Life After EMP

[Mr Ask]

As mentioned before, I am working on a sci-fi project and in my fictional world the earth is being hit by repeated EMP’s, one every few hours.
But these are not EMP attacks—they aren’t designed to target electronics by covering a wide range of frequencies, they are like solar flares and just cover a lower set of EMP frequencies.

I am trying to design how the world will have changed to live under these conditions.  As an example, electric and communication lines will have moved underground, with communication access points poking above ground here-and-there.  They are covered in Faraday cages that block low-frequency pulses but allow high-frequency signals through, so you can access them with your cell phones.  Cell phones are also mostly susceptible to higher frequencies and are not bothered by the repeated bursts.

I would like to gather other ideas for how things would work.  Common forms of protections around generators, etc., and especially how street lights, traffic signals, and other outdoor electronics would work.

Also ideas for safety measures that would commonly be built into all structures.  If you took an ax to the Faraday cage around a communication access point, the next EMP would travel down the cables to the source and cause destruction.  It should be protected externally by some structure, but also have the ability to detect the surge and disconnect that wire before the full pulse does any damage.  I am guessing lots of large structures such as elevators will have plenty of components separated with rubber, but how can a large generator for powering such a thing be encased in a Faraday cage yet be able to control things outside of the cage?  For it to attach to large rods the Faraday cage will have to have sizable holes in it.

These are the kinds of details I would like to flesh out, and especially right now for things such as traffic signals, outdoor digital clocks, street lights, etc.


Mr. Ask

 

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, Mr Ask said:

As mentioned before, I am working on a sci-fi project and in my fictional world the earth is being hit by repeated EMP’s, one every few hours.
But these are not EMP attacks—they aren’t designed to target electronics by covering a wide range of frequencies, they are like solar flares and just cover a lower set of EMP frequencies.

I am trying to design how the world will have changed to live under these conditions.  As an example, electric and communication lines will have moved underground, with communication access points poking above ground here-and-there.  They are covered in Faraday cages that block low-frequency pulses but allow high-frequency signals through, so you can access them with your cell phones.  Cell phones are also mostly susceptible to higher frequencies and are not bothered by the repeated bursts.

I would like to gather other ideas for how things would work.  Common forms of protections around generators, etc., and especially how street lights, traffic signals, and other outdoor electronics would work.

Also ideas for safety measures that would commonly be built into all structures.  If you took an ax to the Faraday cage around a communication access point, the next EMP would travel down the cables to the source and cause destruction.  It should be protected externally by some structure, but also have the ability to detect the surge and disconnect that wire before the full pulse does any damage.  I am guessing lots of large structures such as elevators will have plenty of components separated with rubber, but how can a large generator for powering such a thing be encased in a Faraday cage yet be able to control things outside of the cage?  For it to attach to large rods the Faraday cage will have to have sizable holes in it.

These are the kinds of details I would like to flesh out, and especially right now for things such as traffic signals, outdoor digital clocks, street lights, etc.


Mr. Ask

 

This type of event? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

[Mr Ask]

The first strike is something like that, but the following EMP’s are not as strong and are separated by 3-4 hours.
So in my story we are not just recovering from a single event.  Events are a daily part of life.


Mr. Ask

[Moontanman]

11 minutes ago, Mr Ask said:

The first strike is something like that, but the following EMP’s are not as strong and are separated by 3-4 hours.
So in my story we are not just recovering from a single event.  Events are a daily part of life.


Mr. Ask

You would appear to be on the correct track with faraday cages but a lot of modern electronics, especially military electronics is already protected due to their need to survive the EMP of a nuclear blast...