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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2878 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 15, 2024

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What belongs on a nuclear-prep shopping list?

NB: I live in country Australia, so there will be some things notably missing from mine that others might want. In particular, Australia is not going to have a long-lasting food shortage due to our immense food production and paucity of viable nuclear targets, and I don't need to worry about being directly injured by nuclear blasts (this is not a coincidence; it's why I didn't move back to Melbourne).

Here's what's already on my list:

  • Bottled water (as in, the cheap huge bottles), in case water supplies get contaminated by fallout (I have 20L)
  • A battery- or hand-powered radio, to pick up emergency broadcasts (don't have this yet)
  • Aluminium foil, to wrap up electronics (including aforementioned radio) to protect from EMP (don't have this yet)
  • Some means of transportation that will work after EMP (I have a bicycle; an ICE car would arguably be better but I can't drive)

What else belongs on such lists? Does something I mentioned not belong on the list?

Sorry for bumping last week's thread, but I rediscovered what civil defence nerds seem to agree is the best "how to survive nuclear war" book out there - Cresson Kearney's Nuclear War Survival Skills. The 1987 edition is available free online in numerous places (the 1999 edition adds a one-page low-content update downplaying the risks of nuclear terrorism, but is otherwise identical). The 2022 version (updated by Steven Harris after Kearney's death) is only available in paper format. I haven't read it and can't vouch for the quality of the update.

If you are going to attempt to build the "Kearney Fallout Meter" then you will need a published paper copy because the calibration of the meter relies on actual-size templates in the book. Given the unreliability of computer tech post-nuke, I think a (possibly self-)printed copy is a nuclear prep essential in any case.

The primary audience for the book is urbanites and suburbanites who are planning evacuate a city when the Soviet tanks are crossing Germany (or equivalent) and need to build a fallout shelter in 48 hours or less when they arrive at their bugout destination with the contents of a 1980's-size family car plus locally available materials (and potentially with the military-age male family members absent - he specifically includes shelter designs that can be built by average-strength women). There is a reasonable amount of content about a permanent pre-built shelter though (the basement as is doesn't offer enough protection if you are downwind of a groundburst or it rains during the key fallout window), which would be more relevant given that Bendigo is outside any plausible blast zone.

Given Kearney's background at Oak Ridge, this book is almost certainly the civil defence advice that the US government developed and then decided not to publish because they didn't want the plebs to think that nuclear war was winnable. You can tell it is written by someone who is serious about this because it takes for granted that you will not be trying to follow normal radiation-safety rules in the aftermath of a nuclear blast - for example it recommends prioritising airflow over radiation safety because you will need a lot of airflow to keep the shelter occupants cool in hot weather and the risk of airborne contamination is low, whereas official government advice on both sides of the Cold War was to minimise ventilation to the minimum needed to keep CO2 levels down.

Aluminium foil, to wrap up electronics (including aforementioned radio) to protect from EMP (don't have this yet)

I don't think that is how EMP shielding works. Also would your electronic need to be shielded before hand, so having materials to shield them later is irrelevant?

I don't think that is how EMP shielding works.

It is. Nuclear EMP is a (very powerful) radio burst; you shield against that by putting the item in a Faraday cage - an enclosure of conductive material (which, when exposed to EM fields, will generate transient currents that cancel out the field inside it; this is why phones don't work very well inside metal vehicles). Aluminium foil is conductive (aluminium is, in fact, frequently used for power transmission, as it's the most conductive material per mass short of superconductors), so it works, although because you can't exactly seal it into a solid enclosure without significant equipment, you need multiple layers at different angles and you ideally want the items to be relatively small.

(The use of metal foil to block EM radiation is the reason that literal "tinfoil hats" were invented; the physical principle's sound, although of course the schizophrenics' worry about people mind-controlling them with radio waves is nonsense, and Faraday cages need to completely or almost-completely surround the shielded item so a "hat" isn't really that effective.)

Also would your electronic need bmto be shielded before hand, so having materials to shield them later is irrelevant?

Correct, but a) some items, like the emergency radio, aren't useful outside a crisis, so you can just keep them wrapped up permanently; b) nuclear war usually comes out of an existing military conflict, which means that upon hearing about said conflict (WWII was not secret; the Cuban Missile Crisis was not secret; Able Archer 83 and the Soviet concern about it was AFAIK not secret) you can wrap things up then against the possibility of EMP attack.

I get that encasing something in aluminum with no gaps would shield it. Aluminum is the fourth most conducive metal and a good shielding design made out of aluminum would work.

But merely wrapping something in aluminum foil would leave small gaps that I think would defeat the shield. I get that you'd overlap the aluminum layers and not have large gaping holes, but I don't think that's good shielding. I sometimes deal with EMI issues at work and it is much harder than you'd think to shield parts. "Wrap it in foil" is not a clear path to success. I have literally seen parts wrapped in foil in misguided attempts to shield them. They were really quite leaky from an EMI point of view. "Put it in a metal enclosure whose lids or openings are sealed with metal EMI gaskets" is what actually works.

I think if the typical person tried shielding a radio with aluminum foil, they would screw it up.

Aluminum is the fourth most conducive metal

It depends on how you're counting it. Resistivity is usually measured by dimensions, and aluminium's #4 by that measure, but aluminium is far less dense than copper/silver/gold, so if your limiting factor is weight (often the case) aluminium is the best.

But merely wrapping something in aluminum foil would leave small gaps that I think would defeat the shield.

There's leakage, yes. But everything I've read suggests that you can achieve very high reduction with enough layers, and "very high" suffices (one only needs to bring the voltage inside below that needed to destroy the device, after all - it doesn't have to be brought to zero).

your limiting factor is weight (often the case) aluminium is the best

I didn't think about that. That's actually a good point.

"With enough layers" would be the key. Not merely wrapping with a bit of overlap, which I think the typical person would mistakenly do. Multiple layers offset or wrapped in different directions. And having a DC path to ground would defeat charge buildup.

I my work I seal things correctly by putting copper tape over the cracks and joints. 3M sells it. The conductive adhesive is only good for one or maybe two sticks though. EMI shielding goes to shit if the tape is even slightly lifted or the adhesive not quite sticking on well.

And also bare metal boxes with EMI gaskets. Which if you really wanted to shield your stuff you should use.

"With enough layers" would be the key. Not merely wrapping with a bit of overlap, which I think the typical person would mistakenly do. Multiple layers offset or wrapped in different directions.

Yes, there's a reason I bought 60 metres of the stuff. Still under 10 bucks.

But merely wrapping something in aluminum foil would leave small gaps

I wouldn't worry about small gaps.

No, he's at least partially right.

Nuclear EMP is not the same thing as an electric arc; it's a massive burst of radio waves that induces currents inside devices. Gaps do matter. That's why you need multiple layers, so that there's metal connected between any two given directions (ideally closed circuits, to cancel the magnetic component as well as the electrical one).

A reliable and relatively painless method of suicide for yourself and those you care about. A gun (of sufficiently high caliber that if you fire at the wrong angle you won’t spend your final hours in agony) or high dosages of certain medications, such as opioids or insulin. I do not recommend paracetamol or sleeping tablets.

Life for those unlucky few to survive full-on nuclear holocaust (as opposed to a limited exchange, which our current logistical systems would probably survive) and subsequent total societal collapse would be horrific. If it gets bad enough, a quick way out is much better than starving to death, dying of thirst, succumbing to radiation sickness, or most other violent and ignoble ends, which you can’t all prepare for.

Not to mention the psychological toll of watching your world literally go up in flames. Maybe better not to survive it at all than to scrape by an existence in the ashes.

No. I mean to live.

Kant's categorical imperative says that we should do those things that we would have all do. If all shirk in such a time, there will be no more humanity, and all we have accomplished will come to naught: the ultimate tragedy. Bentham said we should act to ensure the greatest happiness for the greatest number - which means we need to maintain that number if ever there is to be happiness again.

For all history, mankind has taken the world with all its faults and worked to make it better for the next generation. I will not abandon that proud tradition. If destiny says I'll live in hard times, I want to endure them, so that there may again be good times for me, for the children I hope to have, and for humanity.

I believe in something greater than myself, greater than some momentary pain. I want a better tomorrow, and I can't help build it if I'm dead. Dying for a cause can be worthwhile, if the death achieves enough. But dying for nothing? No, thank you.

It is a good thing to believe in a purposeful existence, whether through religion or philosophy. It sustains the mind when the body has reached its limit. Even among the burning charnel pits of the apocalypse, hope will die last. Good. Better for the man of the future to believe in and affirm life.

But if you want a realistic “nuclear-prep” shopping list, it would be delusional not to include a (self-?) euthanasia agent, even if it’s not the primary purpose of the item. Keep some fentanyl in your medicine cabinet as an anasthetic, and when a family member is writhing in pain and begging for its end, you can let them pass with some kind of dignity rather than beating their head in with a shovel because you refused to prepare for the scenario. And maybe, who knows, you won’t always hold the same beliefs you do now, and you’ll be glad to have that way out.

Anyway this is all hypothetical. I know it’s fashionable in some parts of the internet to fantasize about society collapsing and having to build it back, being revealed as a Nietzschean superman in the process or whatever. I guess the aesthetic vision doesn’t appeal to me. Personally? I’m not preparing for Armageddon. The bombs won’t fall. And if they do, I’m happy to be amidst the slaughtered.

I know it’s fashionable in some parts of the internet to fantasize about society collapsing and having to build it back, being revealed as a Nietzschean superman in the process or whatever. I guess the aesthetic vision doesn’t appeal to me. [...] The bombs won’t fall.

It's definitely not locked in, which is why I'm not following extreme advice like "manufacture a ghost gun" which would have substantial downside risk. But come on, basic gambler's logic. A 1% chance of avoiding death is worth spending $500 iff my life is worth more than $50,000 to me, which it obviously is since I can't exactly spend my money if I'm dead and I don't have any children yet; a probability of <1% for nuclear war in the next ten years seems pretty risible to me (from base rates: nukes have been used in anger in one conflict in the 79 years they've existed, so 10 years = 1/8 = 12.5%; from Reliable Sources: the Doomsday Clock is set closer to midnight than it's literally ever been; from my own actual Inside View: the West is reeling from the culture war, the PRC shows little interest in playing by the rules, there are intersecting red lines on Taiwan, and the spooks are spooked which has me spooked).

And, um... you do realise how offensive it is to implicitly accuse me of a) adopting beliefs because of fashion and/or hope rather than logic, and b) hoping for a billion people to die, yes? I am not Hitler and I'm not a sheep.

Does China have enough nukes that you need to be worried about "Taiwan goes nuclear" in country Australia? (Wikipedia claims they have 438 usable nukes, but it looks like they only have the ICBMs to hit a low 2-figure number of targets outside the region) The only scenario where I see Australia getting more than one bomb for Sydney and one for Melbourne (and the area downwind of those cities where the fallout is likely to land is water) is if Russia and the US go full MAD.

Prep for the chaos following a US-China nuclear war in which Sydney and Melbourne are glassed is generic SHTF prep, not nuclear prep. Obviously all bets are off if you are using "country Australia" as a euphemism for commuterland.

Military targets are:

  • Sydney (naval base in the harbour, which is perhaps not the best place to put it)
  • Perth (naval base just offshore, which is perhaps not the best place to put it)
  • Darwin (US nuclear bombers in airbase there; not going to object to this one since Darwin's low-population and much of that is for the military base)
  • Pine Gap (major control station for ABM radar, which is fairly relevant in a nuclear exchange)
  • maybe Cairns
  • Canberra (capital)

Obvious civilian targets are, yeah, the five state capitals Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide/Perth, especially Syd/Melb.

And, obviously, it only takes one high-altitude nuke to EMP much of the continent, so why wouldn't you?

Agreed that they might not have the nukes to hit all of those.

Adelaide is usually upwind of me (as is Perth, though it's far enough away to be less of a problem), and frankly Victoria's weather is weird enough that I'm not entirely confident in being upwind of Melbourne (I'm in Bendigo). And, well, EMP is still a thing. But yes, fallout is much less of a danger than in the 'States.

WRT number of ICBMs, remember that they have MIRVs (i.e. in some cases "one ICBM" can drop nukes on 12 different cities as long as they're close enough to each other). Australia is also closer to China than the USA, so some of their missiles that can't hit the USA can hit us.

Stockpile lots of food! Just because there’s theoretically a lot of available land doesn’t mean there’s not going to be mass starvation in the event of a nuclear conflict, for multiple reasons.

  1. Local and international logistical breakdown. International commerce is going to grind to a halt for several years. Maybe even several decades. Maybe even forever. Domestic supply chains will too. Even a limited nuclear conflict will likely involve targeting major rail and logistics terminals. Just because there’s food somewhere in the country doesn’t mean there’s going to be any wherever you are.
  2. There’s likely going to be massive food shortages after a nuclear war for several years, several decades even. The American Midwest and the Russo-Ukrainian steppe feed over two billion people on the planet. Those are going to be fallow for a long, long time. And although there’s a hundred pedants on the Motte that will fight me about this, no one really knows what large scale nuclear a war will do in the long term to the environment. Food is probably going to be tight everywhere for a while. Which leads me to...
  3. Forced requisitioning. What happens when what’s left of NATO starts demanding food subsidies from Australia for continued protection from China? What happens when Chinese troops roll up on the shore and announce that Australia’s food supplies are all being socialized to feed the three hundred million remaining Chinese people? You are after all the only non-irradiated food source on this side of the planet. What happens if your own government starts rationing and sends out commissars to take all the food that isn’t nailed down?

Additionally, you must acquire a leather jacket, a souped-up fast car and a sawed-off shotgun. If the rest of us Mottizens are dead, you have a moral duty to live out all our Mad Max LARP fantasies for us.

What happens if your own government starts rationing and sends out commissars to take all the food that isn’t nailed down?

Then the stockpile is irrelevant because it would be taken by those commissars.

It's tricky to come up with a situation where both I actually need the food and I get to keep it, particularly since I'm regional, not rural (a cult compound in the middle of nowhere can definitely use the food, but I don't live in one).

It's tricky to come up with a situation where both I actually need the food and I get to keep it

Not really. There are plenty of potential scenarios where the rationing doesn't provide enough food but you also don't have such a humongous stockpile that the goverment would bother (or even know to) to go to great lengths to confiscate amounts that can't feed an entire large military unit or something like that.

Solar panels and battery with an islandable inverter that you can physically disconnect from the grid. EMP shielding won't do much if your electrical assets are on the wrong end of 100MV of induced transmission wire.

If you have land, then planting potatoes could be a godsend. Potatoes have almost everything you need foodwise.

It might be a good idea to start planting the potatoes now so you'll be able to scale up production rapidly if the need should arise.

I'm wondering if a hydroponic setup (maybe in a greenhouse?) would be a good way to protect from fallout.

Australia is not going to have a long-lasting food shortage due to our immense food production and paucity of viable nuclear targets

You may still have them once you get a fuel shortage. Growing food is one thing, trucking it to the cities is another. Planting new crops the next year will be hard without fuel for the agricultural equipment. Australia has a lot of coal, but you can't just put it in a truck. Coal can be liquified, but you'd need to have the infrastructure for that in place already, plus you'd need to modify the engines, which, modern eco-conscious computer-controlled engines aren't going to like much. You also need spare parts; this problem is, again, exacerbated by the fact that modern agricultural equipment is often locked down by the manufacturer so they can milk you for repairs, which will be a problem when their HQ in the USA gets nuked.

I think you might be underestimating the sheer scale of Australia's food surplus; we could lose a lot of efficiency without Australians starving (as opposed to Asia starving from our exports stopping), because we've got 2.5 times the arable land/people ratio of even the USA. Transporting it is still an issue, but Australia does have some oil.

Fortunately a lot of Australian food can walk in flocks for quite surprising distances! They wouldn't even have to become nomads

Solar panels, for charging devices(and access to a charger can be a valuable trade good if networks are operating). Potassium iodide. Vodka or whiskey- hard liquor is a reliable trade good and it has a few uses anyways. I’d swap the bicycle for a moped. You’re in Australia and thus don’t have the ability to get ahold of firearms, but alternative/less lethal self defense makes sense.

I’d also get a swamp cooler, batteries, and decent toolkit.

Solar panels, for charging devices(and access to a charger can be a valuable trade good if networks are operating).

Any electronics in them will be toast from a single EMP. Possibly also the panels themselves.

Keep them in a faraday cage until you need them?

If you're storing this stuff purely for use after a nuclear exchange, wouldn't you store it in a DIY Faraday cage?

You'd hope so, but I'm not sure if people realize just how much trouble that is with solar panels which aren't exactly tiny and obviously can't be used while they're in such specialized storage. You can't just wrap them in aluminium foil or similar super lightweight "protection".

Doing a bit of googling, the solar panels would probably be the highest risk since they have the longest dimensions and thus highest field strength difference from end to end.

Update: apparently tiny solar panels are, in fact, a thing. The emergency radio I bought has, in addition to its hand-crank and charging port, a ~5cm2 solar panel on it. I can't imagine it provides much power (it does have a cable to charge other things), but eh.

(Given the solar panel, I didn't even bother asking if the radio was EMP-proof; it's going in foil if/when there's a crisis.)

Doing a bit of googling, the solar panels would probably be the highest risk since they have the longest dimensions and thus highest field strength difference from end to end.

Note that size only matters here if it's the size of a conductor (i.e. metal) attached to a semiconductor, not the size of the semiconductor itself (because the semiconductor's resistance also depends on size and that cancels out).

But that's kind of irrelevant; yes, photovoltaic solar cells are low-voltage semiconductor devices (specifically, they're giant diodes) and are thus likely toast if exposed to EMP. Solar-thermal can be EMP-proof, as there's no specific need for semiconductors and metals don't really care about EMP, but AIUI solar-thermal generators are more a thing for power stations than something remotely portable.

metals don't really care about EMP,

Metals do care about EMP but only by heating from the induced currents. This is why power delivery networks are going to be toast and can have problems even from major geomagnetic storms. For shortish length and reasonably large surface area (ie. most things you're likely to have at home), it of course won't be a problem.

So really two mechanisms: field strength induced overvoltage breakdown in semiconductors and heating from high currents induced to long wires.

This is why power delivery networks are going to be toast and can have problems even from major geomagnetic storms.

It's specifically the transformers that are vulnerable to E3; the extra voltage/current buggers up the assumptions that go into their design, so they lose efficiency (efficiency at transmitting the normal power from power stations) and, yes, overheat. Of course, power grids don't work without the transformers, but the long wires themselves are in no danger (we know that one experimentally due to the Carrington event).

But yes, transformers are metal and they are vulnerable if not unplugged.

I'd argue for proper storage shielded against EMP - a couple metal ammo cans with a grounding wire would be very good, a microwave would be mediocre, don't forget dessicator packets and maybe oxygen absorbers or displacers - and a couple smartphones, loaded with info and entertainment. A local backup of digital docs you care about, could be a thumb drive, probably cloud storage services with maximum replication will survive but be spotty to access. Basic cellular service will be a priority to restore, fast data won't. If you want to splurge on EMP shielding a closet-scale volume, an ebike and the delicate bits of a solar power system. I dunno if solar panels will be impacted by EMP. Consumables for your tech, tires and lubricants for your vehicles. Food. Water filters, rule of thumb is 2L a day, more if you're working hard. Gas for cooking, a compatible stove. Maybe a compatible generator? Multivitamins.

...you know what, just read everything on https://www.ready.gov/ .

Fun fact.

In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. government updated their page on nuclear war. They reminded people that, inside nuclear shelters, they should be mindful to socially distance.

Because of Covid. 🤦

Potassium iodine tablets.

A gun.

Hmm, hadn't put two and two together regarding 131I having a long enough half-life that I'd need to eat before it was all gone and also being somewhat inhalable. Guess that goes on the list; thanks.

Guns are a legal headache here in Oz, and going the illegal route doesn't seem like a great cost-benefit at present. I suppose I could get a compound bow; those are the most effective fully-legal weapon of which I'm aware.

Look into 3D printing a gun. Get a gun by all means necessary.

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