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A HEMP event, which is of growing concern from rouge nations and non-nations, results in both sub nanosecond damage to electronics and slower massive electric currents in the ground and long distance communications wires, high voltage power lines, and pipelines, resulting in damages comparable to the geomagnetic storm variety.

The advent of modern concerns about natural and man-made electromagnetic disruptions to our electrical and electronic infrastructures probably began on September 1, 1859, when England’s foremost solar astronomer, Richard Carrington, was observing sunspots in his personal observatory. (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/06may_carringtonflare.htm)

Carrington suddenly observed blinding lights over the sunspots, perhaps doubling the total intensity of the sun. He was seeing elements of the solar flares that were the greatest eruptions known in modern history. When the coronal mass ejections and detached magnetic loops reached the Earth hours later, brilliant coronas were observed around the Earth at near-tropical latitudes, and telegraph systems went berserk, shocking operators and starting fires resulting from the massive induced electric currents in the wires and ground. Since that time, many solar events of much smaller magnitude have occurred, some seriously disrupting communications, electronics, navigation, and power grid elements. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm)

One of the most notable recent events was the March 13, 1989 geomagnetic storm that crippled the power grid surrounding the Hydro Quẻbec generating station, which put 6 million citizens of Canada and portions of the US into darkness for 9 hours or more and damaged electrical grid equipment such as key transformers. A Carrington class storm hitting today’s infrastructure would have huge coast-to-coast impacts, surpassing by orders of magnitude the Quẻbec event.

The diagram illustrates how these electromagnetic threats to our infrastructure, which affect large areas, are related to the more locally targeted IEMI threats that Emprimus focuses on.

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