Could Solar Storms in 2012 Cause a Solar EMP?

TheSurvivalMom blog ^ | October 4, 2010 | TheSurvivalMom

[ChocChipCookie]

Guest post by mama4x who blogs at Farming Salt & Light.

Set aside all the 2012 and Mayan calendar hysteria and consider this. According to NASA, 2012 will usher in a period of massive solar activity. It's possible these coming solar storms will produce the same effects as an EMP caused by a nuclear blast.

I type this post on my laptop in an air-conditioned room. I hear the hum of the refrigerator and the low drone of the TV in the other room. As night falls, I'll turn on the lamp and later, I'll take a shower, water pulled up the well and heated by electricity. What defines our modern lifestyle as different from other generations? It's our propensity to be "plugged-in." We check our electronic bank balance to see how much "money" we have. We listen to the news report to see what the weather will be like. We barely make the journey from the parking lot to the store without overheating due to lack of air conditioning. We tone our bodies (so that they look nice) by running on an electric treadmill as we listen to our iPods and read the feed from CNN. We communicate with people across the nation via email but don't know our neighbors.

I am a stay-at-home mama who just learned about prepping in February. I used to feel panicky when I read about inflation, food storage, and all the facets of preparing for any scenario. I thought that surely "SHTF" was going to happen any day and my family and I would just be out of luck. Now I understand the necessity of working towards goals as each day allows, prioritizing, and not acting out of fear, but from a position of information.

Now, I don't purport to know everything there is to know abut astronomy, economics, or the psychology of a collapse, but I've been learning a lot. Therefore, when I hear of an event that is certain to occur, based on scientific evidence and recorded historical cycles, I feel that it is crucially important to be prepared for it.

You may have heard of an EMP, or Electro-Magnetic Pulse. Usually it is referring to a nuclear device detonated at varying altitudes by a terrorist, as an attack on our country by doing the most damage for the least effort. An EMP will send a massive surge through the power grid, rendering the grid itself, and all electric appliances attached to the grid (plugged in) useless. In addition, the appliances not technically connected to the grid (such as a car, plane, or any device with a computer chip, such as your iPhone on the kitchen table) will receive such a magnetic pulse that the computer chips will be ruined. Electric well pumps, generators, electronic locks, ATMS, city water, everything -- all down. This scenario is terrifying to contemplate. It is usually judged to be just too big a problem to solve nationwide.

What you may not know is that the Sun's magnetic energy cycle touches its highest level every 22 years, and the number of sun spots (or flares) reaches its peak every 11 years. These two events will take place together in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation. Keep in mind that these flares, although massive in amounts of electro-magnetic energy, are harmless to living things such as people, animals, and plants. The cycle's first small flares will be observed in 2012 and the cycle will continue to grow in strength until 2014.

"In March 1989, during the solar maximum of Solar Cycle #22, the Northeast U.S. and Eastern Canada experienced a minor geomagnetic storm which compromised the electrical grid throughout for hours. The March 1989 event pales in comparison to the ‘Carrington Event of 1859’. At 11:18 a.m. on September 1, 1859, 33-year old Richard Carrington was observing an 11-inch image of the sun on a screen and was drawing the sunspots he saw in the image. Suddenly, two beads of intense white light appeared over the sunspots. Within 60 seconds the light had significantly diminished, and within five minutes completely disappeared from the screen. Just before dawn the next day, skies all over planet Earth erupted in red, green, and purple auroras so brilliant that newspapers could be read as easily as in daylight. Aurora borealis pulsated as far south as tropical latitudes over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii. The only equipment in place resembling today’s electrical grid, 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. If such an event were to occur today, the impact on modern society would be absolutely catastrophic."

This knowledge starts a whole host of things that begin to run through my mind... here's a brain-dump of a few:

1. Banks will lose all records and will not know what loans they have, nor where to collect them, or have the communication skills to organize the collection of them. (This is a good thing!)
2. Electronic bank balances (including 401Ks and stocks) will disappear and people will be left with the money they have on hand, usually paper, essentially worthless.
3. Legitimate attempts to go to banks to get the contents of your security boxes will precipitate encounters with those going to merely harvest what they can find. Is your only weapon in a safe with an electronic lock?
4. Anyone with preps should lay low while the initial chaos strikes those who realize that they don't have any supplies (mainly food and water; they won't realize the extent of their situation at first). Many will take what they can, many will die in the struggle. The ability to hunker down and literally not leave the house for even a few months may mean surviving the destructive start of the collapse.
5. As people realize that nothing will be produced any more (such as Tylenol, sheets, string cheese) they will go into scavenge and hoard mode, or conquer and steal mode.
6. When the grid goes down, many will be without a source of water. How about you? Not just some stored for a hurricane or snow storm, but some serious water supplies.
7. There will be solar flares for the entire cycle- even up to two years- so having key pieces of your SHTF equipment in a homemade Faraday won't work... unless you keep them under wraps till you are sure the solar cycle is over. Then, of course, you'd make yourself a target by having the only equipment... things to consider.
8. Many of the "more extreme" prepper styles (zombie, anarchy, 1800's lifestyle) will suddenly seem more relevant when you consider the panicked mobs of unprepared, hunger-crazed people there are. Of course, the more industrialized the country, the more the effects of the EMP will be felt. Rural China, outback of Australia, desert of Africa... their day-to-day style of life won't be torn apart like we will be here and in Europe, where we are so dependent on computers and electricity.
9. It sometimes seems to Americans that only the faraway places of earth are where the people die from diarrhea, clan wars, starvation, and are sold into slavery. But if the upcoming solar cycle is literally TEOTWAWKI, these things will be happening in your own county.

Does something that seem like such a certainty cause you to tremble in your boots? Think to what made you begin to prep. For me, it was when my husband lost his job and had no unemployment. I thought back to Katrina, and watched Haiti unfold. Then I learned about hyperinflation. Recently my home was flooded by Tropical Storm Hermine. Things happen. We need to assess the realistic threat and the best way to act and not expect that government help will be there when we need it. Here is what I think are bare minimum goals.

1. Accumulate a large amount of stored water. Secure a very local water source.
2. Accumulate a large amount of properly stored staple foods (wheat, rice, beans, oats, sugar, salt, pasta).
3. Accumulate a large pantry of groceries, including spices and fats.
4. At the very least, if you can't grow vegetables and collect seeds, buy a variety of sprouting seeds, which can be grown indoors year-round.
5. Accumulate any and all medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, medicines, and first aid training and health manuals.
6. Acquire, train with and supply at least two kinds of weapons for home defense. Many people find it realistic to buy handguns and rifles in the same caliber to make storing a ton of ammunition easier. I suggest having a dozen or more pepper sprays too.

After these goals are met, you can begin setting aside clothes and other non-essential but important items. All of the items on the list are the things you are probably doing already. If I can urge you to do them faster, or tell more people about prepping, then I'm satisfied. The most important thing to do is STAY CALM and DO SOMETHING.

[ChocChipCookie]

There are a number of links in this article that aren't included in this Freeper post, including a couple of sources for the solar storm info. It seems that these solar storms are a for-sure thing.

I don't buy into that 2012/Mayan calendar rubbish, but it's very strange that these storms will coincide with their calendar.

Also, I should mention that the author of this article has a blog, http://sustainingfarm.blogspot.com/

[Pearls Before Swine]

I don’t buy it. Extreme solar storms may mess up the power grid by inducing imbalances which foul up the HV transformers, but they won’t erase all data in all backup locations, nor will they reach EMP levels and wreck all electronics.

[evets]

#7. Stock up on tin foil..

#8. Don't forget to protect your pets.

[r9etb]

Yes. Or No. Maybe. We’re all gonna die!

[JRandomFreeper]

The sign on my metal shop building with metal doors is "Faraday's Cage. Heisenberg may or may not have stayed here"

I'm betting most of the stuff in my shop (not attached to the grid) will be just fine, even in the case of a nuke induced EMP.

/johnny

[yesca]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd-cCeaKrOA

[davisfh]

"...my metal shop building with metal doors..."

If you'd like for your metal building to serve as a Faraday Cage/screen room, make sure that the metal roof and doors are electrically bonded together and then run ground straps from the building's lower sides to grounding stakes driven into the ground. That would likely save all electrical equipment in the building and, if you have an electrical generator, would probably spare that as well. You'll probably be depending on the generator for quite some time until the electrical grid is restored - a year or two maybe??

[JRandomFreeper]

As a long-time ham operator, I did all of that when I was a kid, back in the early '70s. It makes testing and calibrating some RF equipment much easier when you don't have to deal with noise. EMP protection is just a by-product. ;)

/johnny

[SonsOfCollins_Wallace]

It matter NOTHING if a building or whatever is connected to the power grid. If it is then the items connected are cooked.
However your metal building being disconnected is good IF it is fully metalized AND grounded AND has the windows covered in metal “ mesh” to absorbed the atmospheric electric charge generated by the EMP.
It is the atmospheric charge generated by the EMP that cooks whatever is sensitive (not able to handle excessive current) to currents beyond their designed capacity.
Any electronic device - ANY today-built/solid-state devices will be cooked dead if they are exposed to such currents. If said devices are in a Faraday cage/structure they would survive if not connected/on an insulated structure.

It bears reading the recent book “One Second After” to get a well defined picture of how any modern society will fair in such an event regardless of the source of the EMP event.

1986 Ontario/Quebec power grid failure and US 1858?? events where fence wire was hot-to-touch/burned the posts and large sections of telegraph system was destroyed illustrates what happens from a “small” scale EMP.

If the area the event effects is multi-country/continent then the recovery time will be long and filled with many dead people - whole sections of a society are venerable to the effects. Cars built after 1972 (Chrysler introduced electronic ignition in 1973, Ford & GMC later) will be dead and not coming back to life without a complete system replacement. Some automotive batteries and deepcycle batteries with photovoltaic units (they will be toast) will cook-off and land line telephones will go down.
Planet-wide societies today are so dependent on electrical/electronic devices that ANY replacement equipment will not be available for 9+months or years.
Therein is the main reason to have a society-wide effort to build in some safety-factors now.

[davisfh]

I'm not into ham radio but did spend the closing years of my AF career in the PME (Precision Measurement Equipment) field and, from time to time, had access to screen rooms. I saw several different types, the most elaborate being one made with what appeared to be bronze walls, ceiling and floor, the simplest being a room framed up with two-by-fours and completely covered with copper screen wire and grounded. That one was in what appeared to be an old warehouse.

And, you're right. These things create an eerily quiet electronic world and make calibration and servicing of electronics very easy.

[SonsOfCollins_Wallace]

Like I indicated in my previous post, if the area is large enough - multi-country/continental - then the power grid will not be up for several years (more than 2) due to no equipment available to rebuild it with and no means to get equipment to the places that need repairs.

The disruptions to any society will be enormous and causing millions of deaths for various reasons.
Haiti and N.Orleans are good examples of “minimum disruption” compared to what a sizable EMP event will cause.

[pallis]

They could; they would, and maybe someday they will, today, tomorrow or the next day, 2010, 2012, or 3068. Whoop out the flashlight.

[aruanan]

Extreme solar storms may mess up the power grid by inducing imbalances which foul up the HV transformers, but they won’t erase all data in all backup locations, nor will they reach EMP levels and wreck all electronics.

Another one like the one that happened during the neolithic or early bronze age would pretty much wreck all electronics. It made the Carrington Event look like an ordinary solar flare.

[EdReform]

Bump & bookmark

[ChocChipCookie]

I was surprised to learn that even solar panels will be affected by an EMP or coronal mass ejection. They contain electronic panels and are just as vulnerable as anything else electronic.

[ChocChipCookie]

I was surprised to learn that even solar panels will be affected by an EMP or coronal mass ejection. They contain electronic panels and are just as vulnerable as anything else electronic.

[MediaMole]

Solar storms happen all the time. Occasionally, they have a noticeable impact, but generally, they pass without any damage.

This is just more doom and gloom stuff. We’re at a solar minimum right now and the prediction is that by 2012, the sun will be moving to a solar maximum, which has more sunspots, flares and storms.

Even if there was a massive flare, it would have to be directed in the exact point the Earth occupied at the time and it would have to be significantly more powerful than a typical flare.

Can it happen? Yes.

Will it happen in 2012? No one can predict. This is just the scare story of the month.

[ASOC]

LOL

Kinda funny in some ways.

We have an electrical intertie between Anchorage and Fairbanks that sees Geomagnetic Storm induced currrents in the 100s of amperes. The system seems to have no problems.

THere are several large Fiber Optic systems between AK and the L57 that see large voltage flucuations from Geomagnetic Storms. They still work due to the protective equipment built in.

The US is LESS exposed as much of the communications infrastructure is now F/O and not copper. Most comm equipment from major carriers is already ‘hardened’ - so Geomagnetic Storm related issues should be minimal.

More and more major transmission lines are SWER - which have less issues with Geomagnetic Storm induced currents. One major system, for example, runs from Delta UT (IPP) to LA and seems to work just fine.

What is with the “EMP ends civilization as we know it” fixation so many seem to have?

[ChocChipCookie]

This fixation, as you call it, doesn’t seem to be a figment of imagination. Congress was given a lengthy report, just about the same time as the 9/11 report came out, detailing just how vulnerable our system is to an EMP. They don’t seem to think it’s funny.

http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf

[TexasRepublic]

“1. Accumulate a large amount of stored water. Secure a very local water source.”

A more practical solution would be a quality water filter. A company called Berkey (www.berkeyfilters.com/) sells a ceramic filter that will purify 3,000 gallons per replaceable element. I have no affiliation with them, but I may buy one.