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Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

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Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#41

Post by T-A »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #37
T-A wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Optimal altitude for an EMP attack is actually a few hundred kilometers up. The "base case" usually considered in these scenarios is a nuke going off about 400 km over Omaha. At that altitude, the ionosphere helps you create a "slow" E3 pulse which induces a field in the tens of volts per kilometer at ground level; and since you can see most of the continental US, you have plenty of kilometers to work with.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EMP_mechanism.png shows a field strength of 25 kV/m for most of the US. My understanding could be wrong, but wouldn't this mean exposing a 1 cm wide component (and/or components that have one cm long traces attached) to at least 250 V? Wouldn't this be expected to destroy not every single component, but enough components to make enough hardware inoperable to collapse all indust…

> 25 kV/m for most of the US

That's the first (E1) pulse. And yes, the general idea is that it fries your electronics. Then the E3 pulse arrives and wrecks the electric network.

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#42

Post by noir_lord »

drtillberg wrote: post #34

I interpreted the report as: "There are 9 unguarded remote sites which, if damaged maliciously or accidentally, would lead to complete collapse of the U.S. as a nation." And then experts focus on 2 unlikely generalized scenarios of an area EMP effect incidentally affecting the sites. As for the more obvious catastrophe of someone specifically targeting the locations? I guess that's being discussed separately?[1] [1]…

It surprises me that physical attacks against infrastructure haven't been wider then they have.

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#43

Post by noir_lord »

ramzeus wrote: post #22
daenz wrote: post #2

This reminds me, I've been toying with the idea of starting a github repository for survival and rebuilding society if a major SHTF scenario occurred. It would be crowdsourced and bake-able into an ebook for offline reading. Anybody interested in it as a "Show HN" post?

Wikipedia is a quite good repository of all sorts of information. You can always clone that at put it on your computer for offline viewing.

You can also make a proper book[1] from a series of wikipedia articles (mixing and matching what you want) to generate a properly indexed book.

Laser print that on acid-free archival quality paper, bind and put in a dark, dry place and it'll outlive us all.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Books

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#44

Post by messe »

throw0101a wrote: post #3
daenz wrote: post #2

This reminds me, I've been toying with the idea of starting a github repository for survival and rebuilding society if a major SHTF scenario occurred. It would be crowdsourced and bake-able into an ebook for offline reading. Anybody interested in it as a "Show HN" post?

> […] repository for survival and rebuilding society if a major SHTF scenario occurred. There's a book (ISBN 978-0143127048): > Maybe it was a viral pandemic, or an asteroid strike, or perhaps nuclear war. Whatever the cause, the world as we know it has ended and you and the other survivors must start again. What key knowledge would you need to start rebuilding civilisation from scratch? > Once you’ve scavenged what…

> get metal out of rocks?

I'd imagine that prioritising getting metal out of old components would be a more efficient process. It's my understanding that there aren't many easily accessible metal deposits left, as there would have been thousands of years ago.

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#45

Post by codingdave »

drtillberg wrote: post #34

I interpreted the report as: "There are 9 unguarded remote sites which, if damaged maliciously or accidentally, would lead to complete collapse of the U.S. as a nation." And then experts focus on 2 unlikely generalized scenarios of an area EMP effect incidentally affecting the sites. As for the more obvious catastrophe of someone specifically targeting the locations? I guess that's being discussed separately?[1] [1]…

I must have missed the "unguarded remote" part of the article. I read that there are 30 critical sites, any 9 of which would be a problem if taken out.

To me, this sounds standard risk management. It sounds like a clear picture that it falls in the "Low Likelihood / High Impact" quadrant, though, which is the toughest quadrant to address, because you get into exactly the kinds of questions you alluded to - unlikely, generalized ideas of what could happen, but having to balance that with everyday operations which are absolutely going to happen. Even with a known mitigation of stockpiling resources to recover from such an event, at a price tag of $300M, there are many other things that money could go to.

And while I'd like to feel safe knowing they have a solution ready, I don't know enough about the budgetary limits or what other programs would have to be reduced to make that $300M be available to give a solid personal opinion on any of this.

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#46

Post by ideals »

T-A wrote: post #27
baybal2 wrote: post #6

> EMP attacks... For an EMP attack to be effective on modern electronics, you need to blow up a multimegaton nuclear bomb close enough for it to take out whomever is using that piece of electronics...

No. Optimal altitude for an EMP attack is actually a few hundred kilometers up. The "base case" usually considered in these scenarios is a nuke going off about 400 km over Omaha. At that altitude, the ionosphere helps you create a "slow" E3 pulse which induces a field in the tens of volts per kilometer at ground level; and since you can see most of the continental US, you have plenty of kilometers to work with.

400km is LEO territory for satellites. Does this mean anything not in eclipse at that time is fried or blown up?

Also wouldn't that start/accelerate the Kessler Syndrome

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#47

Post by ben_w »

ideals wrote: post #46
T-A wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Optimal altitude for an EMP attack is actually a few hundred kilometers up. The "base case" usually considered in these scenarios is a nuke going off about 400 km over Omaha. At that altitude, the ionosphere helps you create a "slow" E3 pulse which induces a field in the tens of volts per kilometer at ground level; and since you can see most of the continental US, you have plenty of kilometers to work with.

400km is LEO territory for satellites. Does this mean anything not in eclipse at that time is fried or blown up? Also wouldn't that start/accelerate the Kessler Syndrome

From what I’ve read about Project Orion, the physical damage from nukes is mostly in the shockwave. The material shockwave doesn’t propagate very far in space, so satellites won’t be blown up by a space nuke.

The EMP is, if I understand right, created by a shockwave in the extremely diffuse plasma of the ionosphere, affecting electrons and ions differently, creating a massive charge separation, and the collapse of that charge separation is what produces the actual EMP. That said, this article is the first I heard of the E1/E3 distinction, so I don’t know enough to be sure of what an EMP would do to satellite electronics.

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#49

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

codingdave wrote: post #45
drtillberg wrote: post #34

I interpreted the report as: "There are 9 unguarded remote sites which, if damaged maliciously or accidentally, would lead to complete collapse of the U.S. as a nation." And then experts focus on 2 unlikely generalized scenarios of an area EMP effect incidentally affecting the sites. As for the more obvious catastrophe of someone specifically targeting the locations? I guess that's being discussed separately?[1] [1]…

I must have missed the "unguarded remote" part of the article. I read that there are 30 critical sites, any 9 of which would be a problem if taken out. To me, this sounds standard risk management. It sounds like a clear picture that it falls in the "Low Likelihood / High Impact" quadrant, though, which is the toughest quadrant to address, because you get into exactly the kinds of questions you alluded to - unlikely,…

The US military budget is nearly $700bn annually, and NASA's budget is $22.6bn.

For the US government, $300M is pocket money. It's unbelievably negligent not to spend a relatively tiny sum which could avoid total collapse.

It's like owning a very grand house and not paying a few hundred dollars for insurance.

Re: Solar storm risk and EMP attacks

#50

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

jnurmine wrote: post #33
m463 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But although github is centralized, git is distributed. and tcp/ip was literally built for nuclear war. This would be like tech prepper paradise. We could sync our tech trees and rebuild!

Just because TCP/IP was made to be robust enough to survive holes in the network topology caused by nuclear bomb devastation, it doesn't really mean that TCP/IP networks would magically keep on working after a large-scale nuclear war. I mean, during a nuclear war, the networks would only need to stay working until a counterattack could be coordinated and launched. After that point, the devastation would be so large p…

I think we can just assume that in a nuclear war or major EMP event the Internet will be one of the first things to go.

But this is one of the best uses of a Raspberry Pi. A Pi with an external USB drive and a small display will run off solar battery power, but still have enough storage for a complete Manual for Rebuilding Everything.

Add some EMP protection [1] and update the Manual from GitHub once a month or so, and you're set.

[1] And food.

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