Yet I do wish to point out a few very important items that I feel will be ok.
Airplanes get hit by lightning all the time. So I think they will be ok.
The other is that I believe that vehicles will also be ok. Rolling Faraday cages. Some might get hit if they are running at the time. Yet we need to see on that one.
Hi Gadget, about airplanes - they get hit by lightning and are mostly thin Al - a Faraday cage full of holes... but the major difference between a lightning strike and the Compton effect is not the total power per cubic meter but the wavelength and energy at a specific frequency. I would not volunteer to be in an airplane during an EMP, it would probably be a bad day. The computers, especially those LOS from the windows or attached to wiring that is LOS would conduct the charge into the computers and that isn't a recipe for continued operation. If the airplane has optical cables for data transmission you might be in good shape but power might still get fried. Even if the worst thing that happens is the computers all go off line, that means you can't fly the aircraft - so you go in a straight line until the fuel runs out and then gravity takes notice.
- now add to that Brat's point.
i agree about the cars.
it would be hit and miss. parked in an underground garage or in the shadow of a building or even just luck - they are rolling Faraday cages. I think on average more cars will survive an EMP than aircraft.
One problem - to my mind - are some of the analogies we use. EMP would have some similarities to a lightning bolt. To follow that analogy with another using water, think of this - a lightning bolt is a bit like a waterfall <localized and powerful> and EMP is more like a rain storm <defuse and short>. Now imagine electronics melting like a sugar cube - waterfall or rain storm it is going to melt. hardening like using a faraday cage is like using a waterproof case. you have to keep enough water out to keep the sugar from melting - i guess in empirical terms about -30dB at the frequencies of interest - if memory serves. Electrical lines will act like an antenna for an EMP - just like a lightning bolt. this is like having a hole in your waterproof case. if your Genset is attached to the grid, the wiring will direct the energy into the sensitive insides of the generator. You can get the generator running again but what about the voltage regulators or the insulation between the coils? If the engine runs but the generator if FUBAR you have only solved half the problem. a generator in storage would have a much better chance of surviving an EMP.
