This book by Don White and Jerry Emanuelson attempts to provide technical guidance to those who would like to protect their homes from the destructive effects of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack. Both authors are electrical engineers, and so are better equipped than most to understand the EMP publications released by the US military.

Yet the critical technical details are often elusive. The book emphasizes the importance of solar photoelectric systems, but the authors have not quite located a protective mesh for the face of solar panels which screens out an EMP yet admits light. A supplement at  http://www.futurescience.com/emp/AppendixD.html suggests stainless steel mesh, but adds that it doesn’t fully protect the panels from EMP and is likely to create a corrosion problem where it joins the aluminum frame. Until these details are worked out, the best solution may be to keep the panels and other vulnerable system components in a Faraday cage until after the EMP has done its damage, then pull them out and assemble them. The same could be done with spares for the vulnerable components of other critical electrical appliances.

The subtitle of the book is “Using Shielded Solar Rooftops and Shielded Rooms and Buildings to Protect our Modern Lifestyle.” Yet aside from us fleeing the country, I see no way to protect our modern lifestyle if an EMP hits us. A more reasonable goal is simply to survive, and to do that, we need to focus on meeting our most basic needs instead of worrying about whether our automated clothes washer works.

That said, you have to admire anyone who even attempts to tackle the problems posed by an EMP attack.

UPDATE – A reader points out that page 155 of the book lists companies that supply protective mesh for solar hardening.