The Nation - News from June 5, 1988

A federal judge has cleared the way for government tests starting Monday of a high-powered electrical generator designed to simulate one of the effects of a nuclear explosion, the Navy said in Washington. The tests are planned in international waters 15 miles off the Virginia-North Carolina coast. An environmental group, the Foundation on Economic Trends, tried unsuccessfully to block the tests on a Navy barge equipped with two diesel generators and a huge antenna system capable of sending “pulses” of electrical power into the atmosphere at power levels up to 7 million volts. Each pulse lasts only a billionth of a second, and the Navy maintains the tests will have no effect on human or marine life. The pulse simulates a powerful surge of electrical energy that is released by a nuclear explosion and can travel long distances through the atmosphere or water.