Ten percent survive

EMP Attack On Power Grid Could Kill 9-In-10 Americans - Investors.com:

Vulnerability: Expert testimony before Congress on Thursday warned that an electromagnetic pulse attack on our power grid and electronic infrastructure could leave most Americans dead and the U.S. in another century.

That dire warning came from Peter Vincent Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. 

He testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event could wipe out 90% of America's population.

Well, that'll make me sleep easy tonight.

It is, once again,The End Of Life As We Know It! Let me count the ways:

1. The giant asteroid that could be on course to hit Earth causing massive devastation! 
2. Or the scenario this year as an obscure Planet X -- or Nibiru -- heads toward or collides into Earth. 
3. Or that "Unseen dark comets 'could pose deadly threat to earth'." 
4. That's if we live long enough - doubtful because of the comet Genondahwayanung is on its way back and it pretty much annihilated most life in North America when it came here the first time.
5. Not to worry about that, though, since we face supernova and galaxy-attack scenarios. 
6. And then the massive gas cloud speeding toward a collision with the Milky Way! 
7. But really, who cares about threats from outer space when out own atmosphere may detonate? 
8. And then the asteroids. 
9. Then the black hole death stars! 
10. And we might be swallowed whole by the sun. 
11. And there's an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way. 
12. Then there was the fear that "human society is very quickly headed to a violent and disturbing end." 
13. Then the earth began to kill people for changing its climate. 
14. Then there is the voracious, galactic Hoover in Switzerland that will suck the whole planet into a black hole. 
15. And the massive destruction along the coasts of countries like the USA, UK and many on the African continent, within a matter of hours.
16. But don't worry about the universe collapsing since that cannot happen before our galaxy rams into another one.
17. But don't forget that even so, The Universe is Going to Collapse anyway!
18. But first the world will just blow up!

I tell ya, I'm starting to think that sooner or later, every one of us is going to wind up dead.

Okay, to turn serious: the EMP threat is truly severe. But the fact is that out electrical grid is extremely vulnerable to much simpler threats than a nuke detonating a few hundred miles over Iowa. For example, rifle fire.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—The attack began just before 1 a.m. on April 16 last year, when someone slipped into an underground vault not far from a busy freeway and cut telephone cables.

Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, they surgically knocked out 17 giant transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. A minute before a police car arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night.

... it took utility workers 27 days to make repairs and bring the substation back to life.

... one former federal regulator is calling it a terrorist act that, if it were widely replicated across the country, could take down the U.S. electric grid and black out much of the country.

Only a handful of such attacks, coordinated across the country, could "cause a blackout that could encompass most of the U.S." And replacement components could take months to years to manufacture and replace. Transmission substations, which regulate voltage along electrical lines, are critical parts of the grid but are usually remotely located. Knock surprisingly few of those out and the country goes dark when the sun goes down.