An nameless reader writes with this excerpt from MarketWatch: "A one-megaton nuclear bomb detonated 250 miles over Kansas could cripple many modern online banking devices and systems in the continental US and take out the power grid for a long time. ... A solar storm similar to the one that occurred in 1859, which shorted out telegraph wires in the United States and Europe, could wreak havoc on electrical systems. Each of the above scenarios can create a potent electromagnetic pulse that overloads ebanking devices and systems. IAN staff and Frostburg State health center physics and social work teacher Hilkat Soysal are teaming — through a $165,000 project afresh approved by the Maryland persevering Partnerships (MIPS) program — to create renewable energy-powered, electromagnetic pulse (EMP)-protected microgrids that could provide electricity for critical understructure tools in the event of a disaster." Also facile are an EMP threat computation (PDF) written for the US diet and an estimation of being careful of resources' impact (PDF).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More: - Continued here

Mark