A solar physicist at NASA says there's no reason to think that strong solar flares expected in 2013 will disrupt life on earth, a day after a British official warned they could bring power and communications systems to a grinding halt.

"Solar flares happen all the time," NASA's Jeffrey Newmark said from Washington. "The key is, how do we mitigate?"

The space agency also has a warning system in place in the event of unusually powerful solar flares, he said, that could help safeguard power grids and satellites.

In 1859, a "super solar flare" knocked out telegraph lines around the world and lit paper on fire at telegraph offices. In today's high-tech world, a similar event could cause billions of dollars in damage, by some estimates.

"The latest prediction looks at around midway 2013 as being the maximum phase of the solar cycle," said Joe Kunches of the Space Weather Prediction Center at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But there is a prolonged period of high activity, "more like a season, lasting about two and a half years," years,"[/size] either side of the peak, he cautioned.

At its angriest, the Sun can vomit forth tides of electromagnetic radiation and charged matter known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. This shock wave may take several days to reach Earth. When it arrives, it compresses the planet's protective magnetic field, releasing energy visible in high latitudes as shimmering auroras -- the famous Northern Lights and Southern Lights.

But CMEs are not just pretty events. They can unleash static discharges and geomagnetic storms that can disrupt or even knock out the electronics on which our urbanised, Internet-obsessed, data-saturated society depends. Less feared, but also a problem, are solar flares, or eruptions of super-charged protons that can reach Earth in just minutes

Originally posted by Varemia
I think we should really stop focusing on freaking out about disaster and instead decide what to do in the face of it. I'm tired of seeing all this cowering about things and want to know what we're really going to do?

I agree with that, and as such, I found a little article that goes into this subject a little bit

Grid Failure in 2012?

Source:

What's the Solution? What's the solution?

The NASA report ends with a call for infrastructure designed to better withstand geomagnetic disturbances, improved GPS codes and frequencies, and improvements in space weather forecasting (no surprise there as they probably need support for funding – which is a really good idea since we all want to keep our electricity on and this is the best way to protect the grid at present).

On the infrastructure side – I did read an interesting interview in Wired Magazine where the "expert" recommended building and installing 5,000 "washing-machine-sized" resistors to help protect the most vulnerable transformers. He said it's possible to do this by 2012 - and would only cost around $150 million (about the same as transformer insurance).

However, they also went on to mention that the political will and support for protecting our grid also needs to be encouraged – as part of any overall energy legislation / renewable energy planning. It also turns out that adding more renewable energy systems to the grid is also helpful (e.g., the European system is much less vulnerable to solar storms than the US or Chinese power grids).

From a personal perspective, having your own independent source of power could really come in handy in the event of a protracted problem with the grid in your region. This can either be a full roof-top based system – with grid cutoff capability, or a solar generator to provide electricity for your most important electrical systems. Besides providing peace of mind as a back up system – such systems also can save money, and provide extra reliability for your most electrically sensitive equipment (e.g. your computer equipment).

Some people suggest building a Faraday cage to protect your electronics from any electrical surges that might flow through the grid, and others recommend preparing an emergency plan and stockpiling resources (food, water, etc.). Although I've never had much personal success with political activism, I think lobbying in favor or more renewable energy support, and investment / infrastructure improvement of the electrical grid really makes a lot of sense – it may be too much to anticipate success at the national level – but I would think that your chances of success with the most vulnerable New England states would be met with some positive reaction and support.

In short - it's another good reason to go solar before 2012.