Comment Re:TSA-like Money for Fear (Score 2) 271
You've just stated you completely fail to understand the nature of EMP. The most dangerous EMP event is a large nuclear warhead exploded high above the ground, too high to do any meaningful damage on the ground. The damage is caused by the electromagnetic radiation released from the blast as EMP. It only takes one explosion. That isn't a nuclear Armageddon. It is returning a major post-industrial computer based society to a horse and wagon based economy in seconds, without having the horses and wagons to do the work not to mention the computers, computer controlled vehicles (engines), and other electronics.
Having watched Dark Angel I used to think a hydrogen bomb could do that kind of damage. But AFAIK the biggest man-made EMP ever to damage a city was caused by Starfish Prime. It was a 1.44 megaton H-bomb detonated high in the atmosphere, which caused damage in Hawaii, 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away. The power didn't go out, though, and the damage was limited. Clearly, the EMP from an H-bomb is bad for electronics, but I doubt there's any way that a single bomb of realistic size could knock the entire United States back to a "horse and wagon based economy".
You have to ask: if someone wants to attack with an H-bomb, what is more likely: that they would use it as a normal bomb to kill people, or as an EMP to knock out power and damage electronics in less than a 1000-mile radius? Given the seemingly limited devastation (and the need for a rocket in addition to the bomb itself), I think terrorists would surely choose option one. I imagine option two might be considered as part of a World War 3, in which case the aggressor might well use several bombs, and EMPs could be just the beginning of our worries: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
There is another source of EMP that could be more devastating than any single man-made bomb: see the Carrington Event.