Not long ago, I read an article Apocalypse now? Nuclear proliferation is the least of our worries, to which the sub-editor helpfully added the heading soon, a massive solar flare will bring the world to a halt claims the author of a new book.

On top of this, a short while ago I clicked on this article How North Korea Could Fulfill Its Promise To Erase The United States

It wouldn’t require a nuclear weapon. And it may be more imminent and real a threat than most Americans are willing to realize.

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EMP stands for “electromagnetic pulse,” and it is truly devastating to anything and everything that has a microchip in it or is part of the crumbling, antiquated, and hopelessly snarled convergence of wires we call our electric grid.

The grid comprises three major sections: the Eastern Interconnection, which provides the nation with 75 percent of its power; the Western Interconnection; and the Texas Interconnection, all of which hopelessly lack the kind of hardening we need to protect them.

An EMP-based weapon would do a good deal of damage. But if the last two DPRK tests involved thermonuclear devices, they could become Super-EMPs. When those are put aboard a satellite and detonated 300 miles above the center of the U.S., just one of them would impale technology addicts on a painful and sharp withdrawal spike, while tossing our urban and suburban populaces into abject panic and chaos.

This is then followed by a grisly description of the consequences over days, weeks, and months to the vast majority of the American population.  (Note: a sub-editor has been at work.  It would require a nuclear weapon, but one tuned to produce a massive gamma-ray burst, effectively creating a super-aurora above North America.) 

So what do readers here think is the possibility that the DPRK could, in effect, release a massive localized solar-like flare over the USA?