ultrafast devices provide a step toward protecting the power grid from EMPs

[REELDOC]

I'm no electrical engineer but this sounds impressive.

Record-breaking, ultrafast devices provide a step toward protecting the power grid from EMPs

Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories have announced a tiny, electronic device that can shunt excess electricity within a few billionths of a second while operating at a record-breaking 6,400 volts—a significant step toward protecting the nation's electric grid from an electromagnetic pulse.

techxplore.com

 

[willpgn]

Interesting, but it sounds like a long way from real world application at this point. They talk about getting these eventually for normal distribution grid voltages of 4kV to 35kV, but you’ve got to have something for transmission equipment voltages, which typically range from 69kV to 500kV. Gallium, if that’s what they end up using, isn’t the most abundant or easiest to refine/produce material around. Every piece of equipment on a grid, from the generating plant to appliances in a house (or at least the critical ones), would need something like this in it, akin to lightning/surge arrestors.

 

[noway2]

They talk about getting these eventually for normal distribution grid voltages of 4kV to 35kV, but you’ve got to have something for transmission equipment voltages, which typically range from 69kV to 500kV.

Noticed that too. My first thought do you need to protect the HV side, and could you put the protection on the LV side, but then I remembered the part about the speed. The L of the xformer would mean that high speed signals cause the HV side to rise rapidly while the LV side would be at effectively ground potential, breaking down the xformer insulation.

As far as speed goes, the article said EMP is much faster than lightning, then talked about 2 billions of a second (2ns), but even slow gas discharge tubes operate at that speed.