EMP Attack May Be Undeterrable, US Air Force Suggests

 

One of the most important conclusions in a new report by the U.S. Air Force’s recently established Electromagnetic Defense Task Force (EDTF) is traditional deterrence, based on threat of retaliation, may not work against nuclear EMP attack.

EDTF’s independent analysis concurs with warnings made by the Congressional EMP Commission for 17 years.

U.S. government plutonium stolen out of truck never recovered: Report

How is it that radioactive weapons grade plutonium went missing from a government truck at such an opportune time?

SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (INTELLIHUB) — It’s not the first time that U.S. plutonium has gone missing but more than a year later the radioactive material which can be used to make a dirty bomb has not been recovered, according to a new report.

American Grid System Gears Up For Cybersecurity Upgrade

 

The American grid system is getting a cybersecurity upgrade, a new Reuters article reports.

The Department of Energy announced a program on Wednesday to protect the nation’s power grid from cyberattacks and natural disasters.

Radiation alert at Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant, workers ordered to take cover

Hanford Site demolition area where a leak triggered radiation alarms Thursday, Jun. 8, 2017. Hanford Site/Facebook

 

A temporary fix was put into place for now to slow the leak

WASHINGTON STATE (INTELLIHUB) — A radiation radiation [sic] monitor was triggered Thursday morning sounding an alarm which resulted in 350 Hanford Plutonium Plant workers taking protective cover.

The alarm sounded about 7 a.m. local time after a release of nuclear contamination at the Plutonium Reclamation Facility that’s currently in the process of being demolished.

Drones with radiation detectors designed for nuclear emergencies

They resemble miniature Reaper drones, but the nimbler Sandstorm’s mission will veer sharply from its weapons-laden cousin as the Department of Energy explores using unmanned aircraft to respond to nuclear emergencies.

Instead of laser-guided missiles and bombs under its wings, the Sandstorm payload consists of radiation detection sensors and optical imagery gear. Named for designer Justin Sands of Henderson-based Unmanned Systems Inc., these sleek machines are more maneuverable, but like Reapers they have retractable nose gear and pneumatic brakes.

Lights Out: The Top 7 Threats To America’s Power Grid

Revelations earlier last week that hackers linked to Russia attacked and took down the Ukrainian power grid are bringing to light once again major threats to the American power grid.

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American homes, industries, and businesses are deeply dependent on reliable electricity, so threats to the consistent delivery of electricity put modern life itself at risk.

“This perfect storm of policies will unavoidably raise electricity prices on Americans and seriously threaten grid reliability,” Warren continued.

Clapper: US Must Prepare for ‘A Large, Armageddon-Scale’ Cyber Attack

Maybe one day after all these decades the government will stop saying “we must prepare” and start saying “we are preparing” or, better yet, “we are prepared.”

Every year it’s the same parroted line in a differing word order. Everyone wants to warn, and consequently tricking themselves into thinking they made an actual effort, but no one wants to take action. Action is key, not the lights and cameras.

But maybe one day, after all these decades, it’ll change — maybe.

 

 

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the U.S. must be prepared for a “large, Armageddon-scale” cyber attack during remarks Thursday at an annual conference of U.S. intelligence community members, but he said that was not likely.

Former US government employee tried to steal nuclear weapons secrets

The US Justice Department has charged a former government employee for allegedly  trying to steal nuclear secrets through email attacks and sell them to China.

According to an indictment , Charles Eccleston allegedly attempted the “spear-phishing” attack in January targeting dozens of email accounts,  which he believed  would unleash a virus to collect sensitive information on nuclear weapons.

Eccleston, a former employee at the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has lived in the Philippines since 2011 after being fired in 2010.

Is Radioactive Water Worth Worrying About?

Whether any of this actually matters depends on whom you ask. “There’s a nuclear-power side that’s very quick to be dismissive and say, ‘Don’t worry your pretty little heads, you’re not in harm’s way,’ ” Ken Buesseler, a marine-chemistry researcher at Woods Hole and the organizer of the sampling initiative, told me. “The flip side are the people screaming, you know, ‘Stay out of the Pacific, don’t swim in Monterey, I’m going to move, tell your friends, this is a catastrophe!’ ” At the levels detected in Ucluelet, Buesseler has calculated, you’d need to swim six hours a day for a thousand years to get the radiation equivalent of a dental X-ray.

The EMP Threat: All It Would Take Is A Couple Of Explosions To Send America Back To The 1800s

 

Our entire way of life can be ended in a single day.  And it wouldn’t even take a nuclear war to do it.  All it would take for a rogue nation or terror organization to bring us to our knees is the explosion of a couple well-placed nuclear devices high up in our atmosphere.  The resulting electromagnetic pulses would fry electronics from coast to coast.  Of course this could also be accomplished without any attack.  Scientists tell us that massive solar storms have hit our planet before, and that it is inevitable that there will be more in the future.  As you will read about below, the most recent example of this was “the Carrington Event” in 1859.  If a similar burst from the sun hit us today, experts tell us that life in America could suddenly resemble life in the 1800s, and the economic damage caused could potentially be in the trillions of dollars.  This is one of the greatest potential threats that we are facing as a nation, and yet Barack Obama has essentially done nothing to get us prepared.