Our growing reliance on satellite technology, and it's vulnerability to solar flares. Why it matters.

Electronic Armageddon? Congress Worries That Solar Flares Could Spell Disaster

High-energy electric pulses from the sun could surge to Earth and cripple our electrical grid for years, causing billions in damages, government officials and scientists worry.

The House is so concerned that the Energy and Commerce committee voted unanimously 47 to 0 to approve a bill allocating $100 million to protect the energy grid from this rare but potentially devastating occurrence.

The Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act, or H.R. 5026, aims "to amend the Federal Power Act to protect the bulk-power system and electric infrastructure critical to the defense of the United States against cybersecurity and other threats and vulnerabilities."

It cites electromagnetic pulses from geomagnetic or solar storms as the big threat to our energy distribution grid, and demands "an order directing the Electric Reliability Organization to submit … reliability standards adequate to protect the bulk-power system from any reasonably foreseeable geomagnetic storm event."

Solar storms occur when sunspots on our star erupt and spew out flumes of charged particles that can damage power systems. The sun's activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, and it looks to be coming out of a slump and gearing up for an active period.

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity," said Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division. "At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms." [...]

I've posted previously about EMP dangers, both man-made (military attack or terrorism) and naturally occurring (solar storms and flares). That congress has decided to protect our infrastructure from these threats is hopefully a good thing (that the money is spent wisely). But I would like to examine another aspect of this threat, that deserves special scrutiny; our growing dependence on satellite technology, and it's vulnerability to the sun.

The following link starts off describing the Quebec power failure of 1989, that was caused by a solar flare. The Quebec power grid had extensions reaching far North, where in inducted electricity from the flare. One of their main transformers was permanently damaged. What is even more alarming is, that the Northeast United states power grid was also almost collapsed, which would have resulted in 50 million Americans without power. The Quebec failure is now a textbook case as an example of the destructiveness of solar flares on modern power grids.

While the Quebec portion of the article is certainly worth reading, I'm going to excerpt a portion from the latter part of the article, that deals with satellite technology. It shows how our dependency on satellites has grown by leaps and bounds, and how it represents a new, growing vulnerability:

Chapter 1 : A Conflagration of Storms

[...] Why should we care that we are now once again living under 'sunspot maximum' conditions? After all, we have already weathered at least five of these solar activity cycles since the end of World War II. What is different about the world today is that we are substantially more reliant upon computers and telecommunications to run our commerce, and even our forms of entertainment and recreation. In 1981, at the peak of solar cycle 21, there were 15 communication satellites in orbit. Cellular phones were rare and there were 800,000 PCs sold in the U.S. with 300 hosts on the Internet. By the time the peak of solar cycle 22 came around in 1989, there were 102 communication satellites, and 3 million cellular phone users in the United States. With the new Intel 80486-based PCs, you could send e-mail to your choice of 300,000 host machines on the Internet.

As we arrive at the peak of the 23rd sunspot cycle in 2000-2001, however, we enter a very different world far more reliant on what used to be the luxuries of the Space Age. By 2000, 349 communication satellites orbit the Earth supporting over $60 billion of commerce. Over 100 million people have cellular phones, and Global Positioning System handsets are a commonplace for people working, or camping, 'off road'. By 2003, 400 million people will routinely use wireless data transmission via satellite channels. There will be over 10 million Internet hosts with 38% of US households Internet-connected.

[...]

As if to emphasize today's exuberance and expectations, 'Individual Investor' magazine announced on its cover 'The Sky's the Limit: In the 21st century satellites will connect the globe'. The International telecommunications Union in Geneva has predicted that by 2005, the demand for voice and data transmission services will increase to $1.2 trillion. The fraction carried by satellite services will reach a staggering $80 billion.

To meet this demand, many commercial companies are launching; not just individual satellites, but entire networks of them with names like 'Iridium', 'Teledesic', 'Skybridge' and 'SpaceWay'. The total cost of these systems alone represents a hardware investment of $35 billion between 1998 and 2004. The actual degree of vulnerability of these systems to solar storms is unknown, and will probably vary in a complex way depending on the kind of technology they use, and their deployment in space. They do, however, share some disturbing characteristics: They are all light-weight, sophisticated, built at the lowest cost, and following only a handful of design types replicated dozens and even hundreds of times, often with off-the-shelf electronics.

It is common to base future expectations on recent past experiences: "Past is prologue" some say. Increasingly, these past experiences with, for example, commercial space technology, do not extend back much beyond the last solar maximum in 1989-1990. So, when we wonder why infrequent events such as solar storms aren't more noticeable, we have to remind ourselves that most of our experience comes from times when the Sun was simply not very active, and when we were a lot less technologically vulnerable. [...]

So we can see a dramatic increase in satellite usage in the eleven year intervals in solar maximums. This article projected figures up until 2005. What is our satellite usage now? Here are some contemporary figures:

How many communications satellites were launched?

1,107 satellites provide civilian communications and 792 military communications. Some seven hundred of them were placed into geosynchronous orbit.

Civilian and military communications satellites represent the most numerous kind of spacecrafts launched.

(See lists of civilian Communications Satellites, of Military Communications Satelites and of Spacecrafts in Geostationary Orbit.)

Follow the link for detailed lists of those satellites.

If we consider non-communication satellites as well, the list gets longer:

How Many Satellites Are Orbiting the Earth?

Satellites are tracked by United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN), which has been tracking every object in orbit over 10 cm (3.937 inches) in diameter since it was founded in 1957. There are approximately 3,000 satellites operating in Earth orbit, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), out of roughly 8,000 man-made objects in total. In its entire history, the SSN has tracked more than 24,500 space objects orbiting Earth. The majority of these have fallen into unstable orbits and incinerated during reentry. The SSN also keeps track which piece of space junk belongs to which country.

[...]

As space technology matured, satellites were launched for military and commercial purposes. The price of satellite launches has dropped to as low as a few million dollars for light satellites, and a few tens of millions for heavy satellites. This put satellite technology within the reach of many nations and international companies.

Satellites have an operating lifespan between five and 20 years. As of 2008, the former Soviet Union and Russia had nearly 1,400 satellites in orbit, the USA about 1,000, Japan more than 100, China about 80, France over 40, India more than 30, Germany almost 30, the UK and Canada 25, and at least ten each from Italy, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Sweden, Luxembourg, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. [...]

So humankind is using and depending on satellite technology to a degree never seen before, and most of the growth of this usage has occurred in the past few decades.

We have gone from 15 communication satellites in 1981, to 1,899 communication satellites in 2010. We have yet to experience a severe solar storm, with all this satellite technology. Are we ready for it? Military satellites may be reinforced with extra shielding to withstand EMPs. But what about the many light-weight "cheap" satellites made with off the shelf parts? Are we ready to suddenly do without all this technology we've come to depend on, if many or most of these satellites get fried in a solar storm?


Related Links:

As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

National Geographic Explorer: "Electronic Armageddon"

Solar Storms Could Be Earth's Next Katrina

The Sun Also Flares
     

"Electronic Armageddon" happens tonight...

... on National Geographic Explorer:

National Geographic Explorer: "Electronic Armageddon"

What do future presidents need to know about existential dangers this country could face? Explorer investigates the science behind the dangers of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse, or HEMP. Picture an instantaneous deathblow to the vital engines that power our society, delivered by a nuclear weapon designed not to kill humans but to attack electronics. What could happen if an electromagnetic pulse surged to earth, crippling every aspect of modern society's infrastructure?

I've posted previously about EMP dangers, both man-made (military attack or terrorism) and naturally occurring (solar storms and flares). I think this Explorer episode intends to address both.

Also see: Is this why our ancestors worshiped the sun?      

Did Iran's Nuke Plans change Russia's mind?

Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design – secret report
Exclusive: Watchdog fears Tehran has key component to put bombs in missiles

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response. [...]

Such warheads could be used on missiles they already have, and would greatly increase their ability to devastate with EMP attacks, without a single bomb hitting the ground.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that Russia is suddenly more supportive of sanctions:

Russia changes tune, may back sanctions on Iran

Russia has spoken out more strongly than ever against Iran, warning that it may consider tougher sanctions against the country should it fail to accept a Western-backed nuclear proposal.

In an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel on Saturday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that, much to his reluctance, he would be forced to sign off on US-led sanctions on Iran.

"I do not want that all this ends up with the adopting of international sanctions because sanctions, as a rule, lead in a complex and dangerous direction," AFP quoted Medvedev as saying. [...]

They are within striking distance. But when you include missiles launched from ships, and EMP attacks as the goal, then most of the worlds populations are within striking distance.
     

Solar Flare: The "Carrington Event" of 1859

In a post I did a few days ago, about sunspot activity, the famous solar storm of 1859, often referred to as the "Carrington Event", was frequently mentioned. I've been reading up on that, and here is some of the information I found:

A Super Solar Flare

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.

On that morning, he was capturing the likeness of an enormous group of sunspots. Suddenly, before his eyes, two brilliant beads of blinding white light appeared over the sunspots, intensified rapidly, and became kidney-shaped. Realizing that he was witnessing something unprecedented and "being somewhat flurried by the surprise," Carrington later wrote, "I hastily ran to call someone to witness the exhibition with me. On returning within 60 seconds, I was mortified to find that it was already much changed and enfeebled." He and his witness watched the white spots contract to mere pinpoints and disappear.

It was 11:23 AM. Only five minutes had passed.

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.

"What Carrington saw was a white-light solar flare—a magnetic explosion on the sun," explains David Hathaway, solar physics team lead at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

[...]

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." [...]

From what I've read, Canada and many of the Scandinavian countries have experienced the most electrical damage from solar storms, because of their proximity to the North pole (these effects can emanate from the South pole too, I believe, but there are fewer people and electrical grids nearby to be affected). The affects of a larger solar storm could be farther-reaching.

The Biggest Solar Storm in History

It was the 2 September 1859. The clipper ship Southern Cross was off Chile when, at 1:30am, it sailed into a living hell. Hailstones from above and waves from all around whipped the deck. When the wind-lashed ocean spray fell away to leeward, the men noticed they were sailing in an ocean of blood. The colour was reflected from the sky, which, they could see – even through the clouds – was wreathed in an all-encompassing red glow.

The sailors recognised the lights as the southern aurora that usually graced the skies near the Antarctic Circle, just as their northern counterparts cling to the Arctic. To see them from this far north was highly unusual. As the gale subsided, they witnessed an even more astonishing display. Fiery lights loomed against the horizon as if some terrible conflagration had engulfed the Earth. Vivid bolts flew across the now clear sky in spiral streaks and exploded in silent brilliance, as if the very souls of all humanity were fleeing whatever cataclysm had befallen the planet.

Upon their arrival at San Francisco, the ship’s company discovered that theirs was not an isolated experience. Two thirds of the Earth’s skies had been similarly smothered. Also, there was a sinister side to the aurorae.

The beguiling lights had disabled the telegraph system, wiping out communications across the world. For days, nature refused to allow these arteries of information to flow freely. It was as if today’s Internet had suddenly, inexplicably shut down. Worse still, the aurora also threatened life and limb.

In Philadelphia, a telegrapher was stunned by a severe shock. In some offices the equipment burst into flames. In Bergen, Norway, the operators had to scramble to disconnect the apparatus, risking electrocution. On top of this, compasses spun uselessly under the grip of the aurora, disrupting global navigation. [...]

It's obvious the flare caused considerable trouble back in 1859. What impact would such a solar storm have on our modern world, if it occurred today?


Blogger Neil Craig has some excerpts from Michael Brooks' report in NewScientist Magazine on what could happen if a solar storm the size of the "Carrington Event" were to happen today:

SEPTEMBER 1859 - CARRINGTON EVENT THE WORLDWIDE CATASTROPHE YOU NEVER HEARD OF

[...] it is clear that a repeat of the Carrington event could produce a catastrophe the likes of which the world has never seen. "It's just the opposite of how we usually think of natural disasters," says John Kappenman, a power industry analyst with the Metatech Corporation of Goleta, California, and an advisor to the NAS committee that produced the report. "Usually the less developed regions of the world are most vulnerable, not the highly sophisticated technological regions."

According to the NAS report, a severe space weather event in the US could induce ground currents that would knock out 300 key transformers within about 90 seconds, cutting off the power for more than 130 million people (see map). From that moment, the clock is ticking for America.

First to go - immediately for some people - is drinkable water. Anyone living in a high-rise apartment, where water has to be pumped to reach them, would be cut off straight away. For the rest, drinking water will still come through the taps for maybe half a day. With no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, there is no more after that.

There is simply no electrically powered transport: no trains, underground or overground. Our just-in-time culture for delivery networks may represent the pinnacle of efficiency, but it means that supermarket shelves would empty very quickly - delivery trucks could only keep running until their tanks ran out of fuel, and there is no electricity to pump any more from the underground tanks at filling stations.

Back-up generators would run at pivotal sites - but only until their fuel ran out. For hospitals, that would mean about 72 hours of running a bare-bones, essential care only, service. After that, no more modern healthcare.

The truly shocking finding is that this whole situation would not improve for months, maybe years: melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced. "From the surveys I've done, you might have a few spare transformers around, but installing a new one takes a well-trained crew a week or more," says Kappenman. "A major electrical utility might have one suitably trained crew, maybe two."

Within a month, then, the handful of spare transformers would be used up. The rest will have to be built to order, something that can take up to 12 months.

Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. Coal-fired power stations usually keep reserves to last 30 days, but with no transport systems running to bring more fuel, there will be no electricity in the second month.

...With no power for heating, cooling or refrigeration systems, people could begin to die within days. There is immediate danger for those who rely on medication. Lose power to New Jersey, for instance, and you have lost a major centre of production of pharmaceuticals for the entire US. Perishable medications such as insulin will soon be in short supply. "In the US alone there are a million people with diabetes," Kappenman says. "Shut down production, distribution and storage and you put all those lives at risk in very short order."

Help is not coming any time soon, either....
"I don't think the NAS report is scaremongering," says Mike Hapgood, who chairs the European Space Agency's space weather team. Green agrees. "Scientists are conservative by nature and this group is really thoughtful," he says. "This is a fair and balanced report."... [...]

The article goes on about some of the things we might do to lessen the threat, but also acknowledges the difficulties of convincing people of the threat, and taking the necessary precautions.

I have posted before about how our dependency on electricity and computer chips increases our vulnerability to EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) weapons:

EMP Vulnerability: Could Advanced Electronics be the Achilles' Heel of our Western Civilization?

While the emphasis on that post was the danger posed from EMP weapons, the effects of large solar storm/flares share some similarities with EMP events. Both involve fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field, that are damaging to electrical systems. And the safeguards needed to protect our electrical infrastructure from said fluctuations, be they from natural or man-made sources, are largely the same. Yet it's hard to convince people of the need to protect against something that has never happened in their own experience, or in the case of the Carrington Event, within living people's memory.

Even with the solar storm of 1859, there were no advanced electronics. The U.S. electric power industry didn't even exist yet (it only began in 1882). A comparison with today is difficult.

Today's advanced electronics, like computer microchips, are very vulnerable to magnetic field fluctuations, but we have only had them in wide use in recent decades. People aren't likely to think of the consequences of them failing en-mass, until they do.

Some people argue that storms like the Carrington Event only occur every 500 years or so, so why worry? But the data and arguments on that assertion are disputed, it's by no means a certainty. Also, a storm or flare of lesser strength still might do a lot of damage nowadays, given the delicate nature of our advanced electronics. Oddly enough, there could be a blessing in that, if it makes people aware of the danger, and more likely to protect against a larger event. Hopefully we won't have to learn hard way, by the worst scenario.

Since 1859, several solar storms about half the strength of the Carrington Event have been observed; but none of those observed flares were moving in the direction of Earth. It may be just a matter of time before one does. Scientists are watching the sun closely. We've learned more about the sun in the past decade, than we have in the last 100 years, but we still can't predict solar flares yet. Hopefully our ability to do that will improve over time. And hopefully, the next big storm we do experience won't be as big as the Carrington Event.


Related Links:

Our climate, the weather, our grid and the Sun

Could another Carrington Event destroy our economy?

Solar cycle 24: solar flares & social collapse or ‘crushing cold temperatures and global famine'?
     

Obama, the Russians, and Iran. No Democracy.

From the British Telegraph Newspaper:

Barack Obama holds a fire sale of America's nuclear defences in Moscow

[...] It was always in Russia that Obama threatened to do most damage and, as Nile Gardiner has rightly pointed out, these forebodings have been fulfilled. His supposed missile deal with Vladimir Putin (let’s cut straight to the organ-grinder and by-pass Medvedev, the monkey) is very satisfactory to Russian ambitions and realpolitik.

The nuclear power balance, as at 2007, was a Russian superiority of 2,146 land-launched nuclear warheads to 1,600 US; this was counterbalanced by a US superiority of 3,168 sea-launched US warheads to 1,392 Russian and 1,098 air-launched US warheads to 624 Russian. What should also be factored in is the leaking, deteriorating, rust-bucket condition of some of Russia’s deterrent ordnance, although it has already decommissioned the most basket-case Soviet weaponry. The bottom line, however, is that it is Russia which is now in the lead in ICBM development, not America.

For America voluntarily to reduce its nuclear superiority is madness. Bien-pensant talk of a nuclear-free world displays total stupidity in a global situation where nuclear weaponry is proliferating, not receding. There is even a nuclear bomb in Pakistan, which is teetering on the brink of failed statehood at the hands of Islamist insurgents. Is this a time for America to disarm, to “sell the store” as one trenchant right-wing commentator has already described Obama’s posturing in Moscow?

[...]

It seems certain Obama will sacrifice the anti-missile shield in Europe that would have been our defence against a nuclear Iran after the ayatollahs, with Russian help, emerge as potential vapourising agents of the infidel. The interceptor missiles do not even carry warheads: they rely on an impact at 14,900mph to destroy any incoming missile, so Russian hysteria about this “threat” is synthetic. [...]

Well, the Europeans insisted that we must elect Obama. They wanted him, and now they've got him. Now they want to cry about it? Too bad.

I could almost laugh about it, except when one considers what an Iran with nukes could do to the USA. Thanks to EMP pulses and the earth's magnetic field, they wouldn't even have to land a single bomb on American soil, to deliver a devastating strike against us.

Russia and Iran have much in common. Neither has real elections, or an actually functioning democracy. But then that's not a problem for the American Democrat party these days. Ironically, our "Democrats" aren't all that interested in supporting real democracy, at home or abroad.
     

EMP Vulnerability: Could Advanced Electronics be the Achilles' Heel of our Western Civilization?

Terrorists with nukes are bad enough. But what about bombs, nuclear and non-nuclear, that create an Electromagnetic pulse (EMP)?

I had mentioned in my earlier post the American Starfish Prime 1.44 megaton nuclear test explosion in 1962, in space above the earth's atmosphere, and it's EMP effect on Hawaii. That same year, the Soviets did a similar test over Kazakhstan. Their bomb was only 300 kilotons, about one fifth the size of the Starfish Prime bomb, yet the EMP damage was more extensive. Why? Because they did it above a heavily populated area, and because it was also in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's magnetic field was very strong, which amplified the EMP effects, giving the smaller explosion a much stronger EMP!

An atomic bomb detonated high in or above the Earth's atmosphere could be used in a northern location to take advantage of the strength of the Earth's magnetic field to amplify the effect and spread it southward. The diagram below illustrates what such an EMP spread pattern might look like:



The above diagram shows us something called the Compton effect. The scenario it illustrates in this particular picture, is similar to one I read about recently in the September 2008 issue of Hillsdale college's Imprimis:

Ballistic Missile Defense is Not Yet Reality

[...] Consider Iran. President Ahmadinejad and his Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have control of key strategic parts of the Iranian government, and the IRGC is capable of operating as a terrorist training unit both inside and outside of Iran (witness Iran’s support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and its backing of lethal attacks on Americans in Iraq). For the past decade, Iran—with the assistance of Russia, China, and North Korea—has been developing missile technology. It is believed that the Iranians have produced hundreds of Shahab-3 missiles. This is not the most sophisticated missile in the world, but it is capable of carrying a payload to Israel or—if launched from a ship—to an American city.

The current controversy over Iran’s nuclear production is really about whether it can produce an industrial infrastructure that would be capable of producing nuclear warheads. It has sought nuclear capability since the time of the Shah, as most nations do, since nuclear weapons bestow on a country great military and political power. Even a fully democratic and pro-western Iran would want such weapons.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said in 2005: “Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved.” What about this do we not get?

Consider this scenario: An ordinary-looking freighter ship heading toward New York City or Los Angeles launches a missile from its hull or from a canister lowered into the sea. The missile hits a densely populated area and a million people are incinerated. The ship is sunk and no one claims responsibility. There is no firm evidence as to who sponsored the attack, and thus no one against whom to launch a counterstrike.

But as terrible as that scenario sounds, consider a second one: Let us say the freighter ship launches a nuclear-armed Shahab-3 missile off the coast of the U.S. and it explodes 300 miles over Chicago, creating an electromagnetic pulse. Gamma rays scatter in what is called the Compton effect, and three separate pulses disable consumer electronics, some automobiles, and, most importantly, the hundreds of large transformers that distribute power throughout the U.S. All of our lights, refrigerators, TVs and radios stop running. We have no communication. This is what is referred to as an EMP attack, and such an attack would effectively throw America back into the early nineteenth century. Perhaps hundreds of millions of us will die from lack of food and water and as a result of social breakdown.

Opponents of missile defense call such scenarios far fetched, on the basis that the U.S. would launch a nuclear attack against whatever nation attacks us. That is, they continue to rely on the doctrine of mutually-assured destruction that our leaders prior to Reagan relied on during the Cold War. But in my scenarios, we would not know who attacked us, so that doctrine is no help. And in any case, even if Iran could be identified as the attacker, who is to say that it wouldn’t gladly sacrifice itself to destroy the Great Satan? As the Ayatollah Khomeini said in 1979, during the American hostage crisis: “I say let [Iran] go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the world.”

I do not use the word “destroy” lightly: An EMP attack on the U.S. would mean the end of American civilization, and dropping nuclear weapons on or retaliating against whoever caused the attack will not bring our civilization back. Nor is this science fiction. Twice, in the Caspian Sea, the Iranians have tested their ability to launch ballistic missiles in a way to set off an EMP. And the congressionally-mandated EMP Commission, including some of America’s finest scientists, has released its findings and issued two separate reports, the most recent in July, describing the effects of such an attack on the U.S. [...]

It goes on to describe the steps we could take to protect ourselves from such an attack. And the reasons we are not taking them.

Both China and Russia see America as an obstacle to expanding their global influence. Both are working on and advancing space weapons that could be used against us. We could be working on space based missile defense systems, but we are told we must not, because it could "upset" China and Russia.

As if that is not bad enough, we have increased our own vulnerability needlessly. Computer chip Technology, which is highly vulnerable to EMP forces, has been incorporated into many items what previously worked fine without them.

Take automobiles, for instance. Cars made before 1985, that don't use computer chips, would be largely impervious to an EMP attack. Cars made after that date would be rendered useless. Cars don't conceptually NEED computer chips to function, but the way they are designed and made now, they depend on them. Computer chips are now even being incorporated into the most ordinary things, even light switches. They are in almost everything. It's become a needless liability of our own making.

And to be effective, an EMP attack doesn't even have to be as large scale as the attack pictured in the diagram. Even one attack on a city on our coastline, or on a city anywhere in the world, would create panic and instability in an already unstable global market place. Several attacks, even more so.

People often think our civilization could only end from a massive war. But in truth, it could be more like "Death by a thousand cuts". Multiple, continuous small EMP attacks could impair our ability to function normally, till we no longer can.

It should be obvious why it's important to curtail rogue states who are attempting to acquire these weapons, and the countries that support them. And there is so much more we could do to defend ourselves. But will we? Or are the majority of us going to keep living our lives like we're in some unreal TV drama, living and breathing BS, until one day the lights go out, perhaps for decades, and we have a very rude awakening?

President Obama wants to drop our shield plan in order to placate Russia, in hopes they will assist us in containing Iran. Russia clearly has other plans, and is indicating that it wants nothing to do with that idea.

Our President should take note of some relevant facts about Russia, such as Russia's quickly shifting demographics, that demonstrate that the country will soon have a Muslim majority, making it a Muslim nation. With access to all of Russia's weapons technology and resources.

Pakistan already has nuclear technology, and it is inevitable that other Muslim nations will obtain it as well. I don't say that all Muslim states with nuclear capabilities are a threat to us, but clearly some rogue states like Iran are not only a threat to us but to the stability of the Middle East. As this technological capability spreads throughout the world, we are going to need every advantage available to us to contain it among peaceful nations, and protect ourselves as much as is humanly possible.

Now is not the time to back down on missile defense systems. We should in fact, be doing every thing we can do develop it quickly. We should also be doing all we can to make our electrical infrastructure less vulnerable to EMP attacks.

I've said generally that foreign policy has not been a strong point for Democrats, and I can't say that I like what I've seen from them so far. But I live in hope. A strong Democrat that gets the job done on these issues? That would be A Change I Could Believe In. For all our sakes.


More information from Wikipedia: Electromagnetic bomb

[...] The electromagnetic pulse was first observed during high-altitude nuclear weapon detonations.

Electromagnetic weapons are still mostly classified and research surrounding them is highly secret. Military speculators and experts generally think that E-bombs use explosively pumped flux compression generator technology as their power source, though a relatively small (10 kt) nuclear bomb, exploded between 30 and 300 miles in the atmosphere could send out enough power to damage electronics from coast to coast in the US. The US Army Corps of Engineers issued a publicly available pamphlet in the late 1990s that discusses in detail how to harden a facility against "HEMP" - high frequency electromagnetic pulse. It describes how water pipes, antennas, electrical lines, and windows allow EMP to enter a building.

According to some reports, the U.S. Navy used experimental E-bombs during the 1991 Gulf War. These bombs utilized warheads that converted the energy of conventional explosives into a pulse of radio energy.[2] CBS News also reported that the U.S. dropped an E-bomb on Iraqi TV during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but this has not been confirmed.[3]

The Soviet Union conducted significant research into producing nuclear weapons specially designed for upper atmospheric detonations, a decision that was later followed by the United States and the United Kingdom. Only the Soviets ultimately produced any significant quantity of such warheads, most of which were disarmed following the Reagan-era arms talks. [citation needed] EMP-specialized nuclear weapon designs belong to the third generation of nuclear weapons. [...]

"Most" of them were disarmed? Have some been sold? Has the technology to build new ones been sold? Who would be interested in building and using new ones? Take a guess.

The effects of such devices are sometimes exaggerated and/or misrepresented in fiction and bad journalism. Much depends on the power of the the device, the type of bomb, it's altitude and it's location in the Earth's magnetic field.

Follow the link for a definition of EMP bombs, nuclear and non-nuclear, and the details of the effects of such devices.

Some videos on Youtube.com, parts 1 and 2. Both are about 7 minutes long:




This video has some startling information about EMPs. It seems that since the end of the Cold War, the US military has really slacked off on protecting military installations and equipment from EMP forces, and our society in general has become more reliant on highly vulnerable technologies.

The Russians had developed EMP bombs as small as a beer can. Not all of them have been accounted for since the demise of the USSR. Such devices could be used in a busy airport, to blind air traffic, or in the NYC stock exchange, causing trillions of dollars in losses. It's a new world with new threats, but are we keeping up?




This 2nd video illustrates my point above, about modern automobiles. You get to see what happens to a modern car driven under an EMP pulse device, that simulates a high altitude pulse.

After the pulse, the car stops. It won't start. But it's battery is still working; the electric windows work, because they are simple motors. A few lights in the dashboard work, but everything else is dead, because they are needlessly tied into either transistors or computer chips. A vehicle that could be impervious is made unnecessarily vulnerable. Can't we change this?


Related Links:

High altitude nuclear explosion

High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP): A Threat to Our Way of Life

Starfish Prime: A 1962 Nuclear Experiment with new relevance for contemporary technology
     

Starfish Prime: A 1962 Nuclear Experiment with new relevance for contemporary technology

"Starfish Prime" was an American nuclear test explosion high up in space:

The nuclear explosion in space, as seen from Honolulu
A missile carrying a 1.44 megaton nuclear bomb was launched into space and exploded above the earth's atmosphere, to see what the effects would be. From Wikipedia:

Starfish Prime

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 4 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yield of 1.4 megatons of TNT.

[...]

Because there is almost no air at an altitude of 400 kilometers, no fireball formation occurred, although there were many other notable effects. About 1500 kilometers (930 statute miles) away in Hawaii, the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) created by the explosion was felt as three hundred street lights failed, television sets and radios malfunctioned, burglar alarms went off and power lines fused. On Kauai, the EMP shut down telephone calls to the other islands by burning out the equipment used in a microwave link. Also, the sky in the Pacific region was illuminated by an artificial aurora for more than seven minutes. In part, these effects were predicted by Nicholas Christofilos, a scientist who had earlier worked on the Operation Argus high-altitude nuclear shots.

According to U.S. atomic veteran Cecil R. Coale, some hotels in Hawaii offered "rainbow bomb" parties on their roofs for Starfish Prime, contradicting some reports that the artificial aurora was unexpected. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), the aurora was also visible and recorded on film from the Samoan Islands, about 3200 kilometers (2000 statute miles) from Johnston Island. [...]

The damage caused by the tests EMP was much more widespread than anticipated. I've read reports that claim electrical damage was also experienced in New Zealand as well. And a radiation belt was left in space that destroyed and disabled a number of low-orbit satellites:

[...] While some of the energetic beta particles followed the earth's magnetic field and illuminated the sky, other high-energy electrons became trapped and formed radiation belts around the earth. There was much uncertainty and debate about the composition, magnitude and potential adverse effects from this trapped radiation after the detonation. The weaponeers became quite worried when three satellites in low earth orbit were disabled. These man-made radiation belts eventually crippled one-third of all satellites in low orbit. Seven satellites were destroyed as radiation knocked out their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial relay communication satellite ever, Telstar.[3] Detectors on Telstar, TRAAC, Injun, and Ariel 1 were used to measure distribution of the radiation produced by the tests.[4]

In 1963, Brown et al. reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research that Starfish Prime had created a belt of MeV electrons, and Bill Hess reported in 1968 that some Starfish electrons remained for five years. Others reported that radioactive particles from Starfish Prime descended to earth seasonally and accumulated in terrestrial organisms such as fungi and lichens. [...]

There is more about the Starfish Prime test and the electrical damage it caused, from the Wikipedia page about Electromagnetic Pulses:

Electromagnetic pulse

[...] The EMP damage of the Starfish Prime test was quickly repaired because of the ruggedness (compared to today) of the electrical and electronic infrastructure of Hawaii in 1962. Realization of the potential impacts of EMP became more apparent to some scientists and engineers during the 1970s as more sensitive solid-state electronics began to come into widespread use.

The larger scientific community became aware of the significance of the EMP problem after a series of three articles were published about nuclear electromagnetic pulse in 1981 by William J. Broad in the weekly publication Science.[1][3][4]

The relatively small magnitude of the Starfish Prime EMP in Hawaii (about 5,600 volts/meter) and the relatively small amount of damage done (for example, only 1 to 3 percent of streetlights extinguished)[5] led some scientists to believe, in the early days of EMP research, that the problem might not be as significant as was later realized. Newer calculations[6] showed that if the Starfish Prime warhead had been detonated over the northern continental United States, the magnitude of the EMP would have been much larger (22,000 to 30,000 volts/meter) because of the greater strength of the earth's magnetic field over the United States, as well as the different orientation of the earth's magnetic field at high latitudes. These new calculations, combined with the accelerating reliance on EMP-sensitive microelectronics, heightened awareness that the EMP threat could be a very significant problem.

In 1962, the Soviet Union also performed a series of three EMP-producing nuclear tests in space over Kazakhstan called "The K Project".[7] Although these weapons were much smaller (300 kilotons) than the Starfish Prime test, since those tests were done over a populated large land mass (and also at a location where the earth's magnetic field was greater), the damage caused by the resulting EMP was reportedly much greater than in the Starfish Prime nuclear test. The geomagnetic storm-like E3 pulse even induced an electrical current surge in a long underground power line that caused a fire in the power plant in the city of Karagandy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the level of this damage was communicated informally to scientists in the United States.[8] Formal documentation of some of the EMP damage in Kazakhstan exists[9] but is still sparse in the open scientific literature. [...]

We've used to thinking about nuclear attack, in terms of bombs being dropped on us. But the EMP effects caused from a bomb or bombs exploded high above us would destroy our electrical infrastructure, disabling and disarming us without rendering the land uninhabitable. The bomb doesn't need to be as powerful as the warheads of the Soviet era, and it doesn't even have to hit a target, but instead explodes many miles away above the target.

It's not hard to see how all these factors have become increasing relevant in discussions about missile defense systems. Currently only military superpowers have the capability to launch such weapons at high altitudes, but rouge nations like North Korea and Iran are working on improving their nuclear and missile weapons systems, and could do a great deal of damage, even if they were deployed on a smaller scale than Starfish Prime.

I will do another post later about the contemporary threat of EMP weapons.

****
UPDATE, here is my related posted about EMPs:

EMP Vulnerability: Could Advanced Electronics be the Achilles' Heel of our Western Civilization?

Scary stuff, but informative. It has some good YouTube videos at the end.