OT: Sun knocking out power grids....

[William]

Fact, fiction, or general exaggeration? :confused:


Stormy Sun Could Knock Out Power Grids: Allianz
By Ethan Bilby | December 2, 2011

An upcoming cycle of stormy solar activity risks causing damage to electrical transformers and threatening vulnerable energy infrastructure around the globe, a report by an insurance group says. The sun follows a predictable 11 year activity cycle, with the next period of stormy activity expected to begin in 2012-13. The report by German insurance group Allianz said a high impact solar storm, not easily predicted due to its recorded rarity, could cause blackouts and economic losses of over $1 trillion and that the worst case scenario would be even worse. “What we’re coming into at the moment is the bad (space) weather period,” Jim Wild of Britain’s Lancaster University, an expert in solar plasma physics, told Reuters. A large explosion on the surface of the sun could release billions of tonnes of superheated magnetically charged gas at a speed of a million miles per hour, and when that gas hits the earth’s magnetic field, it can trigger a big solar storm. The severity of a potential disruption has made experts at insurance and national security institutions take notice. “When you start to imagine not having electricity in a sizeable fraction of a country or a continent for weeks or even months … it’s serious business,” Wild said. Small Lead Time The difficulty lies in predicting how often serious solar type events occur. The small lead time given by satellites is also a problem for preventing solar storm damage, as currently no satellite is close enough to the sun to give more than an hour’s warning, Wild said. Updating the satellites to give the earth more preparation time would cost around $1 billion, he added. Space weather is a relatively new area of study, with sophisticated observations going back only 50 years and lacking an international coordinated tracking system such as that found with normal meteorological weather. “We have very little on a solar time scale,” Wild said. The most damaging storm in recent memory was a 1989 outage in Quebec, Canada, which affected six million people. The first scientific recording of a large solar storm was made in 1859 by English astronomer Richard Carrington, who observed a white light explosion on the surface of the sun. Wild said: “what they didn’t know back then was why about two or three days later you could see the northern lights over Cuba and all of the telegraph system was disrupted by geomagnetic activity.” According to the Allianz report, an event on the same scale today would cause extensive damage to electrical infrastructure.

[choke]

Fact. I don't think it's a case of "if" but rather "when". The power grid is very susceptible to a huge solar flare and if the grid were to go down pretty much everything grinds to a halt.

Here's another article on this subject in National Geographic (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/) .

[Louis]

I think it's all probability vs cost it takes to prepare for a given event.

We're very good at handling events within +/- 2 sigma.
OK at handling events w/ 2 sigma < P < 2 sigma,
But once you get outside, say, 5 sigma, things start to break down.

From Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Standard_deviation_diagram.svg/400px-Standard_deviation_diagram.svg.png

zσ % within CI % outside CI Fraction outside CI
1σ 68.2689492% 31.7310508% 1 / 3.1514872
2σ 95.4499736% 4.5500264% 1 / 21.977895
3σ 99.7300204% 0.2699796% 1 / 370.398
5σ 99.9999426697% 0.0000573303% 1 / 1,744,278
6σ 99.9999998027% 0.0000001973% 1 / 506,797,346

[tiretrax]

It takes a toll on the communications infrastructure, too, especially what's space-based.

[rnhood]

Little chance it will affect the power grid. I can't imagine how it could blow a distribution transformer. I guess there is some chance, though very slight, that a transformer could blow due to disrupting the control communications power companies use, then some type chaotic or uncontrolled switching happening that might cross things up. Maybe a short blackout could occur but not likely any damage.

I think its another Y2K syndrome personally.

[choke]

Little chance it will affect the power grid. I can't imagine how it could blow a distribution transformer. There would be a huge magnetic field enveloping the planet (at least that part which receives a direct hit) and that would surge through the lines, overloading the system. The troublemaker for power grids is the "GIC" – short for geomagnetically induced current. When a coronal mass ejection (a billion-ton solar storm cloud) hits Earth's magnetic field, the impact causes the field to shake and quiver. These magnetic vibrations induce currents almost everywhere, from Earth's upper atmosphere to the ground beneath our feet. Powerful GICs can overload circuits, trip breakers, and in extreme cases melt the windings of heavy-duty transformers.

This actually happened in Quebec on March 13, 1989, when a geomagnetic storm much less severe than the Carrington Event knocked out power across the entire province for more than nine hours. The storm damaged transformers in Quebec, New Jersey, and Great Britain, and caused more than 200 power anomalies across the USA from the eastern seaboard to the Pacific Northwest.http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/

During the storm of 1859 (the Carrington Event) there was so much electricity in the air that the telegraphs worked just by using that current! Even more disconcerting, telegraph systems worldwide went haywire. Spark discharges shocked telegraph operators and set the telegraph paper on fire. Even when telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to be transmitted. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/

[Wimpy]

Any given part of it is true. The potential for it to ruin hundreds of giant transformers at once is basically zero.

As under sized, old, blah, blah, blah as our power grid is, there are state of the art safety devices (think circuit breakers) throughout the system that would prevent destruction of much of the big ticket items.

There certainly could be wide spread power outages, and turning it back on is not easy, but we are talking days tops, not weeks or months.

[rab]

Quebec event is a great example. Apparently they were more vulnerable due to their geologic foundation, basically a lot of rock that forced the energy to look for the next best paths of least resistance, in this case the power lines/systems.

I have heard that satellites are supposed to be pretty vulnerable as well and that mobile phone and similar communications could easily be hard hit but haven't heard of any major cases recently.

Pretty impressive how protected we are, makes you realize how special this planet realize is, at least in terms of our ability to exist.

[Louis]

Pretty impressive how protected we are, makes you realize how special this planet realize is, at least in terms of our ability to exist.

Actually, we wouldn't be here to think about it if it were not appropriate for us, so it all goes hand in hand.

I bet the little critters that live on Mercury (if there are any, which there probably aren't) think the same thing about that sun-blasted place.

[rounder]

Just wondering. Am supposed to be flying to California on Sunday, but read that that there were 140 mph winds there yesterday. Should i fear for my life, or maybe they will be favorable wids where i will be arriving early. Thanks.

[dekindy]

It is my understanding that if a solar flare occurs again of the intensity that occurred during the 1800's, that every power station, transformer, and other type electrical or electronic device would be blown out and that it would take at least 2 years before any significant recovery of electrical production would occur. I think that even includes generators embedded in huge concrete dams but I am not completely confident about that specific damage. Pretty sobering. I am not sure how often this type of solar flareup occurs but you can imagine that modern civilation would completely break down if this happens.

[Louis]

you can imagine that modern civilation would completely break down if this happens.

Maybe I should watch the movie "The Road" again to remind myself about how that turns out. Beware of neighbors with folks living downstairs in the basement...

[Wimpy]

It is my understanding that if a solar flare occurs again of the intensity that occurred during the 1800's, that every power station, transformer, and other type electrical or electronic device would be blown out and that it would take at least 2 years before any significant recovery of electrical production would occur. I think that even includes generators embedded in huge concrete dams but I am not completely confident about that specific damage. Pretty sobering. I am not sure how often this type of solar flareup occurs but you can imagine that modern civilation would completely break down if this happens.

:crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap:

Give an honest review of what you expected for y2k?

[verticaldoug]

I prefer to look at it as a positive development. By knocking out the power grid, we can get rid of the light pollution and finally start to see the starry skies.

And if we are really lucky, we may get a spectacular aurora to boot.

[Seott-e]

I honestly thought it was a load of you know what ! And I was right : )

[dekindy]

:crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap: :crap:

Give an honest review of what you expected for y2k?

I am really getting tired of smartass answers when I give legitimate information or ask Serotta questions on the Serotta forum.

I don't know why I bother because you probably won't take the couple of minutes to educate yourself, but this is a real threat. Like I said, I don't know if this happens every other century or every 10,000 years because I have not read that information.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm

BTW, I had no inside scoop to Y2K just as I had no insight into the Swine Flu epidemic, etc.

[Wimpy]

......every power station, transformer, and other type electrical or electronic device would be blown out and that it would take at least 2 years before any significant recovery of electrical production would occur........


..... when I give legitimate information ......


One of these things doesn't belong