[TZ] Being prepared

[Richard Johnson]

Every electronic device using modern electronics that is powered up, will cease to function. This is because of the basic effects as radiation, x-ray and gamma, interacts with matter. There are two basic effects, the first being Compton scattering, and the second being photoelectric. Compton scattering transfers the energy from one frequency (energy level) of gamma or x-ray radiation and releases it at a different frequency in a different direction. This scattering produces "background" radiation which seems to come from everywhere.

The photoelectric effect is the one that damages electronics. This effect converts nuclear radiation into free electrons. These free electrons will "Turn ON" every solid-state device like transistors, diodes, and FETs. As an example, most digital circuitry uses totem-pole outputs to help charge and discharge capacitive loads. If both of the output devices get turned ON at the same time, the power supply is shorted through these devices. They will be destroyed. Many solid-state digital components contain thousands of such gates. Therefore, even a fire is possible. Interconnect devices use gate arrays. In fact, the "circuitry" on PC motherboards consists mostly of FPGA devices. They work by retaining a trapped charge. A burst of photo-electrons from a gamma-ray source will release that trapped charge even if the devices are not powered up. The result being that such a PC doesn't even "know" it's a PC and certainly won't boot when powered up. Each of the gate-arrays would need to be re-programmed with the manufacturer's data.

Military electronics generally uses RAD-hardened devices. These devices use a special package, generally ceramic, containing materials with a high atomic number like lead, antimony, and bismuth. These high atomic number materials shield the circuitry from photoelectric effects by scattering gamma radiation. Because of the expense, commercial devices are not so protected and many kinds of commercial micro-electronic devices such as those in cell-phones are not even available.

One of the reasons "MAD" mutual assured destruction worked in the '50s and the '60s to keep the Soviet Union at bay, was they knew that modern equipment could not be defended against it and, for performance reasons, vacuum tube equipment was going away. A so-called "space bomb," a bomb detonated outside the atmosphere, was most destructive because it would destroy electronics horizon-to-horizon and not just locally where the horizon is reduced for a low-altitude or surface detonation. A high-altitude nuclear detonation of even a small bomb will produce a shower of X-rays and gamma rays lasting about ten milliseconds. The actual length of time depends upon the size of the bomb. The actual intensity of the nuclear radiation is fixed, sort of like a voltage, while the length is like a current.

Enter: North Korea. The Korean War was never resolved. Instead, we had a cease-fire at the 39th parallel. North Korea has continued as a rogue nation and, my sources say, has every intention of detonating a nuclear weapon over the United States. For the reasons cited, Broadcasters cannot defend against it and the defense must be left with the United States government to ascertain that such an event does not occur.

The news media groups together all kinds of external electronic events as EMP. CME (coronal mass ejection) is not even EMP, yet is treated the same. Such sunspot events are much more likely than a nuclear detonation from a rogue nation. Many so-called experts, preaching their trash on the Web, claim that CME is a doomsday event. It isn't and, although there will be some power-distribution interruptions, it is highly unlikely that any permanent damage will occur. The sun continually radiates charged particles. This is called the solar wind. The earth has a conductive core because it is molten. Even molten glass is conductive because electron migration becomes possible when molten, but not, when solid. The rotation of the earth in this flow of charged particles causes the earth's magnetic field. This field follows the "right hand rule" with the rotation being in the direction of ones fingers of the right hand, with the thumb up, the thumb points to the north pole. As long as the field remains steady, everywhere on the molten core and on the earth's surface, are equipotential. This means that a wire, connected to the earth at two or more points, will not have a current induced in it. During a CME, however, the flow is no longer steady and a DC current will be induced in that wire which may interfere with the power grid if the DC current is allowed to flow through distribution transformers.

If the DC current plus the AC current through the transformer causes a core magnetization exceeding about 50 kG (kilo-Gauss), the transformer, nominally designed for 10 kG magnetization, will saturate causing excessive currents. This will cause circuit breakers to trip, shutting down the distribution circuits. These shutdown events are not doomsday events although if you were at a site at which an air-switch was operated, you might think so! The only residual problem will be the time necessary to get a grid branch circuit re-energized after it has been shut down. This could take a day or two because each substation will all have to be disconnected, the main feed re-energized, and then the substations reconnected one-at-a-time.

Broadcasters can prepare for CME by maintaining an alternate source of electrical power and communications between studios and the transmitter sites if they are different. CME will caused widespread power outages which means that cable, FIOS, and other Internet circuits may be disrupted.

Richard Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com