April 08, 2009
New threat to passenger jets
EMP -- Electromagnetic Pulse -- is a surge of energy generated by the detonation of a nuclear bomb, capable of frying the circuits of any electrical device lacking sufficient shielding. The military has gone to great lengths to protect its planes, ships and tanks, but consumer products are particularly vulnerable.
The electronic ignitions in modern automobiles would be instantly fried after an EMP, rendering the vehicles useless. There's a frightening novel out -- One Second After -- that postulates a post-EMP America: Let's just say overpopulation isn't a problem.
Consider this: Most farm equipment, like the combines that harvest the crops, contain multiple systems vulnerable to EMP. How do the crops get harvested if the equipment won't run? And even if it did, how would you get it to market, if the trucks and trains have had their electronic brains lobotomized? And even if you could get it to market, there's be no way to refrigerate it, thanks to the A/C plants and refrigeration units being zapped.
Of course, you'd need electricity to power all the stuff used to keep food from spoiling.
Did I mention that another side effect of a massive EMP is the overloading and destruction of the electrical grid?
Well, at least we know this nightmare scenario won't -- can't -- happen, because the bad guys don't have nukes.
Right?
Have you heard of the North Koreans and the Iranians lately?
Anyhow, the even worse news is that you don't actually need a nuke to generate an EMP. As a matter of fact, you can do a fair amount of damage with a portable device, one that could, say, fit in your luggage -- and destroy an airliner's electronic components. All of them. Turning your flight into a gigantic lawn dart.
New Scientist reports:
ELECTROMAGNETIC pulse weapons capable of frying the electronics in civil airliners can be built using information and components available on the net, warn counterterrorism analysts.
All it would take to bring a plane down would be a single but highly energetic microwave radio pulse blasted from a device inside a plane, or on the ground and trained at an aircraft coming in to land.
Yael Shahar, director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, and her colleagues have analysed electromagnetic weapons in development or used by military forces worldwide, and have discovered that there is low-cost equipment available online that can act in similar ways. "These will become more of a threat as the electromagnetic weapons technology matures," she says.
For instance, the US and Russian military have developed electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads that create a radio-frequency shockwave. The radio pulse creates an electric field of many hundreds of thousands of volts per metre, which induces currents that burn out nearby electrical systems, such as microchips and car electronics.
Speculation persists that such "e-bombs" have been used in the Persian Gulf, and in Kosovo and Afghanistan - but this remains unconfirmed. But much of what the military is doing can be duplicated by others, Shahar says. "Once it is known that aircraft are vulnerable to particular types of disruption, it isn't too much of a leap to build a device that can produce that sort of disruption. And much of this could be built from off-the-shelf components or dual-use technologies."
For example, government labs use high-energy EMP devices to test what would happen to critical electronic systems if a nuclear weapon detonated, generating a vast electromagnetic pulse, says Robert Iannini, founder of Information Unlimited in Amherst, New Hampshire, which sells EMP test systems.
EMPs can be created in a number of ways. A machine called a Marx generator can quickly dump an extremely high charge stored in a bank of capacitors into an antenna, which then releases a highly energetic radio pulse. Devices like this are often used to test power lines for their resistance to lightning strikes. An alternative, known as a flux compression device, uses a small explosive to push an armature through a current-carrying coil that is generating a magnetic field. This compresses the magnetic field, again producing a devastating EMP.
[...]
But Shahar told delegates at the annual Directed Energy Weapons conference in London last month that security at some labs can be lax, while basic EMP generators can be built from descriptions available online, using components found in devices such as digital cameras. "These are technologically unchallenging to build and most of the information necessary is available," she says.
The increasing use of carbon-fibre reinforced composite in aircraft fuselages is also making them more vulnerable, she says, because composites provide poor shielding against electromagnetic radiation compared with metal. "What is needed is extensive shielding of electronic components and the vast amount of cables running down the length of the aircraft," she says.
When a defector delivered one of the Soviet Union's MiG Foxbat jets to the West back in the 1976, aviation analysts couldn't wait to get a closer look at what was then the world's hottest interceptor. Their initial response, once they had an opportunity to get up close and personal with the jet, was derisive laughter.
The Foxbat, although big, fast and sleek, was built like a tank, with last-generation technology, including vacuum tubes and cable-and-pulley control systems.
The laughter faded away when someone well versed in the effects of EMP pointed out that those vacuum tubes were quite happy to keep working after an EMP, while higher-tech U.S. jets would likely fall out of the sky like mallards on the opening day of duck season, thanks to their EMP-vulnerable control systems.
An EMP device capable of destroying vast swathes of the American infrastructure would have to be detonated at high altitude over the North American continent.
Thankfully, no nations hostile to the U.S. seem to be capable of -- or interested in -- fielding a rocket able to put a nuke-powered EMP device over the American heartland.
Nor do any hostile powers seem to be close to acquiring the nukes necessary to easily fry our silicon-controlled economy.
Except for North Korea and Iran.
But they're not interested in getting nukes, or harming us. I know that because Pres. Obama tells me so.
Which is why I'll sleep so soundly tonight.
Or, to paraphrase the president, "What, me worry?"
Posted by Mike Lief at April 8, 2009 11:31 PM
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Comments
the key phrase in your essay there is, "thankfully, no nations hostile to the US seem to be capable of - or interested in - " popping off an EMP over iowa or missouri. none of them **seem to be** capable/interested.
there's an intelligence service out there that - while much feared and hated - is greatly admired for their skill *and amazing success rate* in doing things it *seemed* they couldn't. their motto is, "by way of deception shalt thou do war", or some such.
i betcha that approach is now pretty much compulsory in every nation on earth, except maybe us. we seem to prefer, "let's all hold hands and look at the pretty butterflies!"
"vaccuum tubes", you say. hmmmm.......
Posted by: ici chacal at April 9, 2009 01:24 PM
The Jackal shouldn't mince words. Mossad would never be allowed to fit into our program because we are sliding into the French "we surrender" mode.
Posted by: The Little Coach at April 9, 2009 03:23 PM
None of these items really sound like anything you could actually fit in a piece of checked luggage.
And statements such as "basic EMP generators can be built from descriptions available online, using components found in devices such as digital cameras." are essentially semantically null without details. Are those components "circuit boards" or "capacitors"? Or are they something actually hard to come by that digicams make use of?
"Water contains hydrogen and oxygen, both of which are found in the street drug methamphetamine." Ok, yes, it's a true statement... but it doesn't actually mean anything, while sounding "scary".
Posted by: perlhaqr at April 12, 2009 02:23 PM