Trump orders agencies to prepare for potential EMP attacks
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday ordering federal agencies to take steps to protect the country from potential electromagnetic pulses.
The order calls on federal agencies to coordinate in preparations to prevent and react to an electronic pulse, or EMP, which is a blast of electromagnetic energy that can damage the U.S. electric grid and other infrastructure.
https://www.breitbart.com/news/trump-orders-agencies-to-prepare-for-potential-emp-attacks/
What would happen after an EMP attack?
An EMP attack would result in catastrophic damage to America’s power grid. Specifically at the generation and substation levels. Power is transmitted at very high voltages to reduce energy loss. There is well over 80,000 miles of EHV transmission line in the US (voltages at or above 345KV). When power is generated at a the power plant, it is “stepped up” to EHV levels by step-up transformers. Similar transformers are used at the substation level to “step down” EHV voltage levels for distribution to cities and towns. Local transformers (including pole mounted transformers) are used to further step down voltages for commercial and home use.
Generation and substation transformers are extremely expensive. These are very large pieces of capital equipment that are purchased by your local utilities. These transformers are very large. They consist of an oil-filled, reinforced steel tank, a massive ferromagnetic steel core, and very large and heavy copper windings that are wound using heavy copper magnet wire. Each transformer is designed to meet a given utility’s unique specifications. Hundreds of engineering hours are required to design each unit, and hundreds of manufacturing hours are required to build and electrically test each unit. Current transformer lead-times are right around 26 weeks. After the transformer is built, it must be shipped to the utility. Smaller substation transformers are shipped as oversized loads on flatbed trucks, but most are shipped via rail car to an FOB destination. The shipping method is actually an important consideration during design. It is not uncommon for a new transformer to spend a month or more in transit.
If America’s power grid is struck by an EMP attack, electrical energy will be induced onto our EHV transmission lines, and these lines will carry the fault to the nearest substation where it will be introduced to “unhardened” substation transformers. These faults will be massive (think Carrington Event, 1859). All transformers are design to withstand nominal short circuit forces and lightning strikes, but an EMP attack has the potential to exceed nominal design parameters. In other words, an EMP attack will likely result in the widespread destruction of transformers on the power grid. While this is extremely bad, the after effects are more dire.
Generally speaking, America’s utilities do NOT generally maintain spares - it’s simply cost prohibitive. Substation transformers can cost anywhere from $400,000 to a few million dollars. Thus, there’s no back-up way to get the lights turned back on. The grid cannot be repaired without replacing the transformers, and the small number of transformer manufacturers already have lengthy lead-times. Such an event could result in unprecedented and lengthy power outages potentially lasting many months. Imagine a city, the size of Chicago, not having adequate access to power for many months.
The real damage done by an EMP attack will occur during the many months following the EMP attack …
Carrington Event:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859