Well… sort of. <br /><br />The EMP induces a voltage in conductive metal - but you can have high voltage with no current flow. No current flow, no damage. <br /><br />Suppose you have a piece of wire in your hand when the pulse hits. If it's just a straight piece of wire, the voltage will be induced, but unless the voltage is great enough to span the air gap between the two ends (typically on the order of a million volts per inch) nothing happens. Connect the two ends of the wire together, and then the pulse hits, the same voltage is induced, but now there's a closed path, current flows and all sorts of exciting things can happen. The wire can heat up (burst into flames? Turn white hot? Melt? Have the insulation blown off?) It also produces its own magnetic field, so it can be attracted to ferrous metals or interact with other magnetic fields. Of course, the degree of response will depend on a number of variables - chiefly distance to the pulse and strength of the pulse and the possibilities I've described are pretty extreme (and unlikely). <br /><br />So the way to think about it is this: Look at every piece of metal in your system. If you can trace a continuous conductive path to form a loop, then the devices within the loop are at risk. <br /><br />If there are small breaks in the loop, the elements may still be at risk, because high voltages can jump an air gap (think of the spark in a spark plug - where the voltage is typically on the order of 50000 volts). The solar cell itself wouldn't be affected directly by an EMP, but if it's part of a circuit, it's possible induced voltages could damage it. <br /><br />The most vulnerable elements are likely to be high density ICs (like microprocessors) that have lots of connections and very little tolerance for over voltage conditions and anything that contains a coil due to the fact that coils will "capture" a greater portion of the pulse and generate a higher voltage. <br /><br />Others have mentioned "Gaussian Cages" which is basically a metal cage that allows the effects of the pulse to "flow around" a space. Older computers with metal cases and even some laptops (MacBooks with aluminum shells) may have some resistance to EMP - but you also have to consider every wire going into the computer for the possibility of an induced high voltage. I only mention this because an EMP is likely to produce some rather strange results… with some equipment surviving, and other equipment failing based on such vagaries as whether a laptop was closed or open at the time of the pulse.

Actually, there are three major power grids in America. The East grid, the West grid and the Texas grid. When Y2K was coming up, and no one knew what might fail, the folks in Texas were quite ready to disconnect from the other two grids. Given the sort of cascade failure the other grids have seen, that might not be a bad idea in any case. <br /><br />The advantage of interconnected "big" grids is that excess power can be bought and sold and generation can take place on large scales (and at lower prices). The disadvantage is interconnected vulnerabilities. <br /><br />Even solar panels connected to the grid create problems. Imagine supplying power to 1000 solar-equipped homes. A bunch of clouds blow in and the demand on the power production station spikes. The clouds clear out and demand crashes. It's not an issue when a small percentage of the grid has a solar component, but when it gets beyond a certain percentage, it plays hell with the main power plant. Those generators are BIG. The turbines can be 30-feet across or more, they're spinning at 3600 rpm and tolerances are so tight that they are compelled to use some of the purest water in the world to generate steam (because if there were any dissolved minerals they'd come out in the turbine and then you have big problems.) As you can imagine, a turbine that size does NOT spin up and down as fast as clouds may blow through an area. So the technical issues are not trivial.

I've never seen a demonstration of a COLD FUSION generator (though I've seen videos of dog-and-pony shows with lots of hand-waving and gibberish purporting to be such). <br /><br />It's been 25 years since cold fusion was discredited… but here's the acid test: Where can one buy a commercially- available LENR system that will power even so much as a toaster? Because if such units exist, and they work, they'd be selling in huge numbers. I'm not seeing them on <a href="http://Amazon.com" rel="nofollow">Amazon.com</a>

You're probably correct. It wasn't constructed specifically to protect from EMP. They're about a foot apart vertically and 3 ft horizontally.

Did you put a ferrous mesh in the walls? I think in most cases, steel rebar is too widely spaced to be an effective shield. As a thought experiment, imagine a series of grounded metal poles spaced 100 feet apart. No one would argue that's effective protection for electronics. <br /><br />Now start moving the poles together. At what point do they begin to provide "protection"? 50 feet? 10 feet? 1 foot? 1 inch? I'm reasonably certain that the distance is related to the wavelength of the pulse you're trying to block - but I don't know whether the spacing needs to be 1 wavelength, 1/2, 1/4 - or if the level of protection just increases until you reach zero spacing. <br /><br />Assuming rebar spaced at 1-foot intervals, my gut tells me that it would be ineffective against signals with wavelengths of less than half that value - which would be in the 150MHz range. <br /><br />Of course, there are more variables: What's the shape of the EMP, the power, the distance?

Sure, it will survive… and do nothing, just like BEFORE the EMP! ;-)

That bit about it having to be grounded doesn't sound right. Are you sure? I'm thinking in terms of a full cage. <br /><br />As for the "in or out" - yeah, that's pretty much the case for 360-degree coverage. But if you only need coverage for a given direction, couldn't you devise a Faraday "shield" (which WOULD have to be grounded)?? <br /><br />I'm thinking there are actually two different principles in play.

Most generators are just a big magnet rotating inside some sort of coil… coil? coil!!??? <br /><br />Coils are the #1 source of high voltage during an EMP.