Senior Science Fellow Phil Coyle was quoted in Wired explaining why he believes the threat of EMP is overhyped.
“The fact that North Korea has tested a larger yield nuclear weapon than before is of concern because of the yield of the nuclear weapon, not because of EMP,” says Philip Coyle, a senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense and Director of Operational Test and Evaluation at the Pentagon, and spent decades studying nuclear weapons at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Coyle acknowledges that EMPs can be a problem—the electromagnetic pulse from an 1859 solar storm, known as the Carrington Event, would have devastating consequences if repeated today—but he and others remain skeptical as to the true impact of the type of nuclear-based attack outlined by the EMP Commission.
“I don’t know how the proponents of EMP get such huge results. I just don’t follow their logic,” says Coyle. “There just isn’t a scientific basis to get these huge results, these huge numbers.” Read more
