There are several effects of an EMP. A Faraday cage helps with one by keeping incident EM fields from directly interfering with the electronics. However, most electronics already has one because the FCC requires that your computer not interfere with your radio or your TV. Putting your electronics in another cage will certainly help, but how much is a question I don’t immediately know the answer to. It depends on a large number of factors that I can go into if you’d like, but it starts getting technical fast.

Really fast surge protectors also help, but they need to be designed into the electronics up front – they’re very difficult to add after the fact. I’ve also gone into a couple of possible ways that transmission lines might be protected in a prior comment.

I do wish I could go into more detail, but I can’t.

Any link to how this can be done? Are we talking about wrapping everything in foil? Yuk.

“And while electronics that are turned off might still be damaged, they are MUCH less likely to be damaged.”

Then why do we even need a cage? Just unplug everything (providing there is some warning ahead of time of course).

What’s the verdict on “off the grid” alternative energy systems?

EMP from orbit is essentially a gamma ray blast that irradiates the top of the atmosphere. This blast kicks off electrons that pulse through the air and down until it hits the ground. These electrons produce massive currents on wire, so anything plugged into a wire that can’t react fast enough (lightning arrestors aren’t generally fast enough) could be damaged. However, the electrons also don’t penetrate well – they’re no different than beta radioactive decay, which penetrates about a foot of material, depending on the density. The difference is that there’s a LOT of them, and thus the massive, if temporary, currents.

Smaller electronic devices are less likely to be damaged than larger ones, devices in basements are less likely to be damaged than devices on the top floor, devices in concrete buildings are less likely to be damaged than devices in open frame construction (a la standard residences).

Again, though, protecting electronics from EMP effects is very easy and inexpensive, even without a Faraday cage. The problem is that adding a few components to protect the electronics is not acceptable to a “cost is everything” business mindset.

And while electronics that are turned off might still be damaged, they are MUCH less likely to be damaged. Anyone who claims otherwise is misinformed or is passing on insufficiently nuanced information.

http://preparednesspro.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/emp-101-part-iv-faraday-cage/

So what would be the point in protecting the grid if you can’t use it because almost all of it, things lights, medical equipment, refrigerators, heaters, cars etc. etc., anything too big to fit in a faraday cage, are all toast? Besides, 99.999999 percent of the population doesn’t even know what a faraday cage is so what would we be protecting?

JThompson, I have wrestled of years with the idea of getting a gun. I somehow think that were I to I would be abandoning hope in whatever good forces exist in and behind nature to protect my family. I don’t want my buying a gun to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know that sounds nutty.

On the other hand, I am haunted by visions of our house broken into by thugs and me helpless to do anything to stop them. I’ve been sort of waiting for either: 1) things to begin to get better, which I hope will the be the case or 2) things to take a turn for the worse such that I become certain that I had better buy a gun right now.

We’ve done a few simple things. We have some food stocked up but really it wouldn’t last that long, maybe a few weeks. We have a garden. We have water in a holding tank but if the electricity went out no way to pump it. I guess I’d have to get a bucket. Oh well. I’ve built a solar powered hot water heater that works good 5 months of the year and hit n miss the other seven. But again that needs a pump. Not much else.

I imagine that “off the grid” solar and wind systems would be okay in an EMP situation. For a long time I’ve felt that home energy should be “decentralized”, everyone with their own. Not only for EMP’s sake but also so that people are not forever dependent on buying their electricity from some power station. Free energy. The problem is that it’s so expensive to get an alternative energy system.

The frightening part is, as you say with that member of your family who has invested heavily in an apocalypse, is that having put so much of their time and money into planning for the end they wouldn’t be too happy with the prospect of things improving. A lot of them have their reputations on the line here. They have been eating, drinking and talking apocalypse for so long. They are ready to bust.

I happen to think that the world can stand to loose many billions of us – if just for the sake of future life on this planet. We are devouring the earth. I just wish depopulation would happen in a civilized way, say with people agreeing to stop having so many children. If every couple decided to have but one child population could be halved in a generation or so. If many decided to have none even faster. It’s clear that something needs to happen, but what path will we take toward depopulation, the brutal savage way or the gentle civilized way? Time will tell.

The gun hoarding doomsday militia types also tend to have a stash of other supplies.
Most of my family fall into this category, with one having gone so far as to put everything he’s made in the last 10 years into creating a bunker out of railroad shipping cars. Last I saw he had about 30 of them buried and welded together into one big structure. He’s also got a ton of army rations/nonperishable food stocked away down there. (Not a lot of them. At least a literal ton. It was one of his goals.) Oh, and guns. Ridiculous amounts of guns, given he has the normal amount of hands. He’d have explosives if he could get them. In his ideal world, when he finally emerges from his bunker he’d find one liberal left so he could tell them he told them so before he shot them. Of course he didn’t take any way to grow food after the world ends or water purification, but far be it from me to argue with an insane person until he shoots me.
So yeah, he’s pretty much an insane hateful waste of space…and probably exactly the kind of person Care was talking about. The only good side is that he’s so paranoid and delusional he never managed to get married and procreate.

@Care: I’m a gun owning liberal. The difference isn’t the amount of guns or the kind of guns owned, it’s the attitude behind owning the gun. Mine is a last desperate resort if I have no other option. The conservative attitude is that should some terrorist (insert race/religion here) strikes, you can shoot him down and be a hero. Just like in a Western.

Side journey. There is a band of rocky debris orbiting between Mars and Jupiter called the asteroid belt. Here’s a rendering:

http://api.ning.com/files/uiQ2VlP6XZ3PZGpYfVkD-O*gJQRCQO-0UtIM8tnHjw64oJYG7pEC0AR*2W7Y4G0rYl2jLcixL22*8PArg2JLlGxaMjO9K20O/asteroid_belt.gif

Scientists tell us that it is a planet that didn’t form properly. It looks to me very much like a planet that blew up. In my ravings I’ve wondered if we were once there, eons ago and, like now, just couldn’t get along. Eventually we blew ourselves to smithereens. However realizing the inevitable their scientists launched a ship or ships toward their nearest neighbor, Mars (which would have the closest approximation to their planet’s living conditions). Either the planet was already living or it was terraformed by these people. We know that water once flowed there and there is still a remnant of an atmosphere left. However, again the time came, ages later, when they were at each others throats, and once again their scientists looked toward their nearest neighbor, now the earth. A third chance. The people on Mars detonated weapons such that most of their sky was simply blown out into space. The great seas and all life quickly disappeared. Meanwhile a group landed here. Probably children, thus our myths that sound like spacemen and gods. They were given no direct knowledge of their background in the hope that with a fresh start, this time, maybe this time, we might be able to get our act together.

But guess what, here we are again, at the point of annihilation. Ready to indulge in our mass death wish. This would truly be a sad vindication of the saying, “those who don’t know their history are destined to repeat it”.

I think I’ll write story.

Mirrors and high-energy lasers have the same problem – if you’re laser power is high enough, it literally doesn’t matter how reflective the mirror is, the mirror will still melt or explode when the beam hits.