How A Massive Solar Storm Could Wreck The Global Economy

a reply to: LuXTeN

Actually the possibility is rather low hence there ambivalence regarding the hardening of our national grids against such an event.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: LuXTeN

Actually the possibility is rather low hence there ambivalence regarding the hardening of our national grids against such an event.

The cost of protection is much less than the alternative.

Currently, four space satellites (SOHO - Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, ACE – Advanced Composition Explorer, and STEREO A/B – Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) monitor the Sun. Situated between the Sun and Earth or along Earth’s orbit, these satellites can provide warnings of incoming CMEs on a timescale of a few days to hours. These warnings allow electric grid operators to take protective measures (i.e., decrease the electric load in the grid and increase reactive power production) before the storm hits. However these satellites are all several years past their planned mission lives 43 and only one has a replacement scheduled to launch in 2014. Additionally, several steps can be taken to harden the electric grid against geomagnetically induced currents: neutral -current -blocking capacitors can be installed to block GIC from flowing into at -risk transformers, series -line capacitors can be installed on autotransformers, improvements can be made to the tripping techniques to avoid false tripping f rom GIC harmonics, and the utilisation of GIC monitors at transformers will ensure that current levels remain stable. Since the 1989 Quebec storm and power outage, the Canadian government has invested $1.2 billion (about $34 per person) into protecting the Hydro- Quebec grid infrastructure, installing numerous blocking capacitors 44 . While these mitigation strategies can be expensive up front (estimated cost of $100k per blocking capacitor for a total of $100 million to protect the 1,000 most vulnerable transformer s 45 ), the cost of prevention is much smaller than the cost of the damage a single storm can create.

However, magnetic field strength and orientation of incoming plasma – key ingredients in forecasting Earth impacts, can only be measured with a lead time of 15- 30 minutes. Additionally, these satellites are all past their mission lives, and replacements are essential for monitoring solar activity in the near future. Improvement in forecasting Earth impacts will only be made by funding research targeted at predicting and continued investment in the infrastructure necessary to measure impulsive solar wind events

This is disconterting re: shutting down nuclear plants.

www.lloyds.com... =%27cme%27

a reply to: InTheLight

Ideally in the event of power issues/thermal issues they should SCRAM automatically. Given the triple redundancy build into most but looking at the likes of the Fukushima Daiichi plant it does not always work out that way.

If we were to switch to liquid fluoride thorium reactors i think they just shut themselves down if indeed power is lost but they also have there own negatives and other issues that could be problematic as radioactive molten salt can be just as dangerous as contaminated water/steam.

Fact is our nuclear power plants require multiple different levels of maintenance and supervision to operate safely, that's not going to change anytime soon.

a reply to: andy06shake

Well, I will be researching safe distances from nuclear plants and wind directions in my neck of the woods.

modernsurvivalblog.com...

allthingsgreatlakes.wordpress.com... iolations/

a reply to: InTheLight

I live on a relatively small Island if any or all of the 15 operational nuclear reactors were to experience melt down i dont imagine there would be much safe distance.

originally posted by: LuXTeN
a reply to: charlyv

No I wouldn't. You know why? I have something called survival skills ... Nice try though

In a world of no food, no electricity, no job and no transportation... Survival skills will probably keep you alive for a while, but with no future of longevity. This is what amazes me when people believe that a "Reset to Basics" would give them any quality of life at all. It is a death wish.

originally posted by: InTheLight
a reply to: Bedlam

? ... nuclear reactors will scram? What does that mean?

If a reactor is putting out substantial power, you got lots of steam going through the turbines, everything's trucking along on an even keel and then the switchyard does a surprise unload (the big sparky switch opens, taking the load off the power station), the reactor will take this badly. And the turbines. When the load drops off, the reactor will suddenly begin to produce a lot of heat that isn't going anywhere. Like in a split second. So when the monitoring circuits see this, they 'scram' the reactor.

This a term from the earliest days of building reactors. It means 'slam all the control rods in and stop the power output as fast as you can'. For the first reactor built at Stagg Field, University of Chicago, there was a rugby player or something stationed on top of the reactor. A big, heavy, very much overkill control rod was held out of the pile with a rope, and his job was to cut the rope and let the rod fall into the pile, shutting off the reaction, in the event of an unexpected runaway reaction. I have heard reactor operators say that "scram" is an acronym for "situation critical reactor axe man" since the rugby player had an axe in hand. I don't know if that's true, as I have also heard it means "cut this mother off and SCRAM!"

Anyway, while you've got to do it to keep unpleasant things from happening, taking a big commercial power reactor that's running at 75% output, unloading it in a split second and scramming it causes a lot of OTHER issues, among them you've still got a huge amount of heat energy to dump, the rapid temp changes cause thermal shock all through the system that can cause line fractures or fuel damage etc. And then you have to switch to on-site power (usually big diesels) to cool the reactor down, because when the switchyard blows, you won't have power coming in to turn over the main cooling pumps. And then if your diesels don't start, or you can't get them switched to the pumps, or any of a number of other issues happens, you have to start doing frantic fallbacks to secondary and tertiary cooling, it's a mess and has lots of possibilities for bad things.

Another issue is that when the load goes away with a bang (ha) and the reactor scrams, it's really likely you'll put droplets of liquid water through the steam inlet on the turbines, which can make them do drastic things like go boom.

originally posted by: charlyv

originally posted by: LuXTeN
a reply to: charlyv

No I wouldn't. You know why? I have something called survival skills ... Nice try though

In a world of no food, no electricity, no job and no transportation...

So food, jobs, and transportation didn't exist in 1859 and all the centuries prior?

What about these guys?



I think they're going to be quite allright when the "electronic civilisation" goes back a couple of centuries.

a reply to: Bedlam

a reply to: wildespace

What happened in 1859, and if a similar thing happened today, are miles apart on the effect and scale. Our technology is totally wrapped up in our lives and it all depends upon communications mechanisms that did not exist in 1859. Your life becomes dependent on how all business works, your power and food supplies, and countless entities that, without communications, would fall on it's complacent flat ass. Put a little think into where you are and what you do in time.

Oh, and would you be scared? You should be. It, presently is a catastrophic risk that has not been taken even remotely seriously.
We spend the time backing up our computers.... try backing up the world.

a reply to: charlyv

I cannot see the World going back to Zero unless major catastrophes and /or War rears it's head to WWIII heights.

But as another poster did say, the world survived fine before modern civilization. Things would be rebuilt, and life would go on.

a reply to: andy06shake

I would agree, it is rather low yes. I feel much safer being alive right now than I did a month ago.

a reply to: LuXTeN

Because the US has a new president?

a reply to: Phage

No because I said so.

a reply to: LuXTeN

Well, that would be a valid reason.

Not a double post.