A U.S. Air Force base in Texas has taken the first steps to guard against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. But what is an EMP exactly, and how big is the threat?
Officials at the San Antonio Joint Base in Lackland, Texas, have requested that a survey be conducted of a facility called the Petroleum, Oil and Lubrication Complex. The survey identifies, on request, any equipment that may be vulnerable to an EMP before more detailed testing of the vulnerability. Thereafter, officials would find ways to keep the equipment safe in the event of an EMP attack.
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What is an EMP?
An EMP is a huge eruption of electromagnetic energy which can occur naturally or can be deliberately generated using nuclear weapons. Although many experts do not think that EMPs pose a major threat, some people argue that these types of weapons can be used to cause widespread disruption of the dependent societies.
“You can use one weapon to collapse the entire North American power grid,” said defense analyst Peter Pry. He serves on the Congressional EMP Commission, which was set up to assess the threat of EMP attacks but was closed in 2017.
“Once the electric grid is off, everything will collapse,” Pry told WordsSideKick. “It all depends on electricity: telecommunications, transportation, even water.”
According to the request, the testing in Lackland comes in response to a 2019 executive order issued at the time by President Donald Trump for the federal government to strengthen its infrastructure against EMPs. Pry, who consulted on the project, said the survey and the subsequent upgrades are part of a broader initiative by the U.S. Air Force to advance its defense against this type of threat.
Why EMPs are so dangerous
An EMP releases large waves of electromagnetic energy, which can act like a moving giant magnet. Such a changing magnetic field can cause electrons to move in a nearby wire, causing a current. With such a massive burst of energy, an EMP can cause harmful power surges in any electronics within range.
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These pulses can occur intentionally or naturally. Natural EMPs occur when the sun occasionally emits massive plasma currents, and when it comes to our side, the earth’s natural magnetic field can distract it. But if the sun spits out enough plasma at the same time, the impact can cause the magnetic field to wobble and generate a powerful EMP. The last time this happened was in 1859 in the so-called Carrington Event, and although electronics were still scarce at the time, it eliminated much of the newly built telegraph network.
Then there is the possibility of deliberate EMPs. If a nuclear weapon were to explode high in the atmosphere, Pry said the gamma radiation it would release could strip electrons of air molecules and accelerate them near the speed of light. These charge-bearing electrons will be correlated by the earth magnetic field, and if they zipped around, they would generate a powerful, alternating electric current, which in turn would yield a massive EMP. The explosion can also distort the Earth’s magnetic field, causing a slower pulse like an naturally occurring EMP.
Putting a nuclear weapon about 300 miles above the U.S. could create an EMP that would cover most of North America, Pry said. The explosion and radiation of the bomb would disappear before reaching ground level, but the resulting EMP would be powerful enough to destroy electronics throughout the region, Pry said. “If you stand on the ground under the explosion, you will not even hear it go off,” Pry said. “The EMP will move harmlessly through your body.”
A small EMP with a radius of less than a kilometer can also be generated by combining high voltage power sources with antennas that release this energy as electromagnetic waves. The U.S. military has a prototype cruise missile with an EMP generator. It is called the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), and can be used to target specific enemy facilities, and Pry said it would be within the capabilities of many military or even terrorist groups to carry out an EMP. to build generator.
“We have come to a place where a single individual can overthrow the technological pillars of civilization for a large metropolitan area alone, armed with a device like this,” he said.
The technology needed to protect against EMPs is similar to that already used to prevent damage from power surges through lightning, Pry said. These technologies need to be adapted to handle higher voltages, but devices such as training protectors, which conduct excess voltage to the ground, or Faraday cages, which protect devices from electromagnetic radiation, can do the job.
Pry said the EMP commission estimates that it will cost between $ 2 billion and $ 4 billion to protect the most important equipment in the national network, but ideally he wants to see standards changed so that EMP protection is built into devices.
EMP: Do you have to worry?
However, the threat posed by EMPs is far from being resolved. A 2019 report by the Electric Power Research Institute, which is funded by electricity companies, found that such an attack was likely to cause local power outages, but not a nationwide failure, and that the recovery times would be similar to those of other large-scale outages.
Frank Cilluffo, director of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, said that while an EMP attack would certainly be devastating, it is unlikely that the enemies of the United States will carry out such a brutal attack. will execute.
“There are other ways opponents can achieve the same results, some of which are cheaper and some less noticeable,” Cilluffo told WordsSideKick.
Such alternatives could include cyberattacks to eliminate critical infrastructure, including the electrical network, or even attempts to disrupt space-based communications or the GPS system on which modern society relies so heavily. Work to protect against EMPs makes sense, especially given the possibility of another Carrington-like event, but these upgrades should not distract attention from efforts to advance defense against more likely attacks, Cilluffo said.
Original article on Live Science.