Category: NBC

Two Letters Re: The OTHER Electrical Grid Failure Problem

HJL, I just retired from 24 years of bouncing around the nuclear plants in the U.S. and abroad. For work planning, fire stop penetrations, and OSHA worker safety, every nuclear plant in the world has at least 20 electricians on-site 7/24. During a refueling outage, add 100 to that number. – K.G. o o o Hello Hugh, I read the comments about electricians at nuclear plants and the inability to have more than one or two there in an emergency situation. While I am not disputing that possibility, the entire situation should be told. Electricians are support staff at any …


Letter Re: The OTHER Electrical Grid Failure Problem

Hugh, Four hundred forty nuclear reactors are operating worldwide, representing about 14 percent of global electricity generation. Sixty power plants are under construction, and many older plants slated to be decommissioned may be given new operating licenses. Which country has the greatest number of nuclear reactors (want to guess)? We do; in the U.S. there are approximately 100 plants currently operating. Now imagine a map of the United States, taking a ruler and drawing a straight line from the northern border with Canada, which would head south through the edge of Minnesota, continue through the very edge of western Iowa. …


Surviving EMP: Suburban Circle Garden- Part 2, by Northwest Native Elder

Step 3: Buy the best of plants for surviving I have listed the vegetables below that I have planted and that have proven successful for me. Also, I have ordered the following plants from 1-5 with #1 needing the most sun and #5 needing the least sun. They will all benefit from the most sunlight they can get, but tomatoes need full sun and heat. It is a short list but an important one. These are the plants that you, as an inexperienced gardener, will have the best chance at growing, storing, and surviving on. You may have to supplement …


Surviving EMP: Suburban Circle Garden- Part 1, by Northwest Native Elder

Being descendants of Native Americans and Swiss/German immigrants, my family has survived and thrived off our land for generations. We hunt and gather an abundance of local food– venison, salmon, elk, smelt , crab, clams, acorns, huckleberries, and seaweed– from the Redwood Forests, Wild Rivers, and Mighty Pacific Ocean, and we cultivate our “civilized” gardens and orchards, grown in the manner brought by our European ancestors. Having the best of both worlds so to speak, we have never really experienced a lack of food in our area. The art of gathering, growing, and preserving food for winter has always been …


Ten Non-Power Tools That Will Help Long-Term After An EMP, by Z.T.

p>An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a formidable weapon in the hands of a foe. After the blast of an EMP, you automatically enter a world without electricity for an indefinite period of time. With China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran currently working on EMP weapons, it’s a good idea to be prepared for life without electricity. Many other articles out there detail the basic survival supplies that you are going to need to live life “in the rough”, but very few of them tackle the subject from a long-term perspective. Should an EMP attack happen, what tools are you going …


Letter Re: Thoughts for Frozen Food Storage for SHTF

Hugh: I sure would like to hear what Prepperdoc has to say about the conclusions of G.D. on the resilience of the simple freezer in the event of an EMP. It would be nice to know brand name. I have looked at Sundanzer products (24vdc) but was not encouraged by reviews and troubled by the exposure to EMP. It is preferable not to wander in the wilderness. – R.V. Prepperdoc Responds: Great question, made me do even more study. My personal plan has included household freezers just as contributor G.D. is using. Are these susceptible to EMP / solar flares …


EMP Protection For Electronic Safe Locks, by PrepperDoc

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Like many preppers, I have a safe with a digital lock that I purchased before I understood EMP, and I would now like to have some protection for that lock against the E1 component of an EMP attack. (Because the lock is not attached to any very long wires, the E3 component is not an issue.) I present here a simple technique that may provide significant (although imperfect) protection and which is amenable to becoming a commercial product by a motivated individual (and I freely give away the idea). Such additional protection would be expected to raise the probability that …


Letter Re: Steel Buildings

[Editors note: Normally, SurvivalBlog does not usually allow for banter back and forth between contributors of articles and letters, as it has a habit of getting personal and out of hand. However, we will make exceptions when the technical information presented warrants it. Today’s letter is a continuation of the discussion between two such contributors on the effects of NEMP upon metal buildings, and it’s starting to get very technical. If you have a technical bent, enjoy being the fly on the wall.] HJL, When subjected to a rapid increase in an electromagnetic field, the differential in conductivity between steel …


Letter Re: Steel Buildings

HJL, The writer of this letter has a few things wrong with regards the electrical properties of materials. Dielectric is a property of insulators, and there is no insulator between the zinc coating and the steel base of galvanized steel. Therefore, all the resulting claims that assume that the zinc and steel form a capacitor are false. The biggest problem with the shell of a metal building acting as a Faraday cage is the gaps between the panels that make up the surface. To act correctly as a Faraday cage the conductive surfaces need to make good electrical connection between …


Letter Re: Steel Buildings

Hugh, The key is the galvanized steel used in metal building construction (galvanized to prevent rust). Galvanized steel with the difference in electrical conductivity between zinc and iron makes a primitive capacitor but more importantly exhibits dielectric properties. From Wikipedia (to make it a simple explanation): A dielectric material (dielectric for short) is an electrical insulator that can be polarized by an applied electric field. When a dielectric is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material as they do in a conductor, but only slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric polarization. …


Letter Re: EMP Shielding

HJL, Hi! Can anyone tell me why parking your vehicle in a metal building will not provide the same EMP shielding as a metal ammo box or trash can? If my building is all steel, with no windows and has a metal roll up door, then where is the wave penetration? I was wondering if any experts out there knew the answer. Thanks. – R.M. HJL Responds: The key to a Faraday cage is that the construction has good electrical conductivity across the entire surface and that there are no “holes” that are large enough to allow significant leakage through …


Letter Re: Android Geiger Counter

Thanks for the reference to the $30 android counter; I bought one! Also, note that Radioactivity Counter is an Android ap that I have used that detects gamma radiation just using the app; there’s no external devices needed! You’re wondering how? You tape over the camera lens and the camera itself detects gamma radiation sensitivity depending on phone models. I’ve used it, and it works. – M.R.


Letter: The Lack of Police and Fire Training or Preparation For the Aftermath of An EMP

I have been visiting west coast fire departments and law enforcement agencies, and none of them, including LAPD, LA Sheriffs, Seattle PD , Oakland PD, or Portland PD, have or plan on scheduling any EMP training drills, and they are not even thinking about how their police or fire agency is going to deal with the aftermath of an EMP. Everyone talks about how devastating an EMP could be and how the aftermath will affect everyone, but no one from Police and Fire is talking about what and how are they going to react to a catastrophic EMP event. Has …


Protecting Both Tube and Transistor HF Communications Equipment From E1 EMP Pulse- Part 2, by PrepperDoc

Transistor / QRP Equipment The solutions shown so far may not adequately protect computer-based software-defined radios, hybrid transistorized-vacuum tube radios, or fully solid-state QRP or low-power stations, or transistorized shortwave radios. These radios will need to use protection that clamps at a much lower voltage than 700 volts! While transistor transmitters may use power amplifier transistors that may have breakdown voltages in the scores to hundreds of volts, the input circuitry of many QRP transistorized receivers will likely be fried with voltages well under 100 volts. There are a couple of solutions that can offer lower-voltage clamping more appropriate to …


Protecting Both Tube and Transistor HF Communications Equipment From E1 EMP Pulse – Part 1, by PrepperDoc

Introduction and Tube Radios Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is a serious national threat with growing public awareness. A high-altitude atomic/nuclear explosion sends electrons plowing through the earth’s magnetic field lines and thus generates powerful radio waves that impact the earth below the explosion within a radius of many hundreds to thousands of miles. The peak field strength is immense, on the order of 50 kilovolts per meter, and covers a very broad frequency spectrum, from very low frequencies, past 100 MHz; but the first wave (named E1) is evanescent, over in a mere microsecond or so. There are additional, slower incident …