Okay, but, what is Kim Kardashian wearing today?
And when are you going to do a story on Mark Wahlberg’s effort to clear his name and police records (jail time) for beating the hell out of some Vietnamese guy in 1988?
Okay, but, now I am really confused.
Weaponized Uranium?
In Iraq?
At a Mosul University?
40kg of it?
So this means that a weapon(s) of mass destruction is in Iraq?
As was suspected over 10 years ago, when several countries, including the U.S., and the U.N. said they thought as much?
WE FOUND THEM…WE FOUND THEM!!!
This is really going to throw the Left into a tailspin…
Such a propaganda line would seem to be an ‘own goal.’
For such a device is wholly immaterial as a practical weapon of war.
It’s a terrorist gadget, dirty and simple.
BTW, in practical military terms, a dirty bomb is nothing more than a common high explosive bomb — with some hot isotopes thrown in.
Such a contraption is wholly incapable of emitting the fall out we all dread. The really damaging isotopes produced by fission don’t last long enough to put into such a device — and would kill anyone crazy enough to try.
All that’s left is medium and long – life isotopes.
These can be washed down by technicians in haz-mat suits and pressure washers.
******
But the claim does go to the argument that this crowd is crazy-fanatic.
Indeed, it smacks of desperation, as if the wheels were coming off their wagon.
For a dirty bomb would certainly qualify as a vengeance weapon — call it V-5. (The earlier vengeances were taken by you know who.)
But if used, just what kind of a workplace would it be an example of violence in?
Window cleaners? EPA air-quality inspectors?
“The probability that the U.S. will be hit with a weapons of mass destruction attack at some point is 100 percent, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, tells Newsmax.
Such an attack could be launched by foreign terrorists, lone wolves who are terrorists, or even by criminal elements, Majidi says. It would most likely employ chemical, biological, or radiological weapons rather than a nuclear device.”
Obama however, whether through hubris or intention is ensuring that Iran gets nukes and when they do, all bets are off.
““the region will be far less stable and far more threatened if Iran were to have a nuclear weapon. It will spur a nuclear arms race. It has risks for greater terrorism. It will be destabilizing. ” Kerry said the threat extends beyond the possibility that Iran could actually use the weapon on its enemies, specifically Israel. Iran simply having a nuclear weapon would “spur a nuclear arms race” in the region and could be used to support terrorists groups like Hezbollah, he said.” Interview with SecState John Kerry – March 5, 2013
Anyone living in a major American city is playing ‘Russian roulette’.
What about a medium-sized city?
Or one which is slightly smaller than medium?
Medium-sized cities are pretty safe. Slightly smaller than medium-sized cities are totally safe with the exception of course of cities in Florida, where the potential danger from falling coconuts can never be dismissed…
How the hell could this be allowed to happen?
It’s not like ISIS just popped up and snuck into town.
okay
If I was a leader of a jihad organization and had a significant source (thousands of curies) of yellow cake or highly refined uranium I would not announce the fact. I would simply cook off a dirty bomb in a large American or European city. NYC, DC, London, or some major port would be an obvious target. I think this is probably an effort to sow doubt and fear, and does not convince me it is actually true.
A dirty bomb would cause extreme panic all out of proportion to its radiological hazard. It would cause a harsh blow to the global economy if detonated in the right place. Why show your cards? Just do it.
Honestly, I hope they use it before Iran makes a nuke. People seem to think it’s okay, or reasonable, for them to have it since we do. Idiots or traitors, a bit of both, doesn’t matter. Unless people see what they will do with them, they honestly don’t care. Unfortunately, if they use it on Israel, the world won’t care.
What’s the name, Obola?
Clarityseeker at 8:15 pm,
Wait… you were serious? You were actually asking how safe are smaller cities? It’s not predictable because while they’re a less ‘target rich environment’, they’re more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Which is just one of the many reasons why we want to fight them over there, rather than here.
Kardashian sounds Muslim to me. Maybe we should keep an eye on her. Is this about dirty bombs or dirty blondes? So much news to digest…
There were always large numbers of WMD in Iraq. Even at the time of the Bush invasion and after.
Stupid, incompetent, spineless Bushies refused to reveal and defend, so not only were large numbers of WMD transferred to Syria so that they could kill their own people but Bushie spinelessness delivered the country into the tender mercies of our lord and savior Barack Hussein Obama.
I am not so worried by dirty bombs. They are primarily terror weapons, they won’t kill many people. There is a good HBO docudrama on a dirty bomb being used in London (2004 Dirty War. It’s available on Netflix).
What worries me greatly is an EMP attack by Iran, though given the money they have access to a nuclear tipped missile given to ISIS by North Korea or Iran. EMP would kill almost the entire population of the US.
Everyone should contact their reps and Senators about the SHIELD act and about the intransigence of NERC and FERC to actually implement upgrades to the electric grid to protect against EMP.
Geoffrey,
No, was not serious. I had actually typed up a great follow-up (humorous) to your coconuts post.
Thought better of it at last moment.
FYI: My humor was driven by frustration over this issue. I have no control what is occurring in the middle east.
I find the incredibly pathetic back-and-forth between John Kerry and the Iranians even more dangerous than ISIS (and that is splitting hairs).
Kerry is worse than I originally suspected he’d be at this new role of his.
And now this new development with Israel? Potential sanctions? Wow…
Kardashian is an Armenian name. This is not hard to verify.
I agree that it’s really difficult to stand America being represented by someone as stupid as John Kerry as Secretary of State when we live in such perilous times. It’s embarrassing, and very dangerous. I just hope we survive until this regime is over.
Rome had Cannae and Hannibal;
America has Soetoro and Kerry.
For centuries after Cannae, Roman historians and politicians recounted how Rome could survive even Hannibal… so what out!
&&&&
It would be well for modern Americans to remember that Britain, Russia, China and America have one thing in common: they lose the first battles — only to win the final battles.
As Napoleon and Hitler could tell you, things really started off so well….
Pitt, Santa Anna, Wilhelm, Tojo have their tales to tell.
&&&&
EMP is WILDLY over estimated as a weapon of economic disruption.
1) It functions by inducing a massive magnetic pulse consequent to a hydrogen bomb at just the right altitude.
2) This pulse is meaningless unless it also induces daughter pulses in victim electronics and electrical grids.
There’s a real problem with that aspiration:
Micro electronics are ALREADY shielded — by the factory — as delivered. No better example exists but the MacBook Pro. It’s sheathed in an aluminum chassis. By the laws of physics, its contents are immune to any such magnetic induction.
This design feature is now universal, because the electronics inside ALL modern computers are MASSIVE emitters of radio frequency interference — unless so shielded.
When you grab an apparently all-plastic laptop — a peak under the covers reveals that it has a “Faraday cage” around all of the high frequency circuits. Without it, the device would not gain FCC approval. You’ll find just such a stamp somewhere on every piece of consumer electronics you touch.
This design mode extends far, far, beyond solid state chips. All microwave ovens, on down the line, … ALL are shielded by “Faraday cages.”
Modern aircraft are flying “Faraday cages” — so too most automobiles and trucks.
The first discovery of EMP effects occurred in 1962 with the Johnston Island hydrogen shot. It illuminated Honolulu — and blew fuses all over the island chain.
Today, all that such a shot could do would be to trip circuit breakers. Fuses are so yesterday.
Automatic re-closers would immediately re-set the high voltage power grid. This system is also now protected by surge arresters — something never employed 50 years ago.
[A surge arrester can be installed right in your house panel or near your computer. Whatever the scale, they function by sensing the instantaneous voltage and bleeding any surge off into the ground. This happens faster than you can imagine.
Small versions of this scheme are located directly on your computer’s power supply. Should it misbehave, any excess voltage is bled off — before it smokes your whole motherboard. The actual gadget costs a few cents and takes up nearly no space. They look like little disks — almost like a capacitor.]
Neither the Soviets or the Americans EVER figured on EMP as a viable strategic weapon. All that it would do is infuriate the target — while leaving all of its weapons entirely intact!
Folks, just forget EMP. It’s a false threat.
The REAL problem is economic: once Iran has the nuke she will be in a position to economically coerce ALL of her neighbors.
That’s more than enough to set the world on fire. Use your imagination.
blert,
I appreciate your comments, but, what about automobiles? Their electronics are not housed in “Faraday cages”? No?
Televisions? Radios? Electronic driven furnaces and AC units? America’s critical elements within the power grid?
“The current missile defense budget was reduced by $500 million to $9.2 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2014…”
For 2015 the budget has been further reduced. Estimates maintain that it will take in excess of $11Billion to operate an adequate missile defense system to ensure against this type of threat.
What good is a computer without adequate power?
parker Says:
December 6th, 2014 at 12:30 am
If I was a leader of a jihad organization and had a significant source (thousands of curies) of yellow cake or highly refined uranium I would not announce the fact.
Actually, yellow cake is considered virtually harmless. (U3O8, IIRC)
”
Radioactivity and safety
Yellowcake is (99%+) almost exclusively U-238, with very low radioactivity. It has an extremely long half-life, over 4 billion years, meaning that it emits radiation at a slow rate. This stage of processing is before the more radioactive U-235 is concentrated, so by definition this stage of uranium has the same[quantify] radioactivity as it did in nature when it was underground, as the proportions of isotopes are at their native percentage concentration. Consumption or inhalation of uranium is dangerous, and can lead to heavy metal toxicity, though this is almost impossible to occur in reality…
”
Wiki.
A true dirty bomb would require access to the nasty brew created by a fission reactor… after it’s cooled down enough for technicians to tolerate.
Ironically, if a dirty bomb can be assembled … it’s not very dirty!
The only way that the typical dirty bomb actually hurts anyone is if they lick the ground or bathe in the wash-down.
The very chemicals used to extract uranium oxide from the earth are THE perfect ‘soaps’ to lift it off of all surfaces. They, the soaps, are produced in massive quantities — and are, in every case, water soluble, to boot.
So you’d just roll in a vacuum-extraction truck and hose them into the wet vacuum.
[Every American utility has fleets of these on call, they are used to ‘pot-hole’ down to sensitive underground utilities. You can spot them on the road by their huge vacuum hoses wrapped around what otherwise looks like a massive waste disposal truck.]
Geiger counters would sweep the area for any hot spots.
BTW, uranium decays by alpha particle emission (mostly) unless placed in an atomic pile.
Clarityseeker Says:
December 7th, 2014 at 12:32 pm
Modern micro-electronic circuits emit radio-wave interference — like crazy.
That’s pretty much ALL OF THEM.
You never have to deal with it/ don’t appreciate it because the FCC REQUIRES (de facto) Faraday cages around all such emitters.
BTW, such cages don’t have to cover all six-sides of a cube to suppress the emissions enough to get (FCC) approval. The actual amount of metal required is astonishingly trivial. The physics of magnetism and metals permits the effect to occur on the SKIN of the metal. So even flimsy metal shields are actually enough. They are not used because they’d tear during assembly and use.
The voltage surge is magnified with LONG conductors, anyway. It’s a popular science fiction trope that EMP can kill motors/ ignition systems.
Quite the reverse is the case. An old style automotive coil is designed from the get-go to handle 50,000 Volts! In service it was expected to only face 25,000 volts — all mass produced items are over-designed — or the call-backs would astound.
I mention this because such physics are used in “War of the Worlds” (Spielberg’s version) It’s total bunk, of course. But then, look at the rest of that crazy plot.
The SMALLER a conductor is, the more difficult it is to induce a current in it — at the frequencies involved here.
&&&
So let’s concentrate on the power grid. It was what was most affected in 1962 by the hydrogen bomb, anyway. (no cars died at the time, BTW)
It was an era of FUSES. These darlings are one-shot puppies. They are STILL used all over — just not in any recently constructed housing — recent as in: since 1960. And, of course, the older homes have had their Service connections up graded to circuit breakers.
If they pop, you merely have to walk out and re-set them.
But, it IS possible to destabilize the larger power grid. Destabilize does not mean destroy. History has shown that America (and other nations) has been able to re-boot the entire grid in less than a week, with most critical loads rebooted within hours.
Automatic re-closers are embedded in every power grid in North America. You can see them in action during a harsh storm. They follow this sequence:
Trip open — first fault/ surge
X time delay (seconds)
Automatic reset/ closure — first try
2nd Trip open — re-fault condition/ surge
Y time delay (seconds)
Automatic reset/ closure — second try
3rd Trip open — re-fault condition/ surge
Z time delay (long seconds — allows mechanism to cool down)
Automatic reset/ closure — third try
4th Tip open — re-fault condition/ surge
Automatic recloser trips open — permanently…
It must now be re-set by service personnel.
I’m not going to divulge the delay times here, and they aren’t the same across all of North America, anyway.
Suffice it to say that many systems not intensely destabilized will self correct faster than you can snap your fingers.
The gadget above was engineer expressly for tree branches falling over power lines during a storm. The wind usually clears the faults the same way they triggered the faults.
EMP is just TOO JUICY a plot device to give up.
It’s got all of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” techno-shock built into it.
As you might gather from “The Walking Dead” and other ‘modern’ fictions, humanity is obsessed with technological reversal. The more we’re dependent upon it, the more we fear its loss.
No, the REAL problem is economic: Atomic Iran can — and will — attack the West — and Israel — via economic terrorism.
with special emphasis towards the back half of the film.
In it, Jonathan (Tyrone Power) raises the alarm: England will be economically destroyed by commercial risk.
THIS is the REAL problem with atomic Iran.
It gets no commentary — not a word — from the talking heads — the punditry, left or right.
Unsaid, the primary target of such turmoil would necessarily be Red China! Beijing has not thought that far ahead.
Perfect.
Everyone is sweating a total non-problem while a nightmare with global import festers. !!!
Got it.
I’m cured too. I was going to ask you to explain justification for CFL’s over incandescent bulbs: wouldn’t be prudent.
CFLs are STILL fluorescents.
The justification for them is feeble.
1) They stink in cold weather.
2) They don’t survive intermittent usage.
3) They have a harsh color temperature that is actually responsible for the epic rise in weight gain and obesity in ALL advanced nations.
On the last point: it’s ONLY NOW that this aspect is being acknowledged by science.
Yeah, it’s a slow process.
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Okay, but, what is Kim Kardashian wearing today?
And when are you going to do a story on Mark Wahlberg’s effort to clear his name and police records (jail time) for beating the hell out of some Vietnamese guy in 1988?
Okay, but, now I am really confused.
Weaponized Uranium?
In Iraq?
At a Mosul University?
40kg of it?
So this means that a weapon(s) of mass destruction is in Iraq?
As was suspected over 10 years ago, when several countries, including the U.S., and the U.N. said they thought as much?
WE FOUND THEM…WE FOUND THEM!!!
This is really going to throw the Left into a tailspin…
Such a propaganda line would seem to be an ‘own goal.’
For such a device is wholly immaterial as a practical weapon of war.
It’s a terrorist gadget, dirty and simple.
BTW, in practical military terms, a dirty bomb is nothing more than a common high explosive bomb — with some hot isotopes thrown in.
Such a contraption is wholly incapable of emitting the fall out we all dread. The really damaging isotopes produced by fission don’t last long enough to put into such a device — and would kill anyone crazy enough to try.
All that’s left is medium and long – life isotopes.
These can be washed down by technicians in haz-mat suits and pressure washers.
******
But the claim does go to the argument that this crowd is crazy-fanatic.
Indeed, it smacks of desperation, as if the wheels were coming off their wagon.
For a dirty bomb would certainly qualify as a vengeance weapon — call it V-5. (The earlier vengeances were taken by you know who.)
But if used, just what kind of a workplace would it be an example of violence in?
Window cleaners? EPA air-quality inspectors?
It’s just a matter of time, not if but when.
“FBI: 100 Percent Chance of WMD Attack”
Obama however, whether through hubris or intention is ensuring that Iran gets nukes and when they do, all bets are off.
““the region will be far less stable and far more threatened if Iran were to have a nuclear weapon. It will spur a nuclear arms race. It has risks for greater terrorism. It will be destabilizing. ” Kerry said the threat extends beyond the possibility that Iran could actually use the weapon on its enemies, specifically Israel. Iran simply having a nuclear weapon would “spur a nuclear arms race” in the region and could be used to support terrorists groups like Hezbollah, he said.” Interview with SecState John Kerry – March 5, 2013
Anyone living in a major American city is playing ‘Russian roulette’.
What about a medium-sized city?
Or one which is slightly smaller than medium?
Medium-sized cities are pretty safe. Slightly smaller than medium-sized cities are totally safe with the exception of course of cities in Florida, where the potential danger from falling coconuts can never be dismissed…
How the hell could this be allowed to happen?
It’s not like ISIS just popped up and snuck into town.
okay
If I was a leader of a jihad organization and had a significant source (thousands of curies) of yellow cake or highly refined uranium I would not announce the fact. I would simply cook off a dirty bomb in a large American or European city. NYC, DC, London, or some major port would be an obvious target. I think this is probably an effort to sow doubt and fear, and does not convince me it is actually true.
A dirty bomb would cause extreme panic all out of proportion to its radiological hazard. It would cause a harsh blow to the global economy if detonated in the right place. Why show your cards? Just do it.
Honestly, I hope they use it before Iran makes a nuke. People seem to think it’s okay, or reasonable, for them to have it since we do. Idiots or traitors, a bit of both, doesn’t matter. Unless people see what they will do with them, they honestly don’t care. Unfortunately, if they use it on Israel, the world won’t care.
What’s the name, Obola?
Clarityseeker at 8:15 pm,
Wait… you were serious? You were actually asking how safe are smaller cities? It’s not predictable because while they’re a less ‘target rich environment’, they’re more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Which is just one of the many reasons why we want to fight them over there, rather than here.
Kardashian sounds Muslim to me. Maybe we should keep an eye on her. Is this about dirty bombs or dirty blondes? So much news to digest…
There were always large numbers of WMD in Iraq. Even at the time of the Bush invasion and after.
Stupid, incompetent, spineless Bushies refused to reveal and defend, so not only were large numbers of WMD transferred to Syria so that they could kill their own people but Bushie spinelessness delivered the country into the tender mercies of our lord and savior Barack Hussein Obama.
I am not so worried by dirty bombs. They are primarily terror weapons, they won’t kill many people. There is a good HBO docudrama on a dirty bomb being used in London (2004 Dirty War. It’s available on Netflix).
What worries me greatly is an EMP attack by Iran, though given the money they have access to a nuclear tipped missile given to ISIS by North Korea or Iran. EMP would kill almost the entire population of the US.
Everyone should contact their reps and Senators about the SHIELD act and about the intransigence of NERC and FERC to actually implement upgrades to the electric grid to protect against EMP.
Geoffrey,
No, was not serious. I had actually typed up a great follow-up (humorous) to your coconuts post.
Thought better of it at last moment.
FYI: My humor was driven by frustration over this issue. I have no control what is occurring in the middle east.
I find the incredibly pathetic back-and-forth between John Kerry and the Iranians even more dangerous than ISIS (and that is splitting hairs).
Kerry is worse than I originally suspected he’d be at this new role of his.
And now this new development with Israel? Potential sanctions? Wow…
Kardashian is an Armenian name. This is not hard to verify.
I agree that it’s really difficult to stand America being represented by someone as stupid as John Kerry as Secretary of State when we live in such perilous times. It’s embarrassing, and very dangerous. I just hope we survive until this regime is over.
Rome had Cannae and Hannibal;
America has Soetoro and Kerry.
For centuries after Cannae, Roman historians and politicians recounted how Rome could survive even Hannibal… so what out!
&&&&
It would be well for modern Americans to remember that Britain, Russia, China and America have one thing in common: they lose the first battles — only to win the final battles.
As Napoleon and Hitler could tell you, things really started off so well….
Pitt, Santa Anna, Wilhelm, Tojo have their tales to tell.
&&&&
EMP is WILDLY over estimated as a weapon of economic disruption.
1) It functions by inducing a massive magnetic pulse consequent to a hydrogen bomb at just the right altitude.
2) This pulse is meaningless unless it also induces daughter pulses in victim electronics and electrical grids.
There’s a real problem with that aspiration:
Micro electronics are ALREADY shielded — by the factory — as delivered. No better example exists but the MacBook Pro. It’s sheathed in an aluminum chassis. By the laws of physics, its contents are immune to any such magnetic induction.
This design feature is now universal, because the electronics inside ALL modern computers are MASSIVE emitters of radio frequency interference — unless so shielded.
When you grab an apparently all-plastic laptop — a peak under the covers reveals that it has a “Faraday cage” around all of the high frequency circuits. Without it, the device would not gain FCC approval. You’ll find just such a stamp somewhere on every piece of consumer electronics you touch.
This design mode extends far, far, beyond solid state chips. All microwave ovens, on down the line, … ALL are shielded by “Faraday cages.”
Modern aircraft are flying “Faraday cages” — so too most automobiles and trucks.
The first discovery of EMP effects occurred in 1962 with the Johnston Island hydrogen shot. It illuminated Honolulu — and blew fuses all over the island chain.
Today, all that such a shot could do would be to trip circuit breakers. Fuses are so yesterday.
Automatic re-closers would immediately re-set the high voltage power grid. This system is also now protected by surge arresters — something never employed 50 years ago.
[A surge arrester can be installed right in your house panel or near your computer. Whatever the scale, they function by sensing the instantaneous voltage and bleeding any surge off into the ground. This happens faster than you can imagine.
Small versions of this scheme are located directly on your computer’s power supply. Should it misbehave, any excess voltage is bled off — before it smokes your whole motherboard. The actual gadget costs a few cents and takes up nearly no space. They look like little disks — almost like a capacitor.]
Neither the Soviets or the Americans EVER figured on EMP as a viable strategic weapon. All that it would do is infuriate the target — while leaving all of its weapons entirely intact!
Folks, just forget EMP. It’s a false threat.
The REAL problem is economic: once Iran has the nuke she will be in a position to economically coerce ALL of her neighbors.
That’s more than enough to set the world on fire. Use your imagination.
blert,
I appreciate your comments, but, what about automobiles? Their electronics are not housed in “Faraday cages”? No?
Televisions? Radios? Electronic driven furnaces and AC units? America’s critical elements within the power grid?
“The current missile defense budget was reduced by $500 million to $9.2 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2014…”
For 2015 the budget has been further reduced. Estimates maintain that it will take in excess of $11Billion to operate an adequate missile defense system to ensure against this type of threat.
What good is a computer without adequate power?
parker Says:
December 6th, 2014 at 12:30 am
If I was a leader of a jihad organization and had a significant source (thousands of curies) of yellow cake or highly refined uranium I would not announce the fact.
Actually, yellow cake is considered virtually harmless. (U3O8, IIRC)
”
Radioactivity and safety
Yellowcake is (99%+) almost exclusively U-238, with very low radioactivity. It has an extremely long half-life, over 4 billion years, meaning that it emits radiation at a slow rate. This stage of processing is before the more radioactive U-235 is concentrated, so by definition this stage of uranium has the same[quantify] radioactivity as it did in nature when it was underground, as the proportions of isotopes are at their native percentage concentration. Consumption or inhalation of uranium is dangerous, and can lead to heavy metal toxicity, though this is almost impossible to occur in reality…
”
Wiki.
A true dirty bomb would require access to the nasty brew created by a fission reactor… after it’s cooled down enough for technicians to tolerate.
Ironically, if a dirty bomb can be assembled … it’s not very dirty!
The only way that the typical dirty bomb actually hurts anyone is if they lick the ground or bathe in the wash-down.
The very chemicals used to extract uranium oxide from the earth are THE perfect ‘soaps’ to lift it off of all surfaces. They, the soaps, are produced in massive quantities — and are, in every case, water soluble, to boot.
So you’d just roll in a vacuum-extraction truck and hose them into the wet vacuum.
[Every American utility has fleets of these on call, they are used to ‘pot-hole’ down to sensitive underground utilities. You can spot them on the road by their huge vacuum hoses wrapped around what otherwise looks like a massive waste disposal truck.]
Geiger counters would sweep the area for any hot spots.
BTW, uranium decays by alpha particle emission (mostly) unless placed in an atomic pile.
Clarityseeker Says:
December 7th, 2014 at 12:32 pm
Modern micro-electronic circuits emit radio-wave interference — like crazy.
That’s pretty much ALL OF THEM.
You never have to deal with it/ don’t appreciate it because the FCC REQUIRES (de facto) Faraday cages around all such emitters.
BTW, such cages don’t have to cover all six-sides of a cube to suppress the emissions enough to get (FCC) approval. The actual amount of metal required is astonishingly trivial. The physics of magnetism and metals permits the effect to occur on the SKIN of the metal. So even flimsy metal shields are actually enough. They are not used because they’d tear during assembly and use.
The voltage surge is magnified with LONG conductors, anyway. It’s a popular science fiction trope that EMP can kill motors/ ignition systems.
Quite the reverse is the case. An old style automotive coil is designed from the get-go to handle 50,000 Volts! In service it was expected to only face 25,000 volts — all mass produced items are over-designed — or the call-backs would astound.
I mention this because such physics are used in “War of the Worlds” (Spielberg’s version) It’s total bunk, of course. But then, look at the rest of that crazy plot.
The SMALLER a conductor is, the more difficult it is to induce a current in it — at the frequencies involved here.
&&&
So let’s concentrate on the power grid. It was what was most affected in 1962 by the hydrogen bomb, anyway. (no cars died at the time, BTW)
It was an era of FUSES. These darlings are one-shot puppies. They are STILL used all over — just not in any recently constructed housing — recent as in: since 1960. And, of course, the older homes have had their Service connections up graded to circuit breakers.
If they pop, you merely have to walk out and re-set them.
But, it IS possible to destabilize the larger power grid. Destabilize does not mean destroy. History has shown that America (and other nations) has been able to re-boot the entire grid in less than a week, with most critical loads rebooted within hours.
Automatic re-closers are embedded in every power grid in North America. You can see them in action during a harsh storm. They follow this sequence:
Trip open — first fault/ surge
X time delay (seconds)
Automatic reset/ closure — first try
2nd Trip open — re-fault condition/ surge
Y time delay (seconds)
Automatic reset/ closure — second try
3rd Trip open — re-fault condition/ surge
Z time delay (long seconds — allows mechanism to cool down)
Automatic reset/ closure — third try
4th Tip open — re-fault condition/ surge
Automatic recloser trips open — permanently…
It must now be re-set by service personnel.
I’m not going to divulge the delay times here, and they aren’t the same across all of North America, anyway.
Suffice it to say that many systems not intensely destabilized will self correct faster than you can snap your fingers.
The gadget above was engineer expressly for tree branches falling over power lines during a storm. The wind usually clears the faults the same way they triggered the faults.
EMP is just TOO JUICY a plot device to give up.
It’s got all of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” techno-shock built into it.
As you might gather from “The Walking Dead” and other ‘modern’ fictions, humanity is obsessed with technological reversal. The more we’re dependent upon it, the more we fear its loss.
No, the REAL problem is economic: Atomic Iran can — and will — attack the West — and Israel — via economic terrorism.
You might review “Lloyds of London” the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPrTrVe6XlU
with special emphasis towards the back half of the film.
In it, Jonathan (Tyrone Power) raises the alarm: England will be economically destroyed by commercial risk.
THIS is the REAL problem with atomic Iran.
It gets no commentary — not a word — from the talking heads — the punditry, left or right.
Unsaid, the primary target of such turmoil would necessarily be Red China! Beijing has not thought that far ahead.
Perfect.
Everyone is sweating a total non-problem while a nightmare with global import festers. !!!
Got it.
I’m cured too. I was going to ask you to explain justification for CFL’s over incandescent bulbs: wouldn’t be prudent.
CFLs are STILL fluorescents.
The justification for them is feeble.
1) They stink in cold weather.
2) They don’t survive intermittent usage.
3) They have a harsh color temperature that is actually responsible for the epic rise in weight gain and obesity in ALL advanced nations.
On the last point: it’s ONLY NOW that this aspect is being acknowledged by science.
Yeah, it’s a slow process.