras , procedures and regulations . Forget about EMP and hackers . Worry about the equipment and transmission structures . You can't protect it all .

The good news is James Bond caused the Russia Goldeneye to burn up on re-etry. Because Russia would never put nukes in space to cause an EMP...

I read somewhere that if a long term nationwide electrical grid failure should occur, most Americans would be dead in 30 days.