Survive Infinite Dangers: The Family Survival Guide of 21st Century Dangers by Gary Yantis Read Free Book Online Page B

something like a DC-3 or HUGE balloons line of sight increases and the EMP damage could extend out to hundreds of miles. Spend weeks charging the massive capacitor banks one bank with negative voltage the other positive voltage then bring them closer and closer together until there is a blinding flash that is over in less than a microsecond.
     
    The voltage during that period of time may be millions or even trillions of volts. I know the formulas and other data for the optimum voltage, height above ground and other factors but, of course, will not publish them even though I’m sure our enemies are well aware of the same data. Unfortunately, strong rumors persist of one enemy of the United States being close to having an EMP bomb production line while they mask it with much bombastic talk and saber rattling about nuclear weapons.
     
    It is my belief that EMP is our greatest danger and from ground based EMP “bombs”. A tractor trailer filled with huge capacitors is hard to call a bomb since you won’t find any explosive material such as gun powder or a nuclear weapon. But it is still one half of a very dangerous “bomb”.
     
    Since the effect of EMP was first discovered in the 1950’s, most of our military and some of our government has “radiation hardened” their electronics which includes protection from EMP. All satellites launched since the 1990’s include EMP protection. Commercial and consumer electronics has pretty much ignored this danger. This carries through to systems such as control systems for large dams, hydroelectric plants, some nuclear plants and other systems that, should they fail, could cause great loss of life. So this is more serious than losing use of cell phones and your big screen TV’s. Not knowing which semiconductors might burn out in a particular system there’s no way to tell the failure mode of, say, a nuclear power plant or a hydroelectric dam or a city’s water system.
     
    It’s ironic that third world nations that have little in the way of high tech devices would be least effected. North America and Europe and 1 st World Asia and Australia/New Zealand if hit by a strong EMP pulse or pulses would not revert to the 19 th century but plunge back to the 14 th century. Most horses, buggies, coal lamps, and all that made the 19 th century “run” are gone. You have to go back 600 years to reach where we would be. Recovery would probably be impossible. Hundreds of years would pass if North America were to recover at all. Think of a “Mad Max” movie set and that would probably be North America minus 99% of its current population for a long time. As I wrote, I said I wasn’t going to sugar coat anything.
     
    All of the EMP scenarios I’ve read (such as the fictional book “One Second After”) and what I believe our government believes will happen is a nuclear bomb “fine tuned” to maximize EMP would explode high over Nebraska – high enough to cover all of North America. The required ICBM to lift such a weight that high and to have it blow up when triggered is still years away in design by the one country that most worries the United States. So I believe they think they still have a five year window.
     
    After 40 years as an electrical engineer and considerable work in the EMP field it is my belief it would instead be a series of EMP ground based “bombs” placed in rings around about a dozen hi-tech critical areas of our country. I’m sure some are obvious to you; Washington, D.C., Wall Street, and Silicon Valley to name three. They’d all have to be triggered at the same microsecond to not destroy other EMP bombs before they each went off. That would not be difficult. Shut down the electronic world in a dozen areas of our country would cause a cascade effect that would stop the entire country and create immense permanent damage.
     
    Unlike nuclear bomb parts that are tightly controlled, parts to build an EMP bomb are sold every day mostly into the electric power