Will an MCI bus act as a faraday cage?

[artvonne]

Here's a good overview page on the subject:

http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/factsheets/factsheets-htm/fs41elecpuls.htm

  Beginning at the third paragraph down "A 1.4 Megaton bomb launched about 250 miles above Kansas would destroy most of the electronics that were not protected in the entire Continental United States."

  And what exactly does "protected" mean? I have a Ret. Navy Adm. friend, plus my Uncle who did stuff for the Navy nobody needs to know about. To protect electronics from a "war level" EMP attack, they suggest items be unpowered and de-batteried, placed within double faraday cages with everything electrically isolated from one another, and the cage protected within lead shielding or stored a minimum two feet underground. Overkill? Maybe. But not if thats the minimum protection needed.

  A Bus is a horrible faraday cage. It would give good protection from lightning, but not from a good war level EMP.

  Notice no one mentions Canada or Mexico. Its like the weather, like our radar antennas and satellites cant see past the border. A blast of EMP over Kansas and they will be in the dark just as bad as us.

  So you save a bunch of electronics by whatever means you decide, and it worked, they aren't damaged. Big deal. The rest of the country is in the dark, and is going to remain so for a very long time. We better pray we know how to survive without electricity if something that bad ever happens.

 

[Jeremy]

Anyone got a design for a cage that will protect the human body from "A 1.4 Megaton bomb launched about 250 miles above Kansas"?

Let's keep things in perspective people. Probably not much point in having a nice-running bus after a nuclear holocaust.


Jeremy

[artvonne]

  A bomb detonated that high in altitude is only meant to cause massive EMP damage, not kill people or destroy structures or the physical environment.
 

[Nusa]

Aye, 250 miles is low earth orbit. The International Space Station orbits at 211 miles, to put it in perspective.

But read up on it if you want. Both the USA and the USSR experimented with nuclear explosions at those altitudes in the 1960's.

[Jeremy]

Er, perhaps you guys are missing the point just a teensy tiny little bit??

Irrespective of their intention ('they', depending upon your pet conspiracy theory, presumably being the Ruskies, Martians or your own Government), you're talking about whether your bus will still run after the USA is attacked with nuclear weapons. Perspective people, perspective.

Or perhaps you're prepared for anything because you've got diesel and suncream stored in the cellar and the local leukaemia specialist on the speed-dial. And a tin foil hat.


(Sorry - deep into Off Topic territory now, and all my fault).


Jeremy

[chev49]

Hope you aren't dissing tin foil hats again... i am wearing mine right now...

[artvonne]

Er, perhaps you guys are missing the point just a teensy tiny little bit??

  I don't believe I am missing the point at all. Just about anyone with a brain cell has to conclude that sooner or later some nutjob is going to do something destructive, either as an act of War or an act of Terrorism. We can either go through life pretending everything is going to be the same every day like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, or we can take a proactive role in making educated assessments of threats and try make some kind of reasonable attempt at dealing with them.

  I know for a fact that China is itching to get into it. They have surfaced their Submarines within close range of our Naval Aircraft Carriers completely undetected until we made visual contact, not once but several times, and they are armed as least half as well as the old USSR was, but with far better and much more technologically advanced equipment. To pretend they are not a threat to the Wests way of life is absolute ignorance.

  An EMP as suggested above (by a state government website I might add), is a very real scenario that many in the upper end of the Military believe could (and likely will) take place at some point. It will not kill or fry anyone, thats NOT its intent. It will however, very likely kill, fry, and destroy everything we have plugged in to the grid, the grid itself, anything running on a generator and the generator itself, and likely every transistor and integrated circuit in the continental US that isnt buried 2 feet underground in a sealed trash can.

  I am not about to look at the possibility of something like that taking place, and not make some kind of effort to make sure I can get into town and get my daughter the hell out of there if shes at school. And yes, I do believe some vehicles will still operate after a massive EMP. If I prepare and nothing happens, you can call me a tin foil hat wearer all you want. 

 

[Jeremy]

It's not that the threat doesn't exist - every child who's sat in a history class knows the threat exisits - but that in most cases something as devastating as a nuclear attack probably isn't worth surviving. In my opinion. And yes, something as 'minor' as an EMP attack is probably something an individual could get through relatively unscathed in the short term. But it would be have a fundamental and lasting effect on the society we all exist in, and rely on.

I actually have a similar view on the subject of global warming - yes, it's probably happening, but is there any real likelyhood of us being able to slow it down, much less stop it or reverse it? No. To my mind both issues are a similar case of 'perspective' - well intentioned people completely losing sight of the bigger picture:- having the right goal but wasting their efforts in the wrong direction.


Jeremy

PS. No risk from China - why send your best customer back to the stone age?