Posted on 11/25/2012 10:18:27 PM PST by cruise_missile
If Earth is struck by a large solar flare, some in the scientific community believe:
The planet will be hit with a widespread loss of power. Air travel would be grounded. Nuclear plants would be crippled and without sufficient back-up power, dozens could meltdown. Satellites would be disabled, causing a serious loss of communication in all areas (military and civilian). Food and medicine would be in short supply, setting up the potential for food riots within days of an outage.
The same scientists who believe that a large solar strike could lead to a very rapid societal breakdown say that steps to avoid the problem are available and at a relatively low cost to all of us. What is a “relatively low cost?” They estimate the amount of money needed to insulate the power grid (and ourselves) from trouble to be less than one dollar per American. But Congress said “no” to their proposal.
Is there really cause for concern?
Over the next fourteen months Earth will be on high alert for a huge burst of electromagnetic energy from the sun. This powerful pulse is known as a “Solar Maximum” – an event that could cause catastrophic damage to power grids and communications systems. The peak time for the next big flare is sometime between now and the end of 2013. This possibility has scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on alert. Tom Bogdan, the director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, is monitoring the situation as closely as possible.
later
And Alaska is a “ghost” state, not important to anyone, a land where your votes don’t mean anything. Land where the needy just goes out and either shoots its own dinner, heats its home with pallets and works only during the summer, shopping is once a year when the PFD comes out.
I just described about what most rural Alaskans do.
We don’t really have either makers or takers, we make for ourselves and not the stupid, lazy morons who live on the dole.
How often do we hear this. Last “solar event” was suppose to knock out power, etc., riots, cats and dogs sleeping together, but it never seems to have the effect they claim. If it happens, it happens. Not much I can do about it.
Is there any significance to the “EBT” icons on the map, or do they just generally correlate to the “bluer” areas?
This VERY respected solar watcher believes that Solar Max for this Solar Cycle 24 has already passed: http://www.solen.info/solar/ I agree with him.
Cycle 24 has been a very weak cycle, as predicted by about half of the solar science community but notably NOT by NASA, and well justified by theoretical work done by Russian and Finish solar scientists over the years. In addition, there is a very intriguing mechanism which may explain why: http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50 though that is not the basis upon which the Russians and Finns have been working.
I hate to disappoint you, but the high priority areas will all be in China, etc.
That “huge event” a couple weeks ago was miniscule compared to the Carrington Event, and indeed was a factor of 20 smaller than an X-level event that affected Earth about 10 years ago -— and Ol’Sol is FAR less active now than it was then, and we are currently decreasing, NOT increasing, in activity.
No way Cycle 24 will get to 90. That is hack Hathaway (and his discredited ‘expert’ solar panel at NASA) figure, but not close to reality. We are likely already past peak, at around a level of 66, and even 90 would be a mediocre cycle. See my post #46 for links.
No. High Tension lines are literally installed under high tension, mechanical strain, to reduce sag between supports.
They tend to increase together as the higher voltage insulator supports get more and more expensive as the voltage goes up. So the economics of longer spans with corresponding tensions tends to go up with voltage. But water, road and other physicals constraints also justify higher tension and longer span construction.
That is not a true statement. Large power transformers are still made in the US. Mexico is the significant competition in this market, not China.
Well, both. There is a valid term called “electric(al) tension” which means the same thing as electrical potential or voltage.
looks to me like it’s just the blues who correspond very strongly with the chronic food stamp crowd
A purely economic failure wouldn’t bring about EBTmageddon as Uncle Sam can keep on printing dollars till he’s blue in the face. But a communication failure could prove interesting. Martial law anybody?
And it wouldn’t be just blue EBT areas that could see severe SHTF, it could be nominal reds which are still more hand-to-mouth than is wise.
“In other words, heavily Democratic precincts would be devastated. That’s just awful.”
Does that that most of them would be in the first die off as they likely don’t have an extra can of chili in the pantry? That’s just awful.
Thanks. In nearly 3 decades (including college) of being in the Power Systems side of Electrical Engineering, including time spent working at Electric Utilities, I’ve never heard voltage described as tension. Tension lines and slack spans were always described by pulling strain.
After a little internet searching, I find the description as you describe. Learned something new (actually quite old) :-)
No, sorry, that is just flat wrong. Pumping hyperinflated digital dollars into the EBT accounts will not work any better at keeping the food flowing from farms to cities than Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe printing billion dollar bills.
There are a dozen ways the EBT system can be brought down, and all of them will result in massive looting and social breakdown in under one week.
The EBT system crashing will have the first and worst consequences, for a number of reasons easily deduced. There will be a lag for the consequences of SSI, military pensions etc not being paid (or being paid in worthless hyperinflated digital dollars.) It will all hurt, but old folks in suburbia won’t go on violent rampages on about the third day of no food. Urban EBT slaves will go totally berserk in less than a week.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.