12 Sep 2022 9:13 pm
Now for the good news. You may have heard about EMP taking out all electronic devices such as the computers in your cars. As it turns out this isn't as much of a problem as initially thought. While the EMP can take out electronic devices, the filtering on almost all car models is sufficient to protect your car's computer and even your home computer (as long as it isn't in the blast zone and physically destroyed). An entire parking lot of cars (about 50 different random models) was subjected to an EMP burst above what it could expect at the edge of the blast zone. All models survived except 1 (Colt). It turns out when they introduced computers into cars they had issues when the spark plugs would fire. The computer clocks had noise pickup (as did the car radios in the 1950's). So for the most part they have some pretty good filters. Good enough to withstand the EMP from a nuke outside the zone were EMP isn't the concern, melting is. So don't buy a Colt and you should be fine.
The electrical grid is another story. While they have been hardening the grid it is slow going. So your computer may be good but your power is most likely out (unless you have solar or something). But what about long-term survival (e.g. children living to an age they can breed). Immediately following such a detonation you would have the presence of radioactive elements. The half-life of a radioactive element is the time it takes for half of the atoms present at STP to naturally decay. For instance if you have 16 lbs of a substance with a half-life of 1 day then half of the substance will have decayed in 1 day resulting in only 8 lbs tomorrow. 4 lbs after day 2. 2 lbs after day 3. 1 lb after day 4 and so on. During the decay process radiation is emitted. So with a short half-life the radiation is VERY lethal. But a short half-life also means it doesn't "hang around" long.
The electrical grid is another story. While they have been hardening the grid it is slow going. So your computer may be good but your power is most likely out (unless you have solar or something). But what about long-term survival (e.g. children living to an age they can breed). Immediately following such a detonation you would have the presence of radioactive elements. The half-life of a radioactive element is the time it takes for half of the atoms present at STP to naturally decay. For instance if you have 16 lbs of a substance with a half-life of 1 day then half of the substance will have decayed in 1 day resulting in only 8 lbs tomorrow. 4 lbs after day 2. 2 lbs after day 3. 1 lb after day 4 and so on. During the decay process radiation is emitted. So with a short half-life the radiation is VERY lethal. But a short half-life also means it doesn't "hang around" long.