Source:CBN

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/threats_to_us_power_grid.html

WASHINGTON — Pentagon estimates show that Iran could have missiles capable of reaching the East Coast of the United States by the year 2015.

If the Iranians acquire a nuclear bomb, they might be able to cripple their “Great Satan” even sooner through an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, attack off America’s coastline.

“Within a year of an EMP event, at least two-thirds of the American population would perish from starvation, disease, and societal collapse. It’s a high-tech means of killing people the old fashioned way,” Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, president of EMPact America, explained.

A nuclear weapon detonated above the U.S. would emit powerful electromagnetic pulses, frying America’s electrical grid and shutting down necessities from cars to computers to airplanes and refrigerators.

Iranian military handbooks point out the benefits of such an attack. Russia, China, and North Korea also possess EMP technology.

Pry, a member of the congressional EMP Commission, said America could plunge back into the 19th century, with Katrina-like chaos nationwide.

“A single nuclear weapon will cause the collapse of the electric power grid, all the critical infrastructures and other electronic systems across the entire continental United States and basically cause a permanent blackout,” he told CBN News.

Pry’s nightmare scenario shows Iran or its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, parking an unmarked freighter off America’s East Coast or in the Gulf of Mexico.

They would fire a nuclear-tipped scud above a city like New York, then immediately sink the freighter to destroy evidence of their handiwork. (more…)

Source: http://www.empcommission.org/

[SPPI Note:  A major focus of the report is the disruption to fossil fuel energy production and distribution necessary for electricity generation and transportation systems.]

The EMP Commission was established pursuant to title XIV of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (as enacted into law by Public Law 106-398; 114 Stat. 1654A-345). Duties of the EMP Commission include assessing:

1. the nature and magnitude of potential high-altitude EMP threats to the United States from all potentially hostile states or non-state actors that have or could acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles enabling them to perform a high-altitude EMP attack against the United States within the next 15 years;
2. the vulnerability of United States military and especially civilian systems to an EMP attack, giving special attention to vulnerability of the civilian infrastructure as a matter of emergency preparedness;
3. the capability of the United States to repair and recover from damage inflicted on United States military and civilian systems by an EMP attack; and
4. the feasibility and cost of hardening select military and civilian systems against EMP attack. (more…)

Source: Wash Times

New intelligence indicates that North Korea is moving ahead with building its first road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, an easily hidden weapon capable of hitting the United States, according to Obama administration officials.

The intelligence was revealed in a classified Capitol Hill briefing last month. Its existence was made public in a letter to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta from five House Republicans.

“As members of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces …, we write out of concerns about new intelligence concerning foreign developments in long-range ballistic missile development, specifically ballistic missiles capable of attacking the United States,” the Nov. 17 letter said. (more…)

Source: Washington Times

China’s military is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons that Beijing plans to use against U.S. aircraft carriers in any future conflict over Taiwan, according to an intelligence report made public on Thursday.

Portions of a National Ground Intelligence Center study on the lethal effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons revealed that the arms are part of China’s so-called “assassin’s mace” arsenal – weapons that allow a technologically inferior China to defeat U.S. military forces. (more…)

Source: AP

Scientists worry that bursts of radiation from the sun could knock out satellites in space and destroy electronics on Earth. Here, an illustration shows such a burst blasting off the sun's surface and moving toward the Earth.

GENEVA (AP) — A senior official at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says solar storms pose a growing threat to criticial infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment.

NOAA Assistant Secretary Kathryn Sullivan says the intensity of solar storms is expected to peak in 2013 and countries should prepare for “potentially devastating effects.”

Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits.

Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, told a U.N. weather conference in Geneva on Tuesday that “it is not a question of if, but really a matter of when a major solar event could hit our planet.”