An attack on the nation’s electric grid, from a solar storm, terrorist or enemy like North Korea, would have a devastating impact even if it lasted just one day, Congress and the Pentagon have been warned.
A one-day blackout would cost the lives of 574, due to a lack of emergency medical equipment powered by electricity, and result in a “societal cost” of $35.7 billion.
And, according to a new compilation of official EMP reports, the probability that an electromagnetic pulse attack would last much longer, possibly resulting in lights-out for a year, would result in over 200 million deaths.
In calling for a “Manhattan Project” to protect the grid, William R. Graham, chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, said, “326 million Americans cannot long survive bereft by EMP of the electronic civilization that sustains their lives. A nationwide blackout lasting one year could kill millions, perhaps prove fatal to most Americans, by starvation, disease, and societal collapse.”
His warning opens a new book from EMP expert Peter Vincent Pry titled EMP Manhattan Project: Organizing Survival Against An Electromagnetic Pulse Catastrophe. In it, Pry said that the grid can be protected for as little as $2 billion — about what the U.S. has given Pakistan in aid annually — but that energy companies and regulators are standing in the way.
His call comes as several federal agencies, led by the Pentagon, are looking at the impact of EMP and how to prevent it. Just last week, the Air Force hosted a conference with federal agencies and outside contractors and advisors to look into the fixes that could be done quickly.
Pry has been a leading advocate for protecting against EMP and was on the initial congressional commission that looked at the issue. Only recently has the federal government and states taken it seriously.
His book pulls together all recent reports on the issue and includes the analysis to the recent 2017 EMP Commission headed by Graham, including the costs of an attack.
Graham, who wrote the introduction to the book this month, said, “EMP is a civilization killer.”
He noted that the potential for a crisis has grown since the latest EMP report 10 years ago, mostly because of the expansion of the “internet of things” and the reliance of society on social media to connect to each other.
What’s more, he said that as at least four nations are believed to have EMP attack devices easily delivered the threat is much greater.
But, he concluded, the resistance to spending money and admitting EMP is a threat is holding up efforts to put protections in place.
“The bureaucratic Gordian knot preventing national EMP preparedness appears to be a greater challenge than winning World War II, the invention of the atomic bomb, the development of the nuclear navy, building the national highway system, or sending Men to the Moon. What is needed is an EMP Manhattan Project—the subject of this book,” he wrote.
