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Is anybody familiar with the effects of an EMP and it's effectiveness of use? I have an idea for the story contest, but I want to know if a massive nuclear EMP explosion is a proper catalyst for the end of the world as we know it.

What I basically want to know is what can it do, and what things are myth?

• Could it take down communication lines country wide?
• Could it affect nuclear WMD's?
• Could it fry electronic cars as people drive inside them?
• Could it tank the economy send it into a free fall?

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/hemp_hpm.htm

Here's a US Naval report on EMP as a threat- what it could do and what the military can do to prevent it.

It would definitely take down the communication lines. For electronic cars that are running at the time, the battery might still function since it's mostly chemically based, but all of the electronic driving assist functions would be taken out for every kind of car, not just the electronic ones. And considering how much of our economy - scratch that, business in general - is digitally based, yes, it'd make the world economy grind to halt.

It wouldn't set off nuclear WMD's, however, because all nukes come with fail safes to prevent that from happening. Unless they're being built in some terrorist's bunker.

As long as the technology isn't running on electricity when the EMP goes off, however, it should survive. So as long as it's unplugged, the batteries removed, and disconnected from any long antennas or wires, it should still work afterwards as long as the EMP wasn't too concentrated by nearby metal objects.

Alternatively, if you put all of your stuff in a Faraday cage, it'll also survive an EMP

If you've got an old vehicle before they started mounting computers in the things, it should still be drivable.

Communication lines would have to rely on ye old radios with ye old vacuum tubes Fallout style.

As for the economy, it would be less of a problem if our money was still actually backed by silver/gold, but since its just faith/idea in paper, well guess we'd be going back to the barter system for awhile.

 

It probably wouldn't take down all of the communication lines, as most of these (at least the major one) are buried under ground and are somewhat protected. 

Nuclear WMD's wouldn't be affected as they receive their launch order through electronics, not their 'don't fly off and cause WWIII' orders. 

Only cars with a lot of electronic aids would be affected, most pre 2010's cars will drive perfectly fine. 

The economy would be hit hard, as most trading now happens through electronic based systems like the stock markets and the internet. With enough EMP's you could essentially grind the world economy to a halt. Furthermore, most banks use electronics to keep track of the cash of their customers, so that data would be wiped as well.