Slashdot Mirror
British Government Prepares For Solar Storms
judgecorp writes "The British Government has announced its plans to handle solar storms. The idea is to improve the resilience of infrastructure, including satellite communications — which the government says will also be useful against the future possibility of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons. From the report: 'National Grid and DECC are building on the work of the Space Environment Impacts Evaluation Group and E3C to analyse the range of impacts of extreme space weather events, with the Carrington Event being adopted as the reasonable worst case. These scientific assessments have enabled National Grid to change the design requirements for its Supergrid transformers, and to increase its reserve holding of transformers. National Grid is currently developing improved monitoring tools with the British Geological Survey (BGS) and installing or reinstalling Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) monitoring devices into its Strategic Asset Management program. The next steps will be for National Grid, in association with BGS and working with E3C, to develop more detailed modelling of severe space weather events including impacts on generator transformers. This will extend and strengthen its analysis on the electricity transmission system completed so far.'"
vinyl records. When everyone else has no music except for the few that can play an instrument, i'll be able to put a thumbtack in the bottom of a dixie cup, find a way to spin that sucker at 33.3 rpm and have music.
:D
Well... I might need some water too, but I promise you, if all electronics fry, my scratched to hell vinyl record will be worth more than your 100 dollar bill. Maybe...
In the event of a nasty solar storm, the brits can just pile up the acronyms generated by their preparedness program and hide behind those. The bureaucratic verbiage should be dense enough to stop all but neutrinos.
What do you expect from a country with CCTV on every corner? I wonder who (generally or specifically) the paranoia can be attributed to. That was a question, fellow /.ers, despite the lack of appropriate punctuation.
I have the hiccups.
The Carrington Event is the worst that has happened since we invented the telegraph. It is not the worst that we can expect to happen in the next xxx years.
You do realize that protecting against EMP is a side benefit of protecting against the much more likely solar storms that can induce huge currents in power grids and wreak havoc with satellites, right?
Oh wait. You are busy having fun. My mistake. Carry on.
Guys, nobody has these weapons
Ever hear of nukes? Detonated at high altitude, they are the original EMP weapon.
and if they did they wouldn't waste them on you.
Well, can't argue with you there,
But the solar storm threat is legit and should be fixed -- if they've just got to ward off an imagined military threat, I like this much better than the SAMs which help nothing.
Guys, nobody has these weapons and if they did they wouldn't waste them on you.
Govt is probably worried about an inside job. Their govt loves their Orwellian CCTV cams. Theres a website who's name I forget of pictures of torched and destroyed UK CCTV cameras. Eventually there comes a point where the best way for the citizens (err I mean human property of the govt) to clear the verminous CCTV cams out of an area is a short range EMP weapon... Combine that with 50% youth unemployment in greater europe, racial tensions, its going to be an exciting time.
Across the pond, in a more civilized fashion, we aren't as crazy about cams and we'd just use hunting rifles to take them out anyway instead of quenching a big superconducting magnet. Also apparently no one has found a way for the 1% to get richer by EMP hardening, or a way to make the 99% poorer by EMP hardening. another reason we are never going to do it. So those are the numerous reasons Big Brother UK is doing this but not Big Brother US.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Spending some money to harden the electricity distribution system against a major solar flare isn't such a bad idea when you consider the alternative. Even the relatively minor event in Canada a few years ago took months to put right, now imagine a major city like London or New York if you woke up one morning and there was no power and little hope of getting it restored for months or years because the distribution grid is shot and every country in the world is in the same boat trying to buy up new transformer capacity.
At least now, when civilization collapses, we will be safe from the self aware gangers in acid suits .
It was speed cameras that got torched.
The problem with using a EMP device to take out CCTV is that it also takes out all the Sky boxes and widescreen TVs tuned to the football making it unlikely that disgruntled citizens would ever consider using one...
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Yes, it's obvious... it doesn't mean it's an less ridiculous. Unless, of course, you look at whose investments are being coddled.
The infrastructure in question; electrical and telecommunications mainly, is incredibly valuable. Especially so in the context of communicating for business and political purposes. Can you imagine what might happen to the momentum of financial transactions in the event that we lose the ability to communicate? Even worse, what would happen to the general population if they lost their ability to be entertained or informed by the propaganda machines of government?
If we were left to our own devices for any great length of time, we might learn real social skills and stop paying attention to the great leaders in the high halls of marketing and advertising. Think of what might happen if we all just learned to get along with each other!
If the sun erupts during the Olympics the sun will be declared a terrorist and will be attacked and if captured held at a secret foreign prison.
I thought this would be having another go at The Sun.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Who has nukes? Why would they use them against the UK?
America: Not as long as the UK keeps blocking Pirate Bay.
UK: Ridiculous even by their standards
France: Okay, maybe. They're still sore about Agincourt.
China: Too risky, US retaliation would vaporize all mammalian life on the planet.
Russia: See China.
India: All trained on Pakistan
Pakistan: All trained on India
North Korea: They can't make them fly up that high.
Rogue operator: "I say, instead of blowing up this one atomic weapon in a major city at rush hour, we'll detonate it out in the woods to generate an EMP field to disrupt their power grid." "Oy mate, that's a brilliant plan, that's what that is."
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I'm not too young anymore. But, for my entire life I have been hearing about the (potential) effects of solar flares and storms. I've heard that communications, especially satellites, could be interrupted. I've heard how power grids could be over loaded. Fear the sun spots. Fear the solar storms.
But, in all my days, the only "event" the I've heard of actually occurring has been aurora. Has anyone seen modern day tangible effects of these solar events?
Here's the most recent non-"event" that I remember. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57393107/earth-still-awaits-large-solar-storms-effects/
"On the basis of the evidence received, it seems likely that at present only those states with a known nuclear capability would be able to utilise a High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) weapon. However, certain states such as Iran could potentially pose a realistic threat in the future"
Only Iran is mentioned by name in the report, pfff.
So prepare for high profile made-for-tv mini-nuke false flag (about SADM scale i would guess) during the Olympic Games, to be pinned on Iran.
It'll be Nuclear because the sick fucks are desperate for an excuse to use their theatre/bunker busting nukes in retaliation.
Nuclear War in 2012, Yay!
Maybe a Solar Beta test?
Or you know, millions may die as infrastructure immediately crumbles.
"Surface to Air missiles at the Olympics"
Easy enough to steal a smaller aircraft or helo for one determined to use it. Airliners aren't the only "found objects" one may hurl at the ground.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Surface to Air missiles at the Olympics
So what makes that concern paranoid? They're fairly prevalent and a number of people probably would like to shoot down something at a high profile event like the Olympics.
I think the real issue with EMP weapons is that you'd require a vast amount of energy (like a nuclear explosion above Earth's atmosphere) to generate enough energy over a large enough area to matter (there's supposedly some Cold War EMP bombs based around conventional exposives). Doesn't seem that useful from a risk analysis point of view since it probably means that Russia is nuking your primary power generation and customers at the same time. There might be some appeal to terrorists with ideologies that are more interested in destroying machines than people.
As another replier noted, large solar flares seems to be a more legitimate problem.
Having a submarine as the flagship seems really silly.
The Flagship is where the admiral runs the fleet from. While it has often been the biggest ship in the fleet (or task force) like a carrier or battleship, the main needs are for communication. (and of course room for the admiral and his staff)
A sub is not going to be effective as a flagship since it is underwater and out of contact a lot of the time.
I would imagine there'd be more issues about providing food to the populace than "communicating for business and political purposes".
Or do you really think that the grocery stores and such are going to keep right on going with no power for, say, refrigerators?
Having lived through Katrina (I was in the eye of Katrina for a bit), I'm not especially thrilled at the possibility that power distribution might be knocked out over a large part of the world....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The Laundry's simply getting prepped for when the stars are right.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Aluminium foil simply doesn't work as well as real tin foil. That's why studies consistently show that tinfoil hats don't work.
Unless, of course, the Conspiracy has been stockpiling the real stuff for themselves...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Back in the 70s, when long-haul telecom cables were still made out of copper instead of fiber, there was a cable that failed due to electromagnetic effects of a solar flare. I don't remember the details well, but I think it was an L4 or L5 cable from Chicago to New York or something about like that; the department I was in at Bell Labs had a few physicists who were studying the results. (And yes, the study was prompted by EMP concerns from the military, as well as general reliability. We also had some people studying lightning effects.)
While that's not a significant risk for most parts of the telecom system, since we don't have a lot of 500-mile antennas any more, the electric power systems still use metal that's isolated from ground. So you could still get a significant voltage induced on a cable that could affect equipment at the end, unless you design to avoid it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Think you missed Israel there, not that they are a likely candidate, but still.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
Ban the solar storms! Ban them all, I say! Ban! Baaaaan!
Speaking of infrastructure, why doesn't the government protect the tube and DLR from those evil nasty snowflakes. Seriously. 3cm of snow, and all of London grinds to a halt.
I still don't know how an underground can be affected by snow on the surface.
Forget Al quaeda with a nuke, how about a few giant snow machines?!?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
"The Government has promised to work with the private sector to improve the security and resilience of infrastructure that is most critical to the running of the country. " Now we see what all the fuss is really about (my emphasis). Someone has a mate in an EMP defense company who needs a few quid to keep the jolly roof on the mansion.
Korma: Good
Well I for one welcome our silly fops. ,where his electromagnetic camel will explode and ruin everyones iPhone.
No one need worry that Akbar and his militant pulsing camel will ride into the Olympics unnoticed
Hey, they held up the sky when Chicken Little was stirring up propaganda.
On a side note, thank you for your military service. The world needs SOMEONE involved to keep a level head and you can bet it won't be anyone of substantial rank ,office or title.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Why don't we just stick some more Typhoons up there. That should keep us safe.
Because quite a lot of the underground network isn't. Many of the lines end up on the surface at some point, and the depots where the trains are kept overnight aren't in underground tunnels. Lines like the Circle and District are often very shallow, and even in central London are open to the sky.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
We wouldn't want all those cameras to go down now would we, have to keep watching the populous no matter what the solar weather might be that day. Citizen, citizen, citizen, alien....terrorist?...checking...nope, citizen, citizen, citizen.....
Thanks for the thanks, but I'm a civilian contractor. I mean, I take it seriously and know that people depend on what I'm doing, not now, but maybe someone's going to press a button 10, 20 years from now, and it has to work.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Yes, I noticed that too, LOL
But how about *nuclear* HEMP, did you think about that one, huh?
Sad thing is, in my above comment, I'm only half joking...