Protecting against EMP

I've been thinking (my DW and kids would suggest that now is a good time to run for cover).

With the potential for EMP damage Impending solar storms , and based upon the effects of EMP, that is known Carringtton Event & Starfish Prime , would the following idea have merit. I am not and don't play one on TV – an Electrical Engineer.

Would my metal sided outbuilding function as a Faraday Cage? It has sheet steel sides and roof. Would I need to bond the roof and sides, the doors (walkthru and vehicle) to the building. Would the rebar and rewire in the floor be enough, would I need to bond this to the walls. What size bonding conductors and how many would be needed? Realistically what current flux would I need to consider in the calculations?

Thoughts? Shared knowledge. As the kids say: “skool me”

Thanks

An insulated metal box within another metal box which is properly earthed should be fine to protect sensitive electronic equipment against most forms of naturally occurring EMP. i.e. say a laptop needs protecting then a aluminium laptop case inside a aluminium storage chest inside your earthed metal shed should work out fine to protect the laptop against EMP. If this doesn't work against a very specific man made EMP scenario then chances are your not gonna be around within the next 10-15 minutes for find out if it didn't work anyway...

There are a lot of myths and just plain bad information out there about EMP and its potential effects.

Most modern electronic equipment is a lot more resistant to the effects of EMP than you might think. Its not a 100% thing though. Some equipment will survive and others not, with no discernible reason why.

Grounding has no effect whatsoever on the protection a Faraday cage provides, nor does it provide any additional protection against EMP.

EMP is as much an antenna issue as anything else. If your equipment is not connected to a long wire, its probably reasonably safe.

Any metal enclosure such as a car body, an aluminum case, or a metal building can provide some protection, but it is not a proper Faraday cage, because it does not completely enclose anything. There are plenty of places for leakage.

Unfortunately, much of the literature on the Internet about EMP is oriented toward military applications where they consider any degradation due to the effects of EMP as undesirable, so they go to extreme lengths to prevent it. This makes it appear as if EMP is some kind of monster that will destroy everything electrical in its path, which is far from the truth.

I'm not sure EMP protection is worth whatever it costs. I think the likelihood is remote, asymptotic to zero. And having your personal Faraday cage isn't going to save you from whatever effects befall the rest of the world if an EMP happens.

If the rest of the world or the US is pretty much wiped out electronically, what will you have in your shed that will save your family and you from those effects?

Are solar storms much of a direct threat to personal gear? I've really only heard of the greater power infrastructure being at risk, like generating facilities, the largest transformers, etc.

"Are solar storms much of a direct threat to personal gear? I've really only heard of the greater power infrastructure being at risk, like generating facilities, the largest transformers, etc."

If/when we have a good one, we shall find out what worked and what didn't. Nothing beats experience, right?

Sue

An EMP has an associated wavelength. Actually it will have a bunch of them, and it's the shortest that matters. The holes in your Faraday Cage need to be smaller than whatever that wavelength is. I'd expect a building to have holes that were too big, but you can't do much meaningful design without knowing the kind of EMP you are defending against.

It's probably easiest to get a smaller Cage and keep backup equipment in that. A microwave oven would probably do in a pinch, as they are well-sealed against microwave radiation. A simple metal box with a tight-fitting lid (metal-to-metal, not a water-proof rubber seal) would be good too.

I've been doing research on EMP of late, and While I don't consider myself an expert, I think I've learned enough to make a educated assessment for my personal risk assessment.

My summary: In an emergency, needing to rely on electrical equipment could be risky, such as resupply of batteries, requiring a generator, water damage, etc. If your start your preparations on the foundation of working without electrical equipment, then each and every piece which does work is added convenience and comfort for your situation.


Here's a part of how I came to my assessment.



I found this in “Nuclear Weapons Effects Technology” , http://www.fas.org/threat/mct198-2/p2sec06.pd

The effects (of Transient Radiation Effects on Electronics (TREE) and Systems-Generated Electromagnetic Pulse (SGEMP)) depend not merely on total dose but also on dose rate. Naturally occurring effects include total dose from electrons and protons trapped in the Van Allen belts and single-event upset (SEU) or even single-event burnout. SEU results when enough ionization charge is deposited by a high-energy particle (natural or man-produced) in a device to change the state of the circuit—for example, flipping a bit from zero to one. The effect on a power transistor can be so severe that the device burns out permanently.

Delayed gammas in a 1–10 microsecond period at the same dose rate can cause latchup and burnout of devices. Latchup is the initiation of a high-current, low-voltage path within the integrated circuit and causes the circuit to malfunction or burnout by joule heating.

Total ionization greater than 5,000 rads in silicon delivered over seconds to minutes will degrade semiconductors for long periods. As device sizes decrease, the threshold for damage may go down.

It is inherently difficult to predict the effects of TREE and SGEMP from first principles. Because components, circuit boards, cases, connectors, and everything else within a system can be arranged in many ways, and because radiation can come from any direction, only a detailed simulation can do the job. The task of prediction is made more complex because the effects of the radiation pulse can depend on the operating state of the system at the moment the radiation passes through it.


Other good information is available from Nuclear Contamination and Avoidance FM 3-3-1 Appendix C - Nuclear Burst Effects on Electronics http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/army/fm/3-3-1_2/Appc.htm

DEGREES OF SUSCEPTIBILITY TO EMP FOR EQUIPMENT
Note: This figure outlines the likely vulnerabilities of categories of equipment. Individual items within each category can vary considerably in their vulnerability to EMP. Any equipment attached to a collector or antenna has increased vulnerability.


MOST SUSCEPTIBLE
Low-power, high-speed digital computer, either transistorized or vacuum tube (operational upset)
Systems employing transistors or semiconductor rectifiers:
Computers and power supplies
Semiconductor components terminating long cable runs, especially between sites
Alarm systems
Intercom systems
Life-support systems
Some telephone equipment that is partially transistorized
Transistorized receivers and transmitters
Transistorized 60-to-400Hz converters
Transistorized process control systems
Power system controls and communication links

LESS SUSCEPTIBLE
Vacuum tube equipment that does not include semiconductor rectifiers:
Transmitters
Receivers
Alarm Systems
Intercom Systems
Teletypes & telephones
Power supplies
Equipment employing low-current switches, relays, meters:
Alarms
Life-support systems
Power systems control panels
Panel indicators and status boards
Process controls
Hazardous equipment containing:
Detonators
Squibs
Pyrotechnical devices
Explosive mixtures
Rocket fuels
Other:
Long power cable runs employing dielectric insulation
Equipment associated with high-energy storage capacitors
Inductors

LEAST SUSCEPTIBLE
High-voltage equipment:
Transformers, motors
Lamps (filament)
Heaters
Air-insulated power cable runs
Rotary converters
Heavy-duty relays, circuit breakers.



EMP can cause two types of damage, functional damage and operational upset. Functional damage is physical damage to the equipment which requires replacement or repair of components. Operational upset does not show any physical damage but interferes with the operation of the equipment by erasing data from a computer memory or by causing a computer device to send an erroneous signal to the piece of equipment it controls. Operational upset can occur at EMP energy levels that are 1% to 10% of those required to inflict functional damage.

Humans can be directly injured by EMP only if they are physically touching metallic collectors (cables, railroad lines, etc.) at the moment of the tremendous EMP surge. EMP hazards may exist from indirect or secondary EMP effects. For example, damaged electronic equipment may catch fire if relays are switched to the wrong positions. Also, those using digital instruments, such as for navigation or health care, may receive incorrect information from those instruments that have been upset by EMP.


SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems collect data from various sensors in a factory, plant or other remote locations and transmit the data to a central system to then manage and control the systems for which the data was collected. Some examples of SCADA use include control of sensors, relays, pumps and conveyors in manufacturing and distribution systems, remote monitoring of systems in hazardous environments, facilities requiring precise climate control, mining plants, water and electrical utility installations, oil and gas refineries, pipelines, nuclear power plants and mass transit systems. According to the Critical National Infrastructure Report (http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf), released April 2008, general-purpose desktop computers and SCADA remote and master terminal units were the most susceptible to damage or upset of all items tested. The result of EMP interrupting these systems, even temporarily, would cause a catastrophic failure of the systems, and in the case of transportation systems, an immediate risk of a significant loss of life.


In 1986 the American Radio Relay League's (ARRL) QST Magazine presented a 4 part series titled "Electromagnetic Pulse and the Radio Amateur". This series was condensed from a US Federal government National Communications System report "Electromagnetic Pulse/Transient Threat Testing of Protection Devices for Amateur/Military Affiliate Radio System Equipment".
Part 1 appears in QST August 1986, pp. 15-20, 36 (http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/88615.pdf)
Part 2 appears in QST September 1986, pp. 22-26 (http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/98622.pdf)
Part 3 appears in QST October 1986, pp. 38-41 (http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/108638.pdf)
Part 4 appears in QST November 1986, pp. 30-34 (http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/118630.pdf)
You may be able to access the articles through ARRL if you're a member, but they're currently available at http://www.qsl.net/w3bmd/emp.html


Some liken EMP to lightning. Unlike lightning, EMP works on all phased angles, vertical and horizontal combined. Because lightning is phased one direction only, when a charge reaches a 90° it will be stopped. Being both vertically and horizontally polarized, EMP will go around 90° angles. (www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear.empprotection.htm)

Lightning pulse rise time is a few millionths of a second, lasting hundreds of milliseconds at lower frequencies than EMP. Field Strength is a few thousand volts per meter (highest at 50-100yds ~< EMP). EMP pulse rise time is a few billionths of a second, lasting less than a thousandth of a second in <100MHz frequency range (esp. 100kHz - 10MHz). Field strength can be 50,000 volts per meter. While 99% of HEMP energy is at frequencies below 100mHz, most HEMP occurs in the frequency ranges between 100kHz and 10mHz.


Cresson Kearney recommends the following steps be taken to protect radios from EMP in the book Nuclear War Survival Skills published by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1979 edition, page 19:
- Use only the built-in antenna on AM radios. The built-in antennas of small portable radios are too short for EMP to induce damaging surges of current in them.
- Keep antennas of FM, CB and amateur radios as short as practical, preferably less than 10 inches. When threatened by EMP, do not add a wire antenna or connect a short radio antenna to a pipe. The surge current resulting form EMP can damage diodes and transistors, ending a radio’s usefulness or reducing its range of reception.
- Keep all unshielded radios at least six feet away from any long piece of metal, such as pipes, metal ducts, or wires found in many basements and other shelters. Long metal conductors can pick up and carry large EMP surges, causing induced current to surge in nearby radios and damage them.
- Shield each radio against EMP when not in use by completely surrounding it with conducting metal if it is kept within six feet of a long conductor through which powerful currents produced by EMP might surge. A radio may be shielded against EMP by placing it inside a metal cake box or metal storage can, or by completely surrounding it with aluminum foil or a metallic window screen. Old microwave ovens with the cord removed will also provide protection.
- Disconnect the antenna cable from your car radio at the receiver – or at least ground the antenna when not in use by connecting it with a wire to the car frame. Use tape or clothespins to assure good metal-to-metal contact. The metal of an outside mirror is a convenient grounding point. Park your car as near to shelter as practical, so that after fallout has decayed sufficiently you may be able to use the car radio to get distant stations that are still broadcasting.


The key principles to remember when dealing with shields and shelters are the requirements for a continuous shield made of metal. Shields are continuous when they have no breaks or openings. Once the shielding metal is at least a few millimeters thick, having a continuous shield with no breaks is more important than adding more layers of shielding metal.

In some situations, power sources may be more vulnerable to EMP than the devices being driven. While generating equipment may be fairly resistant to EMP, devices within the generating equipment that control power generation can be vulnerable. The long lines used in civilian power systems can pick up significant amounts of EMP energy, which can cause damage to equipment connected to this grid.



Sun stuff
Sunspot and solar flare activity is typically on 11 year cycles during which violent storms or bursts on the surface of the sun increase solar output or brightness and through coronal mass ejections, send enormous waves of highly charged solar particles (plasma) through space which can affect electrical distribution systems, satellites and radio/TV signals on earth. Power distribution interruptions were created in Quebec in 1989 and 2000 and Sweden in 2003. Pager and credit card transaction interruptions, relying on satellite communications, were attributed to a solar flare in April 1998.

A huge solar flare on August 4, 1972, knocked out long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. That event, 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. Some of the most powerful storms recorded battered the Earth from October 31 to November 7 in what was known as the “Halloween Storms of 2003”, causing aircraft navigation re-routes, and communications and power outages. In December 2006, X-rays from another solar storm disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes.

The largest flare recorded is known as the Carrington Event in September 1859. Normally, the coronal mass ejection from solar flares takes three to four days to reach earth. Less than eighteen hours following the observation the massive solar flare, telegraph wires in both the United States and Europe spontaneously shorted out, causing numerous fires, while the Northern Lights were documented as far south as Rome, Havana and Hawaii, with similar effects at the South Pole. Not only was this coronal mass ejection an extremely fast mover, the magnetic fields contained within it were extremely intense AND in direct opposition with Earth's magnetic fields. That meant the coronal mass ejection overwhelmed Earth's own magnetic field, allowing charged particles to penetrate into Earth's upper atmosphere. (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/23oct_superstorm.htm) While there was no monitoring equipment to measure the intensity of the storm at the time, scientists are able to examine the amounts of nitrites and beryllium-10 found in ice cores to determine the intensity of the storms. The Carrington Event is believed to be the strongest in the last 500 years.

A space storm's impact is measured in nano-Teslas (nT). The lower the figure, using negative numbers, the more powerful the storm. A moderate storm can be around -100 nT; extreme and damaging storms have been logged at around -300 nT. The 1989 coronal mass ejection that knocked out power to all of Quebec, Canada measured -589 nT. The 1859 perfect storm was estimated to have been -1,760 nT. (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_031027.html)


A US map of vulnerable transformers with areas of probable system collapse encircled is at: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/images/severespaceweather/transformermap.jpg


After reading "Nuclear Weapons Effects Technology", I lowered the likelihood of an EMP attack in my personal risk assessment due to the requirement of a High Altitude EMP strike (HEMP) to affect a large area.

A HEMP attack must use a relatively large warhead to be effective (perhaps on the order of one megaton), and new proliferators are unlikely to be able to construct such a device, much less make it small enough to be lofted to high altitude by a ballistic missile or space launcher. Russia and China are likely the only nations which have the capabilities to deliver a single weapon large enough to affect the entire U.S. That's not to say that they wouldn't encourage and enable others. At this time, the likelihood of Russia or China launching an EMP attack is not great, though not impossible, but they are fully aware that our technology is our Maginot line.

On the practical side I don't see this as an issue. Not for personal, or even community preparations. I'm just not that dependent on such things and consider the threat minimal.

The wider issue of EMP is, has been, and will be used to push for missile defense and to demonize selected political targets. The committee cited is, in effect a, taxpayer funded, missile defense, and radical GOP international relations advocacy group.

http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/EMP_Commission

Fear mongering for fun and profit. It is a perennial favorite of a scary story for reposing. And everyone loves a good scary story.

Edited to change offensive phrase that IMHO wasn't very offensive. Evidently you can't use the term "R*ght-w*ng". I find much of what they do offensive but to ban the phrase seems petty. Oh well, not my site; not my rules.

Ahh, long gone are the days of those Spetznas GRU with their sharpened shovels digging up the telephone cables outside Semi Autonomous Ground Environment control centres, where Lee Harvey Oswald (Mr Black of the NSA, ahem...Oops one of my own conspiracy theories ) used to work during his day job.

If you want to know about EMP, here's one source:
http://www.empcommission.org/

I've never heard of the EMP commission, so I don't even know if it's real. I looked over the executive summary, and it seems reasonable enough.

The issue with EMP remains that its _very_ widely spread, so the value of having a personal Faraday Cage escapes me - if there's an EMP pulse, nothing is going to work within some scores or hundreds of miles of the burst, so having my personal computer safe doesn't seem to help me when all the electricity in my state is wiped out and nobody's cars will run. Shrug - to each his own.

Among the scary topics in the report: the power grid, telecommunications, banking and business, fuel and energy, transportation, food, water, emergency services. Lots of details on the Starfish burst, pulses, and more that I didn't read but that people will find fascinating. There's also a link to the full report.

Setting off a nuclear bomb is a difficult task. Setting off an aerial burst above the US at heights sufficient to do significant damage is also (and separately) difficult. My instinct is that it's not likely to happen any time soon, that it is in fact unlikely to happen, and that the better answer than personal Faraday Cages is fixing the infrastructure to withstand EMP, which the commission says is feasible. Mileage varies, the views outside my window are not your views.

IMHO the primary survival lesson from the EMP discussion is that while there are real-world survival issues. But there are also people and groups, some of them well funded, that seek to exaggerate and distort perceptions of the issue instead of educating and informing.

There is an entire industry of professional media consultants and hired gun advocates who will shift any issue any way you wish. As long as you're willing to pay. The people hiring such organizations on this issue are motivated by potential financial gain, a desire to steer international relations, and, often, to drum up unfocused fear, uncertainty and distrust that can be leveraged for political advantage.

IMHO the EMP issue has been demagogued to the point that the real issue has been lost. At its core there is something of an issue. The DoD has studied it for better than fifty years in one form or another. At first as just a minor side effect of an nuclear explosion. Later, on its own, as a possible attack modality. But the military has admitted that they are not entirely sure how to create or use such a warhead. It has never been done. Starfish was not intended to create an EMP. Above-ground testing stopped before the effect could be studies at any depth. Even today they don't understand how such a device would be built or how it would fit into any strategy.

The benefit to a third party or terrorist group expending the resources to design and build what has to be an experimental design, a design that uses up a perfectly good nuclear bomb, that potentially might not do much more than provide a nice light show is, to say the least, unclear.

A few insights into the subject, who is behind the subject coming up again and again, who is manipulating the issue and why:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/17/the_boogeyman_bomb

http://www.alternet.org/story/25738/

http://www.alternet.org/media/143455/neocons_salivating_over_their_next_great_exaggerated_%22threat%22%3A_electromagnetic_pulse_attack/?page=1

Various hazards and dangers have been demgogued at one time or another for fun and/or profit. Weapons of mass destruction are always popular for such manipulations. The facts around EMP, direct nuclear attack, dirty bombs, bio-weapons, energy weapons, nano-weapons, chemical attacks and widespread flaws in computer systems have all been exaggerated or otherwise manipulated at one time or another. There is every expectation that these, and any other hazards that can be bent to serve, will be seen again.

All that said the basics of Faraday cages and what is need to shield vulnerable devices are all pretty well known. It also has to be pointed out that EM pulses were unknown by any but a few engineers and scientist fifty years ago. Now anyone in their right mind plugs their computer into a surge arrestor. And every time a copper line is replaced by fiber optic line an EMP become less of an issue. USB is due to be gradually replaced by fiber in the next ten years. More people are using wireless and fewer use copper telephone lines. Even as more copper lines get protection.

All that means that the consequences, effectiveness, of any warhead as a EMP weapon is ever more uncertain. The alarmists claim 90% of all Americans dead as a result. This seems very unlikely. Others, engineers and scientists, claim it might not work at all or that effects could be minimal.

I don't see anyone wasting a perfectly good nuclear weapon on such an uncertain outcome. Not when you could use the very same weapon closer to earth and get a very pretty mushroom cloud. Going for an exotic and theoretical soft-kill option when you could get a big boom seems too cute by half.

I agree; the rist of an EMP bomb is pretty minimal. I suspect any bad guys that obtained a nuke would use it in a way more certain to cause massive damage. Of course, that's not a very comforting thought, either! Still, there are much more serious threats to us than EMP.

Do not confuse the intent of our military's use of an EMP device as a tactical device with that of a small 3rd world country intending to use it as a strategic weapon.

Use of an EMP as a tactical weapon against another military system is iffy, the problem being the electrical coupling issues and kill mechanism. Many military systems are hardened and have back-ups. How do you use an EMP against a target that's in your proximity without also using it against friendly systems? It's difficult to develop a weapon system when you don't know the effect it will have on the target.

Using an EMP at high altitude against a large area with the intent to burn out sensitive non-hardened civilian systems and electrical grids might be easier -- if you have a delivery system. Not saying it will destroy those systems, but they are not hardened and our electrical grid makes coupling rather simple. Will it kill the electrical system in a car? Don't know, one study I read says cars might be fine. But lots of other systems may be at much more risk. Lots of unknowns.

90%?? Don't know how they arrived at that number. Maybe assuming the device worked 100% and succeeded in reducing us to an agrarian society with no transportation. Again, lots of unknowns and much of our military would still be operational -- payback could be swift.

I questioned it based on the .org extension. But it looks like Rep. Bartlett of Maryland sponsored it: http://bartlett.house.gov/Issues/Issue/?IssueID=2060

Off topic but somewhat ironic in that U.S. Rep. Bartlett’s apartments that are located on his farm was the scene a major fire yesterday. I don’t know if there were sprinklered or not (I suspect not, since they have been around longer than the building codes requiring new construction of high occupancy buildings to be sprinklered) but an ounce of prevent is worth a pound of cure.

FNP Story - Fire at Bartlett Farm

Pete