No "Bleep" Mr. President!

"This is one of the few things that keeps me up at night. It would be worse than any disaster movie we have seen..."

Today I read something in the online press which took my breath away. I really did not know whether to laugh or cry. It seems like the good folks in Washington (especially our President) have finally got religion. Not religion as most of us know it - religion in knowing how vulnerable we are to a natural or unnatural EMP event. How catastrophic it would be for portions or maybe even the entire country. How it could be a game changer or life ender for many of us.

I have addressed this issue many times before. It is frustrating to me to say the least. Why frustrating? Because we have known about the dangers of EMP since I was in the Navy. Since I worked at Control Data in the 1980's. Everybody knew about it back then. We knew what a "fix" was, and yet did nothing. Today we know what even a better fix is. How we can make our electric grid not only robust, but also "smart". Where it could save money and energy and be safe.

Now the President is finally on board. "We need to do something. Just in case old Sol misbehaves, and we get another solar flare event." Yes we do sir. A natural EMP event is something which has happened before, and will most likely happen again. 

In 1859, the Earth experienced the Carrington Super Flare. And it was bad. The good news was, there were no electronics to fry like we have today. There was damage (like to TTY lines), but not much else. It is reported by the history books that the aurora as far south as Colorado was so bright, it awoke some gold miners. They got up and started fixing breakfast in the middle of the night as they thought is was morning.

In July of 2012, the sun had another solar eruption - and it was a big one. Fortunately, it was just a close call for the Earth. But the outcome could have been so much different. Truthfully, even if we had a ruggedized electrical grid, there will still be untold damage from a direct hit. But having the grid survive would allow most of us to survive also. Without a robust and ruggedized grid, many of us would perish due to lack of water, food or warmth.

The big question now is very simple - how do we pay for this upgrade to our grid. I know, I know. I am not going on a rant again on how we should have done this under the now infamous "Stimulus Bill". No, we are going to have to figure out how to pay for this and do it quickly. The last estimate I head on doing this (bare bones with no bells and whistles) was just north of $300 billion. Is that kind of money worth putting on "our card"? If it would save our civilization, our way of life, my vote would be yes.

Welcome Mr. President. Your awareness and support are needed and appreciated. I sure would love to get this done so we can take another arrow out of the quiver of any potential adversary. Let's quit taking about it and do it. Or, to put it another way, let's "get er done" before it happens again and gets us done - for good.