Posted on 11/12/2015 5:41:36 AM PST by Jed Eckert
In the late summer of 1859, an extreme geomagnetic storm bombarded the planet, igniting the ghostly, emerald lights of the aurora across skies as far south as Cuba.
These powerful solar eruptions of magnetized plasma hitting the Earth caused telegraph wires to spark, disabled communications and set fire to several telegraph offices, according to NASA
In the modern world, the threat of space weather is far greater as storms like the Carrington Event of 1859 pose a risk to interconnected power grids, airline operations, satellites and communications networks across the globe.
"The overall goal is to ensure that the nation is prepared to predict, mitigate and respond to an extreme space weather event such as a large-scale CME [Coronal Mass Ejection] like the 1859 event," Thomas Berger said, referring to a new multi-agency initiative launched by the Obama Administration to help prepare the country for the looming threat of extreme geomagnetic storms."
Berger is the director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, and has been working in the field of astrophysics and solar physics for more than 20 years.
The National Space Weather Action Plan and National Space Weather Strategy were unveiled in late October under the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The federal initiative includes 13 agencies and seven departments of the federal government.
"It is important to realize that smaller space weather events can also cause chronic damage to infrastructure," Berger added. "In the course of preparing for the extreme event, the nation will also be better prepared to deal with the more frequent, but more chronic space weather events."
One of the greatest threats to the general public resulting from solar storms is the disruption of electrical infrastructure.
In 2012, Earth experienced a near miss of a storm that could have been near the magnitude of the 1859 event, and in March 1989, a geomagnetic storm left nearly 6 million people without power for more than nine hours in Quebec, Canada.
"In some worst case scenarios, the damage could be extensive and take weeks to months to fully recover from," Berger said.
The primary agencies involved in the response, mitigation and forecasting elements of the new plan include the Department of Homeland Security (FEMA) and the Department of Commerce housing NOAA and the National Weather Service.
In the case of long-term power outages, FEMA would respond to affected areas like they would for any other power outage, but the impact could still be devastating, he said.
"One of the most pessimistic views and estimates was produced by the National Academy of Sciences in 2008," Berger said. "It has numbers in the $1- to 2-trillion range with full recovery taking 4-10 years." (emphasis mine)
The cost would be nearly 20 times that of the damages inflicted by Hurricane Katrina.
When a geomagnetic storm interacts with the Earth's magnetic field, it drastically changes the planet's magnetosphere, and in turn generates powerful electric currents in the ionosphere that are thousands and thousands of amps, Berger said.
These geomagnetic-induced currents are mirrored in the ground, where critical electrical infrastructure is grounded. The magnitude of these storms are rated on a scale similar to tornadoes and hurricanes at G-1 through G-5, with the latter being the highest magnitude.
"One of the difficulties we face is that we have only about 150 years of records of solar storms and only a few decades of modern space-based measurements of solar storms," he said.
"We really can't say that we know for sure the maximum magnitude the sun is capable of producing in terms of extreme eruptions. But if we take the Carrington event as the prototypical event, then it could potentially damage the Extra-High-Voltage (EHV) power distribution system in the U.S."
Part of the U.S. mitigation efforts being coordinated under the new national strategy is to install equipment that would block the damaging DC currents from getting into the system, he added.
"The best-case scenario, that we are trying to work towards, is that there is no damage to the grid," he said.
With winter on the way, power outages, especially in situations of extreme heat and cold, can also lead to greater problems. Preparedness can provide safety and security in the time before agencies like FEMA mobilize their relief efforts in an emergency situation.
In addition to mitigating the effects of solar storms, there is still much to be learned about the sun and how to predict the severity of solar storms. With no comprehensive impact models available, measuring the magnitude of an event in advance is still difficult.
NASA and the National Science Foundation are the primary agencies leading the plan's research improvements. The Department of Defense is also involved, along with the SWPC and the U.S. Air Force 557th Weather Wing, who are coordinating the forecasting and model development efforts.
"We need to better understand how the sun generates its magnetic field, how it cycles over the 10- to 13-year cycle, and how it erupts in the form of massive flares and coronal mass ejections," Berger said.
"Right now, we are somewhat akin to earthquake or volcano eruption in our ability to predict when a given sunspot active region will erupt. We can see it getting more and more magnetically complex, but we can't tell you when it will blow with any accuracy at all."
Even after an eruption is observed, knowing just how powerful it will be cannot be predicted until it's about 1 million miles away from Earth.
"All we can do now is send out watches and warnings when we see an eruption and then wait until it does or doesn't hit our 'tsunami buoy in space' [satellite] at the L1 orbit. Once the CME passes the L1 buoy, we know with more confidence how strong the resulting geomagnetic storm will be," Berger said.
With the ongoing efforts of the federal government and governments around the world, the international preparedness effort will continue to improve understanding and methods for mitigating the space weather threat.
"It's a global problem," Berger said, adding that nations, like the United Kingdom, and power companies around the world are becoming more aware of the potential harm that can be caused by solar storms."
The sun has become problematic of late, or rather the eco-nazis are just now becoming persuaded. It appears to be interfering with Global Warming. Dear Leader will set it all straight.
Transformers? Switch stations? Insulators?
I read on an energy web site a while back that transformers were the biggest concern. If a good chunk of the grid blows transformers, there were nowhere near enough in reserve to replace all. They were thinking 6 months to 1 year to catch up, whether from foreign sources or new manufacture here in the US. That info was about 3 years ago. Don't know about the present inventory.
HOOWAAAAAAYYYY! Buckwheat is going to put out the sun.
I hope it works out better than that red line in crayon thingy.
:-)
As they said in the article, one of the biggest problems we have is that we have no idea what the potential magnitude could be. The only reason we even know about the Carrington event is because we’d installed telegraph wires in a significant portion of the country. Prior to that, even the worst of these storms would have no impact to human beings that we know of.
It would be interesting to see if there are any other reports of equatorial aurora in history. That might give us an idea of approximately how frequent they are. Trouble would be locating such records and correlating them. Equatorial folk aren’t particularly familiar with aurora, so they might not all describe them as something we’d recognise. I wonder if there are any Roman reports of same.
Correct. It would probably be much more than just a year. I do not believe that the really big transformers are even manufactured in the United States. Those are almost always one-off jobs custom built for an application. What would happen if suddenly we needed to replace about half or even just a quarter of those all at once? The backlog would be extensive. It might be a big enough job that it would prompt some domestic manufacturer to enter the market. I don't know what kind of capital investment it would take to bring a manufacturer up to speed on it.
But knowing is only half the battle, just ask GI-JOE, or the modern politically correct version GI-JOSEPHINE.
Have you seen the movie?........................
Uh, no I haven't, having seen every facial expression Cage has, all two of them and all his vocal range, both of them, I don't really have much interest.
It’s a really good sci-fi genre movie. The premise is that a girl in the 1950’s had a premonition that the Earth was going to be destroyed in the early 21st century by a solar flare .....................
Okay, Okay, you convinced me there is more to it than Cages two facial expressions, I’ll look it up. ; )
Yes, he actually has THREE!.......................
Ever wonder how Cage got into acting?..............His uncle is Francis Ford Coppola...................
GE no longer makes any large substation or step-up/step-down transformers in the US. They are manufactured in Mexico, Europe and China.
Westinghouse has the capability to build in the US and overseas.
Siemens and ABB are built in Europe (Germany and Austria) and China.
Waukesha (SPX) still design and manufacture utility scale transformers here in the US.
These are transformers everyone sees at the large switch yards located everywhere.
Almost without exception, every generator has GSU’s ((generator step up transformers) They convert 4Kv-20Kv from the generator unit to utility voltages 138Kv-745Kv. You can bet that those would need to be rewound or replaced.
The knowledge base is still here to build these transformers, but if it happens tomorrow (CME hitting North America) then we would be talking several years or more to bring the capability back online to produce them in the quantities needed.
Then there’s the smaller distribution transformers, HV breakers, protection systems etc
Dangit!, you mean I missed one? I’m just kidding, there are some movies I actually have enjoyed that Cage was in, I really liked a movie he did called “Drive Angry”, so bad it was good!
That’s all well and good except that after this year we will be entering a Maunder Minimum with little solar activity. This minimum is expected to produce a mini ice age that could last 20 plus years.
Unfortunately, one of the insulating fluids used in the big transformers (including the ones up on the power pole) was PCB. Nasty stuff. Its use was banned by the Feds around '79-'80. Not sure what they use these days but I suspect whatever it is is probably not worth the effort or expense to jump through the EPA hoops. Hence the "Let somebody else make them" attitude. We do still have a few manufacturers of big transformers but as you stated they don't keep them on the shelf in stock. Build as needed.
Yeah, that one was goofy................Drive like Hell, you’ll get there..................
Yup. There were some articles published about this in the wake of the attack on some electrical stations in CA a while back.
If something like a CME were to happen, and we had an American president, rather than a Halfrican one, you can bet that the EPA would be waiving some of the regs in order to get the power back on line. That would help a little, but not much, because as you said the capacity simply isn't there anymore. It would require some significant tooling and time even of some industrialists were given carte blache to "make it happen, any way you can".
I figure large parts of the US would be without significant power for about 2 years. This would destroy our nation completely, what with JIT inventory practices we have for everything from consumer goods to food. After 3 weeks without power, you'd be seeing a zombie apocalypse situation spreading out from the large cities.
Consider the amount of power it took to fry even the rather primitive telegraph lines of the day in the mid-1800s, and how much more delicate a lot of really important infrastructure is today, and you're looking at something I'd rather not be involved in.
Basically you are correct. However, many scientists estimate the Maunder Minimum to begin around 2020, if at all.
Bottom line: they don't really know. We'll just have to be surprised.
There are several components of EMP. A geomagnetic storm caused by the Sun will produce an E3 pulse component, which induces huge currents in the electrical grid affecting anything connected to it. Unplugged devices will more or less be protected. Utility transformers and stations may be destroyed. Not all modern cars will be affected, many may still run. Again, it mostly affects stuff that is plugged into the grid. If transformers blow, devices plugged in down the line may or may not survive, depends on length of power lines and conductors.
We have more to worry about with an EMP nuclear bomb from enemies, than any effects of a solar storm. The former will cause mass death, the latter is survivable (outside of large cities).
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