Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack

[bananas]

http://www.nucpros.com/content/commission-assess-threat-united-states-electromagnetic-pulse-emp-attack

Commission to Assess the Threat. to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack
Submitted by NUCBIZ on October 17, 2011 - 15:10
By Bob Meyer

Dr. William Graham, the former Science Advisor to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President from 1986 to 1989 and Chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack has written to the Chairman of the NRC to urge NRC further assessmets of EMP storms or attacks on nuclear power plants. The letter urges the NRC to include the EMP Attack consequences into the Fukushima assessment and change plans. This letter may want to be factored in the build of new plants.

The Commission to assess EMP was established by Congress through Title X, National Defense Authorization Act for Fixcal Year 2006.

This letter stated that an EMP can be generated naturally by a solar flare or coronal mass ejection from the Sun, which can produce a great geomagnetic storm on the Earth similar to some aspects of an EMP attack from a high-yield nuclear weapon, with similar catastrophic consequences. A great geomagnetic storm could cause the collapse of the electric grid and other critical infrastructures - transportation, communications, banking and finance, food and water-for a protracted period of months or years. A study by the National Academy of Sciences independently confirmed the EMP Commission's assessment that, if a great geomagnetic storm like the 1859 Carrington Event recurred today, recovery of the national electric power grid would take 4 to 10 years.

Such an event could also cause operators of the 108 nuclear plants in the United States to lose the ability to perform a safe, controlled shutdown of their power reactors, producing a Fukushima-like disaster on a large scale.

<snip>

[Fledermaus]

1. Its hard to imagine destruction like WWII and nuclear power plants.

A conventional war with nuclear power plants would be bad. Is that a design constraint for nuclear power plants? I don't think so.

[The Doctor.]

2. Huh...

Unrecs on this? If someone unrecs something, they should have the decency to explain why.

We could easily see something with enough of a fraction of the magnitude of the Carrington Event to be very harmful. We require ever more precision these days. Much more than in 1859.

[bananas]

3. Anti-science pro-nukes catapulting the propaganda. nt

[Nihil]

4. Do you post something every time you rec a post? I don't.

I will almost always post if I unrec a post but it is blatantly
obvious from other threads that some of the people who have
whinged about this one are regular users of the unrec button
when it's a subject that *they* don't like. Hypocrits.

:shrug:

FWIW, if there was a Carrington Event today, the devastation to
the communications network alone would cause such a major impact
that we would suddenly be transported back by the best part of
a century and that's before considering the power distribution
impact, the risks from having highly armed military nations
hitting the panic button (even if "merely" conventionally armed)
so the additional risk from nuclear power plants - whilst undoubtably
severe & worrying - becomes just another layer of shit on the cake.

If such an event were to occur after a period of global economic
hardship, when all manner of safety nets are being stretched to
their limits, the consequences would be extremely unpleasant.