Comet to cause EMP Armageddon? Are you prepared for EMP?

At least once I year I try to bring attention to how vulnerable our technology is to Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) events. David Eichler and David Mordecai article Comet Encounters and Carbon 14 published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters; Volume 761 Number 2 got me motivated to write my 2012 EMP warning.

The [Carbon-14] production of shock-accelerated particles is calculated in terms of the total energy released in energetic particles. The recently reported 1.2% jump in the [Carbon-14] content of the atmosphere in the year C.E. 775, it is found, would require 1034 erg in energetic particles, less than first estimates but far more than any known solar flare on record. It is noted that the superflare from a large comet (comparable to C/Hale-Bopp) colliding with the Sun could produce shock-accelerated GeV cosmic rays in the solar corona and/or solar wind, and possibly account for the C.E. 775 event. Several additional predictions of cometary encounters with the sun and other stars may be observable in the future.

Bruce Dorminey, converts that to Human in his article Sun-Grazing Comets As Triggers For Electromagnetic Armageddon. The bottom line is that a comet in the year 775 may have triggered the largest EMP event ever recorded on Earth within the time of Human Memory, and it could happen again. The end of the Mayan Calender is less than twenty days away...

Several interviews with Government officials on their concerns over EMP, and most importantly Are you prepared for EMP? are items that you must read.

See also Congress told: U.S. life 'unsustainable' after EMP by F. Michael Maloof, in reference to: Written testimony of National Protection and Programs Directorate Infrastructure Analysis and Strategy Division Director Brandon Wales for a House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies hearing titled "The Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat: Examining the Consequences."

"...so large a swath of American technology that between 70 percent to 90 percent of the United States' population could become unsustainable."

My past articles will explain the issues with EMP if you need a refresher:

• Natural or man-made EMP attack on the horizon?
• Scientists, Politicians Take Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Threat Seriously. Human Exposure to EM Fields.
• From Its Birthplace: A Symposium on the Future of Nuclear Power, March 27 and 28th and the coming Grid Collapse.
• Are we to reliant on GPS/GNSS? Royal Academy of Engineering says we are.

As reported in a recent issue of the Amateur Radio Magazine QST if you need an impromptu Faraday-Cage for your equipment, put it in your washing machine (and don't run it as if it that needs to be said, sigh).

Watch the sky and keep an eye on the Space Weather...