EMP Defense Council

Thursday, November 24, 2011

"Space Storms to Pose Greater Risk to Flyers and Astronauts" -- per the journal SCIENCE

---

Intra-stellar [ sic ] subatomic-particle hurricanes, tornadoes and hail storms forecasted to increase...

U.S. Air Force high-altitude, experimental jet pilot develops eye cancer -- should frequent flyers worry too ?

And now the article from the respected journal SCIENCE:

"Space Storms to Pose Greater Risk to Flyers and Astronauts"

By Jon Cartwright -- SCIENCEmag.org

23 September 2011

"If you thought the outlook for Earth's climate looked bleak, don't look up. A new study suggests that space weather — the hail of energetic particles above our atmosphere—is set to worsen in coming decades. The grim forecast suggests that astronauts and frequent flyers will face greater radiation hazards and could rule out a crewed mission to Mars before 2050.

Space weather is a general term for the environmental conditions above Earth's atmosphere. When space weather is bad, dangerous particles abound. These include protons and ions, known as galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), raining down at near-light speed from space, and similar particles coming in bursts from the sun, called solar energetic particles (SEPs)."

...

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/09/space-storms-to-pose-greater-ris.html

-------

POSTED 24 Sept 2011 by:

David A. Palella
Founder
EMP DEFENSE COUNCIL(sm)
[ Electro-Magnetic Pulse Defense Council(sm) ]

San Diego, California
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@gmail.com

http://EMP411.blogspot.com

EMP Defense Council -- Preparing for Electro-Magnetic Pulse
http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/3702799/

(1) EMP Defense Council(SM) Highlights Calculable Risks of Solar Cycle Peak in 2013

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=784096

(2) The EMP Defense Council(C) Announces the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Priority Hardening List Ranked by Industry Vulnerability, and Proposes a Markets-Based Approach to Addressing Solar or Nuclear EMP Events

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=708639

(3) Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Council(C) Founded in San Diego, California on Pearl Harbor Day

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=695425

------

"Doomsday Coming for Catastrophic Risk Insurers?"

---

Solar Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) or Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) events are likely near-term scenarios that could decimate the insurance industry

The reinsurance industry fails to redistribute risk adequately, its very reason for being, according to a Harvard Business School professor in the interview cited below.

And in the case of a widespread catastrophic event such as a solar Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) or Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) event, which could cause immediate property & casualty damage equal to "20 Katrina's" per a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study, there is not sufficient liquidity / capacity in the worldwide insurance / reinsurance industries to pay off all "covered" claims. In short, you are not covered.

20 Katrina's equals about US$ 1 TRILLION.

So even if your company were to buy CME / EMP coverage within your Business Property, Business Continuity, Contingent Business Continuity, and D&O (Directors & Officers) policies, could you collect on it ?

More than likely, no. So insurance is, sadly, not insurance for CME / EMP.

And a holistic approach to planning for CME / EMP events is required.

Now to the news:

"Doomsday Coming for Catastrophic Risk Insurers?"

September 19, 2011

Interview with: Prof. Kenneth A. Froot, Harvard Business School

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6774.html?wknews=09212011

-----

POSTED 22 Sept 2011 by:

David A. Palella
Founder
EMP DEFENSE COUNCIL(sm)
[ Electro-Magnetic Pulse Defense Council(sm) ]

San Diego, California
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@gmail.com

http://EMP411.blogspot.com

EMP Defense Council -- Preparing for Electro-Magnetic Pulse
http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/3702799/

(1) EMP Defense Council(SM) Highlights Calculable Risks of Solar Cycle Peak in 2013

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=784096

(2) The EMP Defense Council(C) Announces the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Priority Hardening List Ranked by Industry Vulnerability, and Proposes a Markets-Based Approach to Addressing Solar or Nuclear EMP Events

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=708639

(3) Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Council(C) Founded in San Diego, California on Pearl Harbor Day

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=695425

-----

"Radiation experts: Tokyo may have to be evacuated"

---

Radiation contamination Kabuki fan-dancing ? -- now you see it, now you don't !

The Mama-san of all Disaster Evacuation Contingency Plans ?

Having lived in Japan 4 years and done business there 30 years, I can testify that we should not doubt the source of this reportage below as much as we should doubt the veracity of Japanese government agencies and pandemic end-stage corporate Nihonsclerosis focused on protecting vested interests.

And now, film at 11:00 !

-------

"Radiation experts: Tokyo may have to be evacuated"

September 19, 2011

Youtube - Al Jazeera

"At least one billion becquerels a day of radiation continue to leak from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant after the March earthquake and tsunami. Experts say that the total amount of radiation leaked will exceed amounts released from Chernobyl, making Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster in history. Al Jazeera's Steve Chao reports from the Japanese capital where experts consider the possibility of evacuating Tokyo."

http://youtu.be/IBkrIgJUWLk

--

http://www.thedailycrux.com/content/8698/Japan/rss

--

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/09/radiation-experts-tokyo-may-have-to-be.html

----------

POSTED 22 Sept 2011 by:

David A. Palella
Founder
EMP DEFENSE COUNCIL(sm)
[ Electro-Magnetic Pulse Defense Council(sm) ]

San Diego, California
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@gmail.com

http://EMP411.blogspot.com

EMP Defense Council -- Preparing for Electro-Magnetic Pulse
http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/3702799/

(1) Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Council(C) Founded in San Diego, California on Pearl Harbor Day

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=695425

(2) The EMP Defense Council(C) Announces the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Priority Hardening List Ranked by Industry Vulnerability, and Proposes a Markets-Based Approach to Addressing Solar or Nuclear EMP Events

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=708639

(3) EMP Defense Council(SM) Highlights Calculable Risks of Solar Cycle Peak in 2013

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=784096

-----

Forbes reports: "Powerful Solar Storm Could Render Satellites Inoperable For Years"

---

...meaning GPS-dependent industries are SOL (sadly out of luck), and crappy hurricane forecasts / tracking will be the norm for a decade, and military intelligence will be hugely impaired for years, and ..... plus, plus, plus....

Now the article:

14 Sept 2011 -- Forbes.com

"Last October, around Halloween, the Sun produced a solar storm that was one of the largest ever recorded, and was strong enough to raise some concerns about the safety of Earth’s satellites.

"According to a recent paper published in Space Weather, such concern may well be justified. If its conclusions are correct, then a solar storm the size of one that was observed in 1859 could potentially kill several weather, telecommunications, and military satellites in less than a year."

...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/09/14/a-powerful-solar-storm-could-render-satellites-inoperable-for-years/

--

Reference also:

"Profound change of the near-Earth radiation environment caused by solar superstorms"

SPACE WEATHER, VOL. 9, S08007, 13 PP., 2011

doi: 10.1029/2011SW000662

http://www.agu.org/journals/sw/sw1108/2011SW000662/

-----------

POSTED 17 Sept 2011 by:

David A. Palella
Founder
EMP DEFENSE COUNCIL(sm)
[ Electro-Magnetic Pulse Defense Council(sm) ]

San Diego, California
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@gmail.com

http://EMP411.blogspot.com

EMP Defense Council -- Preparing for Electro-Magnetic Pulse
http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/3702799/

(1) Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Council(C) Founded in San Diego, California on Pearl Harbor Day

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=695425

(2) The EMP Defense Council(C) Announces the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Priority Hardening List Ranked by Industry Vulnerability, and Proposes a Markets-Based Approach to Addressing Solar or Nuclear EMP Events

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=708639

(3) EMP Defense Council(SM) Highlights Calculable Risks of Solar Cycle Peak in 2013

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=784096

-----

"The Great Southwest Blackout" --Vol. II -- low-watt dimwit saga shines bright light on infinite failings of overly-complex systems

---

Recent Southwest U.S. Blackout a Tempest in a Teapot Compared to Fallout from Solar Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)

And just wait until a major solar storm or severe space weather causes a weeks- or months-long blackout. The failure of a back-up generator at a San Diego hospital described below is especially Illuminating ! -->>

Back-ups for the back-ups !

And even redundancy may fail flatly during a regional, national, or hemispheric EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) event. Got one back-up generator? Sorry, that won't cut it in an EMP event.

Now, here's the local San Diego blackout updates:

------

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) opens blackout claims process

15 Sept 2011

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/15/san-diego-utility-opens-blackout-claims-process/

------

SDG&E [ San Diego Gas & Electric ] Sued by San Diegans;

Local businesses filed a class-action suit against the power company

16 Sept 2011 -- NBC San Diego

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Restaurants-Sue-SDGE-129924153.html

------

Scripps Mercy Hospital [ in San Diego ] probed after generator fails

16 Sept 2011 -- San Diego Union-Tribune

...

"Scripps Mercy Chula Vista was the only hospital out of 19 in San Diego County to totally lose emergency power during the blackout. It also is one of just two hospitals in the county with only one emergency generator. The other is Sharp Coronado Hospital."

...

"Gammiere and Tim Collins, Scripps Health corporate vice president for support services, said they will recommend buying a portable generator that could cost $1 million, to station at the Chula Vista hospital. All five Scripps hospitals also should have an extra fuel pump and hookups for the portable generator, they said."

...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/16/scripps-mercy-probed-after-generator-fails/

------

Outage had roots in Mexico, too;

Transmission official says Yuma [ Arizona ] was not the only problem

16 Sept 2011 -- San Diego Union-Tribune

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/16/outage-had-roots-in-mexico-too/

------------

POSTED 17 Sept 2011 by:

David A. Palella
Founder
EMP DEFENSE COUNCIL(sm)
[ Electro-Magnetic Pulse Defense Council(sm) ]

San Diego, California
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@gmail.com

http://EMP411.blogspot.com

EMP Defense Council -- Preparing for Electro-Magnetic Pulse
http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/3702799/

(1) Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Council(C) Founded in San Diego, California on Pearl Harbor Day

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=695425

(2) The EMP Defense Council(C) Announces the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Priority Hardening List Ranked by Industry Vulnerability, and Proposes a Markets-Based Approach to Addressing Solar or Nuclear EMP Events

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=708639

(3) EMP Defense Council(SM) Highlights Calculable Risks of Solar Cycle Peak in 2013

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=784096

------

A black eye for "smart" grid white knights ? -- And who will pay for 100s of millions of dollars of losses from the Great Southwestern Blackout ?

---

If you think this was bad, wait until a solar coronal mass ejection-induced blackout lasting weeks or months takes place. The plaintiffs' bar will be happily busy for years. Now the news from San Diego:

"Blackout sparks multiple investigations -- Restoration ends immediate inconvenience, but reviews of massive outage will go on"

San Diego Union-Tribune -- September 9, 2011

"Investigators on Friday poured into San Diego, Yuma and Folsom, home of California’s main power system operator, to figure out how a modest failure in the Arizona desert became the worst blackout in San Diego history.

They will spend months determining whether the problem was a mistake by one utility worker, or a massive breakdown of a system that is supposed to maintain reliability above all — or both.

According to San Diego Gas & Electric, an Arizona utility worker went to fix faulty equipment at a substation and triggered the meltdown that left almost 7 million people in two countries in the dark for hours.

Some experts already are convinced the system shutdown was avoidable, only because so many fail-safes are supposed to be in place.

“Every possible contingency is planned for,” said Robert McCullough, a utility consultant from Portland, Ore. who has been following the San Diego case. “Unless there’s a catastrophic event like a tsunami or an earthquake, we should have been prepared.”

Officials at several government agencies announced investigations, inquiries and special reviews of the failure, which stretched from Orange County into Mexico and persisted in some places for more than 24 hours."

...

Rest of the article is here on the San Diego Union-Tribune web site:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/09/power-surges-back-on/

--

And a related article:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/09/effect-of-power-outage-linger/

---------

POSTED 09 Sept 2011 by:

David A. Palella
Founder
EMP DEFENSE COUNCIL(sm)
[ Electro-Magnetic Pulse Defense Council(sm) ]

San Diego, California
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@gmail.com

http://EMP411.blogspot.com

EMP Defense Council -- Preparing for Electro-Magnetic Pulse
http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/3702799/

(1) Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Council(C) Founded in San Diego, California on Pearl Harbor Day

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=695425

(2) The EMP Defense Council(C) Announces the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Priority Hardening List Ranked by Industry Vulnerability, and Proposes a Markets-Based Approach to Addressing Solar or Nuclear EMP Events

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=708639

(3) EMP Defense Council(SM) Highlights Calculable Risks of Solar Cycle Peak in 2013

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=784096

------

Great Southwest Blackout caused by butterfly flapping wings in Arizona?

---

Imagine then the sun flapping its wings ? -- as in an EMP event (flare + coronal mass ejection)

Dateline: 08-09 September 2011 (San Diego, CA)

FLASH UPDATE !

In temperatures ranging from 80 - 115 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 - 6 million people lost power for 5 - 24+ hours in the Great Southwest (Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico & Northern Mexico) causing 100s of millions to a few billion dollars of damages from business interruptions and loss/spoilage of food, medicines and biological materials requiring refrigeration.

The root cause of The Great Southwestern Blackout? -- possibly a single butterfly (utility company employee?) in Arizona (not Beijing) flapping its wings -- as Chaos Theory and the article cited below tell us.

A secondary cause for all the damages ? -- 100s of thousands of businesses, schools, universities, research institutes and private citizens tooo cheap or foolish enough to trust their utility company to provide a non-stop uninterruptible fail-proof power supply. In particular the percentage of businesses without back-up generators was roundly stunning. Duh. Duhmb and duhmber.

So if one mindless butterfly in Arizona can cause so much damage to the grid and American business, imagine an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) event such as a nationwide or hemispheric geomagnetic storm (solar flare + coronal mass ejection). Hence the projection from NASA that the economic damages in the U.S. alone would equal "20 Katrina's" = U.S.$ 1 - 1.25 TRILLION. Not billion. Trillion.

Katrina is the best recent example of Chaos Theory effects on a regional or national economy during a negative black-swan event. "Never again" most people would say, but "Back-ups for the back-ups" is a more realistic slogan for American business survival.

Now the article:

"Major power outage hits from San Diego to New Mexico on Thursday"

The Weather Space -- 08 Sept 2011

"... The internet is abuzz with possible reasons. An X-Class solar flare erupted from the Sun a couple days back which could result in a solar storm today or tomorrow. Then you have the more realistic reason being the hot temperatures over 115 degrees overloaded the grid in the desert, causing the blackout. ...

"Others tell TheWeatherSpace.com it was traced to someone removing a piece of monitoring equipment at a power substation in Southwestern Arizona."

http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-09_08_2011_sandiegopower.html

--

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/09/140326543/outage-affects-millions-in-southwest-mexico

Reference for Chaos Theory:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/complexity/CompLexicon/lorenz.html

-----------------

POSTED 09 Sept 2011 by:

David A. Palella
Founder
EMP DEFENSE COUNCIL(sm)
[ Electro-Magnetic Pulse Defense Council(sm) ]

San Diego, California
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@gmail.com

http://EMP411.blogspot.com

EMP Defense Council -- Preparing for Electro-Magnetic Pulse

http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/3702799/

(1) Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Council(C) Founded in San Diego, California on Pearl Harbor Day

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=695425

(2) The EMP Defense Council(C) Announces the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Priority Hardening List Ranked by Industry Vulnerability, and Proposes a Markets-Based Approach to Addressing Solar or Nuclear EMP Events

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=708639

(3) EMP Defense Council(SM) Highlights Calculable Risks of Solar Cycle Peak in 2013

http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=784096

------