Emp/solar Flare.

https://spaceweathernews.com/ You guys wanting to save some electronics may want to be sure you haven't left items on your to save list outside your faraday cage . It appears we will have impact . The question is how strong ?

 

On my end the link was readable but difficult on a darkened screen . The site wanted me to allow them to track me to lift the darkness which I declined . ---This solar storm could get interesting if it knocks out computers as I suppose that would include gas pumps and store cash registers . Out tech dependent member may get a chance to experience life without technology .

 

Better keep all of your electronics in Faraday cages.

https://commonsensehome.com/electromagnetic-pulse-emp/


https://www.protectandlock.com/gun-safe-faraday-cage/

One could add some wire mesh inside of one of their gun safes and keep their electronics therein. The Faraday protecting mesh must NOT come in contact with the steel structure of the safe itself -- insulation (electrical) must separate the Faraday cage from the safe. Grounding can be very important, but it is a complicated topic. I've provided links below to address the issue.

In the engineering module where we worked for one international, each module of offices had a dedicated huge, thick and long, copper rod driven through the concrete and way down into the earth. Braids could be connected to it for the grounding static and induced voltages from our equipment. For another company, we had test equipment inside walk-in Faraday cage/rooms so that our equipment would not radiate and so that outside radiation would not get in to contaminate field-strength testing.

If the EMP is minor, then you may not have to ground your Faraday cage, at all. Sometimes when grounding, the person attempting to "ground" the unit can actually be making an antenna which is now WORSE than having no ground and actually negates the Faraday shielding itself.

Here's a comparison of chicken-wire vs aluminum at low levels of generated field. No grounding was necessary.



If however we get hit with with a EMP attack device or one royally big solar flare, then you had best have some serious grounding -- this because the induced high Voltage will have some serious Amps going on. Static discharge may have Voltage but it doesn't have the Amps behind it ... unless it is a dang Lightning Bolt. Lightning bolts have Amperage and Voltage, thus ENERGY. You really want that sort of energy grounded and grounded very well. This said, the CMOS circuits in electronic equipment, especially computer devices with memory, are killed at low levels of EMP or static discharge.

Grounding your Faraday cage (this is not a fun read):

https://mdcreekmore.com/should-a-faraday-cage-be-grounded-2/

--------------------

https://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-grounding.html

"Layers of protection are also important for transient protection. Layers (or chains) of transient protection, where ever possible, are always better than a single transient protector. (The terms "transient protector" and "surge protector" can be used interchangeably.)

"Common practice in high-frequency, high-power electromagnetic environments is to use a wide copper strap for grounding. The width of the copper strap should be the widest that is both feasible and affordable for the particular situation. The copper strap is used because high frequencies, including those in a fast rise-time pulse, tend to travel mainly on the outer surface of a conductor. This makes the DC resistance of the grounding material less relevant. Especially now that the price of copper has become so high, it is important not to waste such a valuable commodity by having most of the copper in the interior of a grounding conductor.

"Another alternative for the grounding conductor to maximize the surface area to total volume is to use copper tubing. Flexible copper tubing (such as that used for plumbing) may be used, but the diameter of the tubing should be the largest that is feasible and affordable. For many individuals, copper tubing is much easier to obtain than a wide copper strap.

"Remember that a faraday cage without any wire penetrations does not need to be grounded, and any attempt to ground such an uncomplicated faraday cage is simply asking for problems."

Old Geezer: If you are not running the electronics or the electronics themselves require zero grounding, then do NOT ground the cage. Just storing equipment, then you don't need to ground it. At work, we were running equipment that required grounding -- that is one different story. Plus our field strengths were not through the roof. I've held a static discharge "gun" that threw over 35,000 volts into electronics housed in NEMA cabinets -- our electronics survived (yes, I am bragging about our product line; "Took a licking and kept on ticking.")
----------------------------

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why-do-radiation-shields-such-as-Faraday-cages-have-to-be-grounded

https://www.preparednesspro.com/many-myths-emps-and-faraday-cages

https://boards.straightdope.com/t/g...ed-faraday-cage-whats-the-difference/533955/8

 

https://spaceweathernews.com/ --- Interesting this morning , it covers two solar flares coming out of the sun over the last few hours . It appears the sun is erupting . Also it addresses the magnetic shift of the earth and change of its axes . The main story for our space scientist , a newly found cosmic super wave radiating out to perhaps destroy things like we haven't even imagined . This finding is so new it doesn't have a name yet . It also dives into the lies spouted by such people as Al Gore and the leaders of countries around the planet now getting ready to meet and discuss how they can control the earth .

 

The phenomena reported are normal background events. There were no CMEs. The ejected mass of these recent flares were pulled back into the sun rather rapidly by its gravitational field. The other phenomenon reported, universal sine wave, is permutations on that background signal.

If we get a real coronal mass ejection headed our way, then that would be news-central.
.

 

So far, we've had no negative effects from this weekend's solar storm.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articl...-take-down-communications-lines-worldwide.htm

https://algulf.net/2021/11/21/the-s...ovoke-internet-apocalypse-global-disruptions/

 

https://www.livescience.com/cannibal-coronal-mass-ejection-inbound This sounds like party time in the U.S. state of Louisiana . A CME is on the way . TWO ejections have combined and headed our way like shots from a double barreled shotgun . It is estimated to hit earth at 1,881,263 miles per hour .

 

Would be a great time for a country to stealthily cyber-attack another country and shut down its power grids.

If the intentional nature of the attack could be avoided, everyone would blame it on the solar radiation.

 

Yes. It's just that they have to look at their code using a flashlight.

"Flashlight" = "torch" British

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...pc=U531&cvid=8a5dc9bef2474b8b9d7f1f41069de5ea --- Solar Flares are now becoming stronger and more common place . The above link is a read on the now ongoing solar flare . Note in the read this onslaught is expected to peak in 3 more years "2025 ". Radio transmissions are already experiencing black outs and we can expect an intensification .

 

Historic precedent:

Quebec 1989
https://canadaehx.com/2022/03/26/the-1989-quebec-blackout/

Of course, the people blamed the power company, the government, somebody, ....

-----------------------------

1859:

https://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event

"On the morning of September 1, 1859, amateur astronomer Richard Carrington ascended into the private observatory attached to his country estate outside of London. After cranking open the dome’s shutter to reveal the clear blue sky, he pointed his brass telescope toward the sun and began to sketch a cluster of enormous dark spots that freckled its surface. Suddenly, Carrington spotted what he described as “two patches of intensely bright and white light” erupting from the sunspots. Five minutes later the fireballs vanished, but within hours their impact would be felt across the globe.

"That night, telegraph communications around the world began to fail; there were reports of sparks showering from telegraph machines, shocking operators and setting papers ablaze. All over the planet, colorful auroras illuminated the nighttime skies, glowing so brightly that birds began to chirp and laborers started their daily chores, believing the sun had begun rising. Some thought the end of the world was at hand, but Carrington’s naked eyes had spotted the true cause for the bizarre happenings: a massive solar flare with the energy of 10 billion atomic bombs. The flare spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, and the resulting geomagnetic storm—dubbed the “Carrington Event”—was the largest on record to have struck the planet.

"Compared to today’s information superhighway, the telegraph system in 1859 may have been a mere dirt road, but the 'Victorian Internet' was also a critical means of transmitting news, sending private messages and engaging in commerce. Telegraph operators in the United States had observed local interruptions due to thunderstorms and northern lights before, but they never experienced a global disturbance like the one-two punch they received in the waning days of summer in 1859.

"Many telegraph lines across North America were rendered inoperable on the night of August 28 as the first of two successive solar storms struck. E.W. Culgan, a telegraph manager in Pittsburgh, reported that the resulting currents flowing through the wires were so powerful that platinum contacts were in danger of melting and “streams of fire” were pouring forth from the circuits. In Washington, D.C., telegraph operator Frederick W. Royce was severely shocked as his forehead grazed a ground wire. According to a witness, an arc of fire jumped from Royce’s head to the telegraphic equipment. Some telegraph stations that used chemicals to mark sheets reported that powerful surges caused telegraph paper to combust.

"On the morning of September 2, the magnetic mayhem resulting from the second storm created even more chaos for telegraph operators. When American Telegraph Company employees arrived at their Boston office at 8 a.m., they discovered it was impossible to transmit or receive dispatches. The atmosphere was so charged, however, that operators made an incredible discovery: They could unplug their batteries and still transmit messages to Portland, Maine, at 30- to 90-second intervals using only the auroral current. Messages still couldn’t be sent as seamlessly as under normal conditions, but it was a useful workaround. By 10 a.m. the magnetic disturbance abated enough that stations reconnected their batteries, but transmissions were still affected for the rest of the morning.

"When telegraphs did come back on line, many were filled with vivid accounts of the celestial light show that had been witnessed the night before. Newspapers from France to Australia featured glowing descriptions of brilliant auroras that had turned night into day. One eyewitness account from a woman on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina ran in the Charleston Mercury: 'The eastern sky appeared of a blood red color. It seemed brightest exactly in the east, as though the full moon, or rather the sun, were about to rise. It extended almost to the zenith. The whole island was illuminated. The sea reflected the phenomenon, and no one could look at it without thinking of the passage in the Bible which says, ‘the sea was turned to blood.’ The shells on the beach, reflecting light, resembled coals of fire.'

"The sky was so crimson that many who saw it believed that neighboring locales were on fire. Americans in the South were particularly startled by the northern lights, which migrated so close to the equator that they were seen in Cuba and Jamaica. Elsewhere, however, there appeared to be genuine confusion. In Abbeville, South Carolina, masons awoke and began to lay bricks at their job site until they realized the hour and returned to bed. In Bealeton, Virginia, larks were stirred from their sleep at 1 a.m. and began to warble. (Unfortunately for them, a conductor on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad was also awake and shot three of them dead.) In cities across America, people stood in the streets and gazed up at the heavenly pyrotechnics. In Boston, some even caught up on their reading, taking advantage of the celestial fire to peruse the local newspapers."

=============================================

Gonna happen again.

Gonna be hell to pay.

Amerika's Bay Area consisting of San Fransisco, Oakland, San Jose, ... has 10,000,000 people. They are all totally dependent on electric feed. There is nowhere for these people to run.

"Northeast megalopolis" = 50,000,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_megalopolis



California / Los Angeles




Same all across this planet.



=====================================

The power is going to go out.

All crypto-currencies will vanish. Paper money will be great for toilet paper.

All urban area businesses will grind to a halt.

There will be zero services; not just electricity will go away, so will clean water feed, fuel distribution, heating and air, and there will be no law enforcement officers to come to your aid.

This will happen due to major solar flares or to nuclear war. One or the other, there's a 100% chance that this WILL occur.
.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...pc=U531&cvid=829ae7077a264498a2e44fe4e0c6828f --- Is a massive solar storm on its way to earth ? " And so it begins " tweeted a sun scientist . My last information was scientist are still trying to determine if this giant storm will hit earth or be a near miss . It is enroute as I type this " destination unknown " .

 

If not this time, then the next.

Or, Korea.

Does the roulette belong to Russia?

I think, not.

Silly Divinity.

And chaos.

Humanity will not be the winner.

Ask the dinosaurs.

Oops, we can't.

But, Faulkner was correct in his observation.

And roaches.



If not this time, then the next.





God's game.

Humor and Twilight



.

 

If a EMP be imminent . You could make a tesla chamber with chicken wire that is grounded to protect computers, cell phones , anything electronic or just put them in a frig, stove or car.

 

You'd be surprised how many systems and subsystems are hardened these days to cope with solar storms.

Worth book marking https://sunspotwatch.com most hams keep an eye on what our star is doing, flares really can bugger up ham radio.

 

Is that like a Faraday cage Chicken wire don't work well as a Faraday cage in practise.

 

Industrial systems have to be EMP protected due to all of the TIG and MIG welding going on. A couple of centuries ago when I was in factory automation design & testing, we'd throw >35,000 Volt arcs into equipment to make sure it could handle radiated and conducted noise.

Military systems are of course hardened.

Municipal systems however are at risk -- especially with above-ground wiring. All of those wires are antennas.

Power grids for masses of populations will go dark if solar storms get violent and head our way. And of course, there are weapons whose primary purpose is to produce EMP events from hell.

https://emp.news/2021-02-03-russias-super-electromagnetic-pulse-weapon-could-destroy-us-grid.html#

"Recent intelligence shows that Russia now possesses a specialized 'super electromagnetic pulse' weapon and warhead that can travel at speeds of Mach 20 and would be able to plunge America into darkness with very little advance warning.

"The Executive Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, Peter Vincent Pry, has also warned that China has surpassed American developments in electromagnetic pulse warfare, putting us at a serious disadvantage if they choose to attack us in this manner.

"Some experts are worried that President Biden’s lifting of President Trump’s ban on Chinese involvement in the U.S. grid will make it easier for them to attack our electric supply.

"Pry, who has worked with previous administrations and the Pentagon to prepare for attacks, said that the current political turmoil presents a 'golden opportunity' for an EMP strike, adding: 'Washington’s impotence and irresolution will invite future, increasingly aggressive cyberattacks.'

"The truth is that enemies of our nation, such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, view the U.S. as an easy target given how much of our economy depends on electricity, the internet and electronic communications. An attack would easily wipe out all of these, putting every American in danger.

"Pry outlined these advancements in EMP warfare in a new report on Russia. EMP weapons, he says, are exploded very high up in the atmosphere, allowing them to wipe out electric grids and computers across wide swaths of the country in outages that could last longer than a year.

"The nation’s large transformers controlling the grid and high-voltage control cables are said to be particularly vulnerable. Transformers take two years to build and cost roughly $7 million each, and we are already behind schedule in having backups ready. This means that if many of our transformers go out at once, as they would in an attack, there is little we can do to restore power in a reasonable time frame."
.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...pc=U531&cvid=49d6946f9d9146739b652129fc3ea87a --- 3 rd. solar flare in the last 48 hours . This could get very amusing for preppers if the power grids are fried . We can sit back and watch the panic . Fuel stations down , grocery stores down , water from pipes down , lights down , electrical heating cooling and cooking down , phones and computers down . What great times for preppers - CME , famine , biological attacks by China , possible nuclear war and economic collapse all on our doorsteps .

 

The article provided a link to the following news item:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...pc=U531&cvid=2594f28938904c288a78738934dcb633

"A massive asteroid that could be twice as wide as the Empire State Building will speed past Earth on Thursday, April 28.

"The asteroid—designated 418135 (2008 AG33), with a width estimated to be between around 1,150 and 2,560 feet—will be traveling at speeds approaching an incredible 23,264 miles per hour.

"To put that into perspective, that speed is 11 times faster than a bullet fired by a rifle at around 2,050 miles per hour, and 27 times as fast as a bullet fired by the average handgun, at about 859 miles per hour.

"The asteroid will be traveling at over 30 times the speed of sound, 767 miles per hour, and 15 times faster than the maximum speed of a Lockheed Martin F-16 jet fighter which is around 1,500 miles per hour."

-------------------------------------------

The asteroid just mentioned will miss us by a couple million miles, but one day the Earth is going to take a direct hit. Due to the oceans covering most of the Earth's surface, one of these little space pebbles is going to splash down in the Pacific or the Atlantic. Research indicates that most events such as this would NOT cause a huge tsunami, but the water vapor generated could very well alter the world's climate. Not exactly great news for planetary agriculture, which is already taking some nasty hits anyway. We Earthlings have had a whole lot of centuries without taking one on the chin. That could very easily change. Over eight billion mouths to feed -- that's just not a good number.

https://www.space.com/35081-asteroid-impact-ocean-computer-simulations-solar-system.html

"..., a significant fraction of the kinetic energy of the impacting asteroid will go into vaporizing huge quantities of water, according to the team's award-winning video explaining the research findings. Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, so the injection of vapor into the stratosphere could linger for months or years, altering global climates."

The Tunguska event


.

 

Back in the UK until the 9th May and in Spain from Monday Pulled my knee and its giving jip so me and the lad had a curry delivered and I'll be sipping on the single malt now...for medicinal purposes only of course and I'll worry about meteors in the morning

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...pc=U531&cvid=ae25f1488dc748f5b6b25b344c56588f --- A solar flare of the largest classification has now left the sun's surface . I am not sure if it will hit earth . Scientist warn " more or coming " .

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...pc=U531&cvid=e26ebd67ac5049358e7718347e521260 --- Now a second x class solar flare has ejected .

 

It's just a matter of time before the Earth catches a serious dose of radiation from a solar flatus.

Solid state electronics technology has only been around since the 1960s, i.e. a micro-blip in time.

Really hardened circuits may make it, but the rest is going to get toasted.

This is why preppers keep wind-up watches, kerosene, and big blocks of candle wax. Solar flares meant nothing to our ancestors except that the northern lights came down very far south.
.

 

They won't manage. We know that, but I'm thinking that the soft citizens of Western nations will react in worse ways than what we preppers imagine they will. As cynical and jaded as I am, I believe that I will be taken-aback by the raw insanity of what is coming.

No electricity = no infrastructure.

As much as we imagine that people will decompensate, I would put good money (silver) on the people actually having breakdowns, overt psychological pathologies leading to self violence and violence against others. We know that the inner cities will be looted -- that's a given. However, in my magic crystal ball, I'm seeing people whose neighbors would call "very good and civilized people" going nuts and engaging in irrational behaviors.

The middle classes are as dependent on technology as addicts are dependent on heroin.

Scenario, what if looters found themselves taking gunfire from squeaky-clean suburbanites. The looters would be shocked. I wouldn't. When people need to feed their families and are unable to do so, they WILL go violent to bring about a resolution to that situation. Looters may get shot by liquor store owners and even expect that, however at groceries they do not expect to get shot. Yet, they will. Everybody is going to go turbo-furious.

Once good neighbors are going to turn on each other when the sun goes down and things go darker than dark.

Guns and ammo do not require electricity.
.

 

https://spaceweathernews.com/ I don't know yet if the newly ejected CME is going to be a threat to planet earth .

 

Yes, I read about that solar flare yesterday. They're always banging on about them though and nothing ever happens. Not to say that it won't but it's a bit like crying wolf. One tends to get somewhat blase after a while.

 

Hardened circuits are more common than you may think.

Back in August I went to a 'Silent Key' sale (radio ham dies and his equipment sold off). There was a lot of kit for sale and I picked up two transcievers and one linear amp, all in full working order and all Valve (Tubes in USA) rigs so so no solid state boards to fry and a lot of spare parts too. The young hams there didn't look twice at the vintage rigs only the modern stuff.

The old timer did a remarkable job maintaining his equipment and I lift my hat to the fella for keeping then in fantastic shape. The beauty of these old rigs is you can replace individual components unlike modern rigs where you just replace boards.

 

--- If anyone wants to know what to expect over the coming months , here is an " expert " on the Electrical magnetic pulse that we all will likely get to personally verify .

 

Yep, it's gonna happen. These events come in all sizes. The one affecting Earth tomorrow is predicted to be mild = Those living far north watch for brilliant "Northern Lights" One of these puppies decades back shut down the entire power grid of northern Quebec. The one that hit in the 1860s was a real cooker. Telegraph lines blew like heater wires. One telegraph operator got killed or was almost killed -- we're talking lightning bolt generation. Were an 1860s solar EMP to hit today, there would be hell to pay.

Electric power grid hardening is possible and some of this is in place, but we have a long way to go. In the industrial realm, automation equipment has been "noise hardened" for decades -- this I have direct experience with, including the testing this equipment. The aerospace industry -- especially for military aircraft -- knows how to harden circuits using Faraday cages and triple redundancy in computer-controlled systems. The Russians decades ago continued to use tubes instead of solid-state electronic equipment so as to be able to conduct warfare during a nuclear exchange.

Me, I've soldered-in MOVs to protect circuits from lighting. I had a device peripheral to my house get fried by lightning and I had to replace an entire circuit board that got toasted ... expensive and infuriating. Got hit again by lightning, but this time, the MOVs took the hit. They exploded, but all I had to do was replace them (cheap) and the circuit was unharmed and went back to working just fine. This computer I'm using has a dedicated UPS.

https://www.mouser.com/pdfDocs/ApplicationsofMetalOxideVaristorsMOVinPowerSupply_en.pdf

I'm gonna toss out some links that are too long for me to quote all of the good parts. The first article from Forbes is thick with good information -- almost every single paragraph has useful info.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielc...nger-to-americas-power-grids/?sh=189c295d2050

----------------------------------

Here's a technology that I didn't know anything about until I read the following article. Wow! This is a great development!

"Record-breaking, ultrafast devices step to protecting the grid from EMP"

April, 2022

https://www.sandia.gov/labnews/2022...devices-step-to-protecting-the-grid-from-emp/

Begin quote

Sandia scientists have announced a tiny electronic device that can shunt excess electricity within a few billionths of a second while operating at a record-breaking 6,400 volts — a significant step toward protecting the nation’s electric grid from an electromagnetic pulse.

The team published the fabrication and testing results of their device on March 10 in the scientific journal IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices. The team’s ultimate goal is to provide protection from voltage surges, which could lead to monthslong power interruptions, with a device that operates at up to 20,000 volts. For comparison, a household electric dryer uses 240 volts of electricity.

An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, can be caused by natural phenomena, such as solar flares, or human activity, such as a nuclear detonation in the atmosphere. An EMP causes huge voltages in a few billionths of a second, potentially affecting and damaging electronic devices over large swaths of the country.

EMPs are unlikely, said Bob Kaplar, manager of a semiconductor device research group at Sandia, but if one were to occur and damage the huge transformers that form the backbone of our electric grid, it could take months to replace them and reestablish power to the affected portion of the nation.

“The reason why these devices are relevant to protecting the grid from an EMP is not just that they can get to high voltage — other devices can get to high voltage — but that they can respond in a couple billionths of a second,” Bob said. “While the device is protecting the grid from an EMP, it’s at a very high voltage and thousands of amps are going through it, which is a huge amount of power. A material can only handle so much power for a certain amount of time, but we think the material in our diode has some advantages over other materials.”

The voltage surges caused by EMPs are a hundred times faster than those caused by lightning, so experts don’t know if the devices designed to protect the grid against lightning strikes would be effective against an EMP, said Jack Flicker, a Sandia electric grid resiliency expert on the team.

“The electric grid has a number of different protections,” Jack said. “They range in time-frame from very fast to very slow, and they’re overlaid on the electric grid to ensure that an event cannot cause a catastrophic outage of the electric grid. The fastest protection that we typically have on the grid reacts against pulses at one millionth of a second, to protect against lightning. For EMPs, we’re talking ten billionths of a second, a hundred times faster.”

The new Sandia device can react that quickly, Jack said.

End quote

-----------------------------------

I don't know if I believe the premise of following article. I hate it when people have too much faith in what is currently in place. Continuous improvement is imperative. Never grow sanguine about your situation. That's a good way to get hurt bad. It's like the inhabitants of ancient Pompeii saying, "Don't worry about all that rumbling coming from Mount Vesuvius -- it just does that every so often. Relax, be happy."

"The Grid Might Survive an Electromagnetic Pulse Just Fine"

https://www.wired.com/story/the-grid-might-survive-an-electromagnetic-pulse-just-fine/

.

 

Wow! Thank you so much for posting that video poltiregist. It is extremely interesting and eye-opening. Just wow. Scary stuff!

 

What's GCH?

 

Oh okay. Makes sense, thanks.

 

The UK grid has been hardened a lot the last few years, I know a couple of senior engineers and they said its still a work in progress but a hell of a lot of the system has been beefed up.

The days are drawing in and temp drops, dropped to 19c lunchtime ! wrap up warm.....in the words of the late great David Bowie 'put another log on the fire'

 

To look on the bright side . An EMP attack will be likely the " first " strike . This type of attack will be the easiest for preppers to overcome and survive . Just speaking for the United States , the following attacks will be mainly on Democrat held ground " again good news for preppers " . The wide spread estimate of 90 % death rate in the first year means , preppers only to need to be in the top 5 % or so in the ability to survive the new life style . -- If we have members that have not watched the video link that I posted above , I encourage them to do so as it is possible some may not fully understand what we face .

 

A type 3 EMP- will destroy all power grids along with the power stations .