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What We Can Do About Massive Solar Flares
Reader resistant sends in an update to our discussion a month back on the possibility of violent space weather destroying power grids worldwide during the upcoming solar cycle. Wired is running an interview with Lawrence Joseph, author of "Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End," and John Kappenman, CEO of electromagnetic damage consulting company MetaTech. The piece brings two new threads to the discussion: the recently discovered presence of an unusually large hole in Earth's geomagnetic shield, magnifying our vulnerability, and possible steps we can take over the next few years to make the power grid more robust against solar flares and coronal mass ejections. There's also that whole Mayan 2012 thing. Quoting John Kapperman: "What we're proposing is to add some fairly small and inexpensive resistors in the transformers' ground connections. The addition of that little bit of resistance would significantly reduce the amount of the geomagnetically induced currents that flow into the grid. In its simplest form, it's something that might be made out of cast iron or stainless steel, about the size of a washing machine. ...we think it's do-able for $40,000 or less per resistor. That's less than what you pay for insurance for a transformer. [In the US] there are about 5,000 transformers to consider this for. ... We're talking about $150 million or so. It's pretty small in the grand scheme of things."
We must blow up the sun. But we must be quick, since there's only about 12 hours of darkness a day during which we can do it.
So, he has determined a doomsday scenario that his company can prevent for $150 million? Lets think about that for a minute...
So their "fairly small resistors" are about the size of a washing machine? I'm sure that's pretty good in the power grid industry, but I'd hate to know what they call "huge resistors".
When I hear our need for resistors to limit the damage of massive solar flares uttered in the same sentence as "the whole 2012 thing", the credibility for anything either one of these guys says is gone as far as I'm concerned.
I don't think they know what "science" is.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Come on. Anything and everything this article has to say is now more-or-less worthless because of that bit.
Let's see, $150 million that the energy company executives can use to line their pockets, or to pay for something to prevent a disaster that might not really happen anyway but would cause damage that would be much more expensive to fix than prevent, and would cause utter chaos in the nation for an extended period of time.
There's only one outcome here. I don't know about you, but I'm gonna start outfitting my house like Chuck Heston's in The Omega Man.
~Philly
As far as I know, the electrical grid in most of EU have always been protected against that. When government companies manage the grid according to set technical standards, it mostly is better managed than private contractors, that build as little as possible and as cheap as possible.
Unless I missed it, TFA left out the technical details of the problem and was filled with FUD language instead.
From what I saw on wiki, it's a quasi-DC current. Why can't we just install massive inductors that give high impedance to 60hz and pass DC? Wouldn't that cost less than $45k? Don't we already have static drain chokes? How does this affect current lightning protection shunts (or when they say the protection circuits pop, is that to what they're referring)?
Linemen chime in!
"Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End"
So many things wrong with this title...first of all, the word Apocalypse derives from Greek 'Apokálypsis' which basically means 'lifting of a veil' or revealing something that was previously hidden to the majority of the population. Currently apocalypse enters into most people's lexicon in the biblical sense referring to the end of days (aka revelation).
2012...well I think we've all seen the movie (trailer). The Mayan calendar puts the end of time at approximately December 21, 2012. But that's not even the Mayan's interpretation of 2012...it just some projected wish that has exploded into popular culture. Many Mayan scholars simply think that the Mayans were simply going to reset the calendar on that day back to zero.
Either way the scientific exploration to the end of our planet or species (which are different things and scenarios) should avoid religious or theological possibilities (because they aren't real).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
Heat death of the universe and the big crunch are the two most likely scenarios (don't worry you won't be around for either of them). Heat death is basically where the universe becomes void of heat and motion and there is nothing left but immobile objects. The other best theory is the big crunch, basically where gravity pulls all objects together from existence into one singularity.
I always though that that singularity would interact with infinite absolute zero and most likely creates another big bang. If this is true then that would mean it could have happened an infinite number of times before, meaning time is an infinite loop and everything has happened before an infinite number of times and will happen again.
I haven't studied hard science in an academic environment for a while (I went to an amazing science oriented public high school) as I did my undergraduate studies in......sports broadcasting...so here's my disclaimer: some things above might be paraphrased or summarized incorrectly (I did my best).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_and_planet_Earth
This article covers almost everything. Natural disasters occurring from earth (earthquakes, floods, global warming), to space based (gamma ray bursts, impact events), to human based events (nuclear war), to diseases and pandemics, and even things like an A.I. taking over or a singularity from nanotechnology taking over all life (search wiki for Grey goo), and then of course there is the probability (though unlikely) of aliens obliterating our planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_of_human_beings
There was a recent poll on Slashdot asking everyone when the last human would be born...
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1749&aid=-1
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1751&aid=-1
Oh...here comes my boss time to submit and get back to cutting Mets footage.
$40,000 and the size of a washing machine isn't exactly what you'd call small and inexpensive, certainly not compared to what most people would think of when you mention a resistor.
Well, the transformers to which they'd be attached are also a wee bit bigger than your average wall wart.
Oh, wait...
Well, when you have several kiloamperes of current flowing in a circuit of several kilovolts (several megawatts of power), typical in a power grid, a resistor the size of a washing machine is actually rather small. Think of the sizes of the transformers that you see in power stations. I'm sure you know what they look like, and how big they are. The resistors most people think of are designed to deal with milliamperes of current over about 5 volts or so, milliwatts or at best watts of power. The washing-machine resistor has to deal with power levels a million to a billion times greater than that, and must have a size to match.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
The solution is to use a Delta-ungrounded-Wye transformer where needed to prevent ground currents. After the 1980's incidents, power engineers in the USA and Canada reviewed the need for these transformers and put them in where needed. The solar flare problem should therefore be solved already. Can you cite a power system engineering qualified source who thinks there is still risk?
We cannot go on with this threat to our infrastructure. Write letters to you congress people and demand that they pass a law BANNING ALL SOLAR FLARES! We should take to the streets in protest. We need sanctions! It's time to get tough! The UN should pass a resolution! Boycott all products that are sun related! Show 'em who's really in charge!
-- QED
I think there is already a religion that worships Transformers.
At the risk of having my geek card revoked, I'll admit that I don't know zilch about solar flares and their impact on electronics. What concerns me the most is how my stored data will be affected. Hardware can be replaced, but data is volatile and (I presume) also susceptible to the sun's random bursts.
Will by HDDs keep their data? Is it important whether they're connected to the grid at the time of the flaare? Can solar flares harm optical media?
What good are backups on magnetic media (tape or disks or otherwise) if a single large flare could wipe them all out?
Please tell me I'm worrying about nothing...
CJ
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
So, he has determined a doomsday scenario that his company can prevent for $150 million?
He didn't "create" the doomsday scenario involved here, others, including scientists, have been considering this problem for awhile now. Note that TFA has links to two scientific reports that are entirely unconnected with the MetaTech CEO, one is from NASA itself, and the other is published by the National Academies and was funded by NASA.
I had to Google "solar flare crystal planet" and the #1 hit was your post... #2 was Starflight...
Congratulations... You have made such an obscure reference that the first search result was you actually making the reference... I don't think there is actually a prize for that though... Please don't kill yourself...
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
I wouldn't exactly call it a doomsday scenario. These flares happen fairly often.
The NASA funded report that is linked to from TFA is talking about a "Coronal Mass Ejection" which is different from a solar flare, though they are sometimes both created by the same underlying event.
Basically a giant ball of high energy plasma (ionized gas) that is shot out of the Sun, sometimes reaching speeds of 1/3 that of light. Note that a fast CME would give us almost no warning time at all, even if we had detectors close enough to the Sun at the time to detect it. Detecting a CME is not as easy as noticing a solar flare, never mind the problem of determing how large/dangerous it is, then calculating whether or not its going to hit the Earth.
The last one to disrupt power was in March 1989 ...
A more relevant example would be the "1859 Solar Superstorm". This was a solar event that generated both a CME (that hit the Earth) and multiple solar flares. If an event like this happened *now*, with our extreme dependence on so many things electrical and electronic, it would be a first class catastrophe. That is not hype, although it would not be a "life-ending" kind of catastrophe, it could very well be a "life-as-we-know-it-now-ending" kind of catastrophe.
Note that a large CME could impact the Earth over several days, as the 1859 event did, so we are also talking about a potential *global* catastrophe, not a regional one.
Finally, TFA also links to another recent NASA report about a huge hole just discovered in Earth's protective magnetic shield, so the important point to take away from TFA is that we are about to enter a period of Solar Maximum with a gaping hole in the only shield which protects us. Getting hit by a large CME now, with that hole in Earth's magnetic shield still present, would lead to a *really* bad day for humanity.
When I hear our need for resistors to limit the damage of massive solar flares uttered in the same sentence as "the whole 2012 thing", the credibility for anything either one of these guys says is gone as far as I'm concerned.
It is unfortunate that we have this coincidence between the Mayan Long Calendar "prediction" for 2012, and the fact that we're entering a Solar Maximum period (which will peak in 2012) with a gaping hole in our planet's magnetic shield and a civilization extremely dependent on an electrical infrastructure that is itself extremely vulnerable to the effects of a large geomagnetic storm.
I leave it up to you as to whether you should ignore the latter just because of the former.
I don't think they know what "science" is.
"They" in this case aren't scientists, and aren't pretending to be. Note however that "they", and TFA, are all referring to scientific reports from NASA and the US National Academy of Sciences to base their ideas on.
I don't know about you, but I *do* think that NASA and the US National Academy of Sciences know what "science" is.
So, basically, you're saying that a trip to Radio Shack for these resistors is likely to be a waste of time?
So it's like most other trips to Radio Shack?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Solar Cycle #24 is about 2 years late and the sun is unusually quiet. We really don't need to worry much about solar flares. The thing is when solar cycles are late this means the next solar cycle typically is very quiet. Solar Cycle #25 has already been predicted to also be very quiet.
So for the next 20 years solar flares may be practically non-existent.
What this means is that we can expect an increase in high energy cosmic radiation.
Expect more bit flips in circuitry.
Expect shorted and cooler summers and longer more intense winters. This is due to the increased cosmic radiation creating nucleation points for water vapor condensation which will increase cloud cover. Increased cloud cover reflects more energy into space so the surface cools.
Anyone who is perceptive might note this is the opposite of global warming.