The science that is lacking in MHO is such an impact on solar panels that always face up.
If such a condition occurs as in 1859 we know it will impact the 2015 grid. Will this same energy coming from the sun, destroy or critically damage the photovoltaic panels that receive the energy ?
I suspect with today’s technology monitoring, we will have a few days notice of coming event. Is it enough to off circuit breakers, or disconnect wires, or will the panel’s junctions and diodes get ‘wasted’ anyway?
No panel manufacturer wants to talk about this — I wonder why?
Bush’s fault?
Global warming?
Martial Law?
Maybe Algore and his fools can get tanning booths and sun screen banned. That should stop these solar storms.
0bama will just sign an EO preventing the sun from doing it and then go golfing.
Space, Astronomy and CATASTROPHISM Pinggg!..............
I keep reading that we are headed into a long solar minimum, possible ice age stuff, so maybe that is a good thing. Rather than have to do anything, the government can resume its duties as chief fear monger.
And yet the White House is more concerned about what’s happening on the sun than what’s happening on American soil.
What exactly are major components that would be impacted by an EMP, that the utility companies don’t have in stock and are only available from foreign sources?
Transformers?
Switch stations?
Insulators?
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.
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.
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.