States rush to protect electric grids from EMP carnage

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Frustrated with Washington's inaction, at least 12 states are moving urgently to protect their electric grids from the type of devastating electromagnetic pulse -- either from a solar flare or nuclear attack -- that federal authorities are growing concerned about.

 

“Let's start insisting that we protect the grid,” said Maine State Rep. Andrea Boland, who recently put her state first on the map of those moving to require power companies to harden their electric lines and transformers from EMP.

 

“It’s pretty much common sense,” said Boland. “It’s a terrible urgency.”

 

The effort led by Maine comes a little more than a year after the sun blasted out a massive “coronal mass ejection” that, if directed at earth, could have knocked out East Coast electric grids and GPS systems. It was the latest of several seen in the last decade.

 

“We just kind of got lucky,” said William Murtagh, of the National Weather Service's space prediction center. “These things are happening quite regularly on the sun.”