devastating solar storms expected to knock out National Grid in 2013

reply to post by MamaJ

I agree, we would have time to prepare and hope " they" would take heed in doing so.

If "they" can't produce electricity "they" can't bill for it. Think about it. Burying existing lines to prevent outages from downed wires and such isn't cost effective. Preventing the loss of all that expensive equipment and revenue for years is.

reply to post by DenyObfuscation

Looks like double talking bullspit to me. So why the emphasis on early 2013? No one has given any reason for that time.

Let us realise that the mainstream media is a tightly controlled governmental apparatus that can not legally violate national and internationally binding secrecy laws. They will occasionally however reveal vital data without 'formally' revealing.

Secrets are more often (moreso in recent times) submitted in the mainstream media regarding what is to come cosmically, however such will not be done in an official capacity regarding specific long range warnings--however we have been given 'fair' warning in their eyes with what they offer up for those with spiritual discernment of the times to recognise.

Take heed-- the threat is real and inevitable and the major flares to come are just the tip of the iceberg to those whom understand the mysteries of the earth cycles and what is to unveil furthermore.

The sun has been pretty quiet this year and we are already at the end of August. Since we are in a solar maximum year that is supposed to peak in 2013 I find this unusual. We've only had a couple of small X-class flares this year, nothing compared to 2005 or even back in the 90s. I know it only takes one severe flare to hurt our grids (we have old grids that should be converted to smart grids but that takes alot of money) but a solar doesn't seem very likely anymore.

Always be careful of predictions. Being proven wrong is no fun.

reply to post by eriktheawful


I thought about removable copper rails, too but wasn´t aware of that regulation you mentioned. But makes sense.
Also, like you said there is plenty of time to prepare. They can always remove bridges manual if the actuated ones aren´t HV breakers.

BTW, for all that asked proof that NASA "warned" about severe storms in 2012/2013, here is a possible explanation:

From 2006:
NASA "Solar Storm Warning" 2006

March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.

Like the quiet before a storm.

This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.

From 2009:
NASA "New Solar Cycle Prediction" 2009

May 29, 2009: An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression.

"Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," points out Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."

Maybe that´s the explanation for the confusion

Nasa's take on 2013 solar cycle peak.

there was a Q&A on the subject in june.

questions were posed to Dr. David Hathaway, a solar scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

chaosx: What truly is going to happen during our next solar cycle in 2013. Will it knock out much of the electronics in certain areas of the world?

David: The next solar cycle by most indications will be the weakest in 100 years. We also have satellites and other technology that can help us mitigate the problems associated with flares. However, so much of our technology is sensitive to space weather. We need better predictions and radiation-hardened electronic components.

abishek: Can aurora borealis seen from the earth?

David: Aurora borealis are formed when energetic particles from the sun stream down the Earth's magnetic field lines into the polar regions. It can be seen after many significant solar flares. We just had one last weekend.

g00nne: Hello, I wrote today, the message is probably lost somewhere. Can you tell me some information about the galactic Wednesday and consequent eruption of the Sun 2013? Thank you for your reply.

David: The next solar cycle should reach its peak in mid-2013. Again, we're expecting the weakest solar cycle in 100 years, so the effects should be less than what we've seen in the last few solar cycles.

www.nasa.gov...


so it seems NASA is expecting the weakest solar cycle in 100years. The media just want to keep reminding you about the big one that hit 1859 and how if it hit now it could cause chaos. They are not interested in telling us that NASA expect this to be a very weak end to the cycle.

Seems the impending world wide chaos is utter horse manure.

Originally posted by verschickter
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

I thought about removable copper rails, too but wasn´t aware of that regulation you mentioned. But makes sense.
Also, like you said there is plenty of time to prepare. They can always remove bridges manual if the actuated ones aren´t HV breakers.

Well the further apart conductors are, the more resistance (the air), so the larger the potential difference must be to cause an arc.
20 to 30 kilovolts is enough to cause an arc on a spark plug for a car (but the current is low, which is why you can grab a spark plug wire wile the car is running and if you pull it, the result is you just quickly dropping the wire and saying a few choice words, hehehe).

But the gap in the spark plug is very small, so that potential is able to make the jump easily.

Relays and breaker switches have larger gaps of course when they are off, but if you start talking about direct lighting strikes, the voltage potential is much higher, so an arc can happen. So a much larger distance between contacts would be much better.

However, we're talking about inducting current, where as an arc is more of direct contact. You can induce current on a line with a large enough magnetic field of course, and that's what a bad CME could potentially do.
However, unless that conductor has a path to ground, current won't flow through it.

There's also the question of just how much current can be inducted that way (IE a geomagnetic storm due to a large CME event). Using the 1859 event as an example doesn't help. Telegraph systems of the time are not the same as high voltage power producing equipment that we have now. A telegraph system is a low voltage system, and any large surge can damage it.

In 1989 a geomagnetic storm shut down power in Canada, but then it wasn't because it melted transformers or blew anything up. It happened because enough power was induced to cause relays to trip, which in turn caused a cacade event (domino effect) of shutting down power. The reason that it went through the power lines is because of the ground up in that area of Canada is rock that doesn't conduct well.

But in anycase, like you said, they (the nuclear power plants emergency generators) should use some sort of system that switches with the contacts being very far apart.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by lacrimaererum

 

can you tell me phage , what is your plan if the emergency generator does not come on?

Like I said, I don't have a nuclear plant.
I also live at a low latitude so it's unlikely that my power grid will be affected.
My plan is the same as it has been for a while. A stock of food and water. While a major geomagnetic storm would likely produce a lot of problems (some of them severe), I don't see it being the end of civilization.

edit on 8/22/2012 by Phage because: (no reason given)

It doesn't have to be the end of civilization, just the possible end of one's own life is usually important. Low lattitude? Aren't our major grids inter-connected? You sure are confident of something you can't even predict.

And rather flip in your answers today. How many times are you going to respond, "I don't have a nuclear plant". Seems like a good way to disrupt a conversation.

reply to post by eriktheawful


I´m an electronics technician/engineer but nice explanation

The ionization distance is 1mm/kV in our atmosphere for round electrodes.
However, for flat contacts like in relais/contactors it´s lesser, pending at about 0.3mm/kV if I remember right.

Means, if you have flat breakers, and take the offset of my example 40kV, this means you would have to assure a distance of 12mm.


BTW, 7kv is enough to spark a 50cc motor spark plug, tried this at my 2 axis remote potato cannon.

no solar storms. phage says so.

move on

This time frame matches what the Mayans stated about 2012. "The Sun will speak". Earth will soon be passing through the Galactic Plane. The energy radiating from the center of our galaxy may trigger a wave of charged particles to bathe Earth. This is how DNA can be altered on a massive scale. Sub atomic particles (cosmic SAP).

Originally posted by verschickter
reply to post by Phage

 

I can tell you. While emergency generators are galvanic separated from the grid, they are linked up to the necessary switching unit. If induced voltage hits the grid on the long 400+ kV lines, the transformators will transform it down / bridge the voltage down to the lower kV grids. Now if there is an voltage offset from 40.000 volts on your 230/400V power grid, your galvanic isolation is nullified because that arc will just bridge either the switching relais or directly over the contacts.

This will fry the windings of your generator, viola.

Edit: To make it clear, the switching unit that hooks up the generator to the existing infrastructure after power failure is the weak point. 40kV offset should display as an example to get the point, that an ark flash is possible any time higher voltage as intended hits the appliance because the switching contacts are just not planned for it.

edit on 23-8-2012 by verschickter because: (no reason given)

Finaly somebody that understand Wish I could give you more star
So Phage are you paying attention
You may know what happen up there
But this is what going to happen down here.

Don't forget our system is getting close to an interstellar cloud of magnetized fluff. I don't think we can say for sure what this will mean for our planet. Sure we can highly speculate, but it's never happened in our lifetime, that's for sure.
science.nasa.gov...

The fact that the Fluff is strongly magnetized means that other clouds in the galactic neighborhood could be, too. Eventually, the solar system will run into some of them, and their strong magnetic fields could compress the heliosphere even more than it is compressed now. Additional compression could allow more cosmic rays to reach the inner solar system, possibly affecting terrestrial climate and the ability of astronauts to travel safely through space. On the other hand, astronauts wouldn't have to travel so far because interstellar space would be closer than ever. These events would play out on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years, which is how long it takes for the solar system to move from one cloud to the next.

ETA: "could affect the ability of astronauts to travel safely through space." Didn't we pull all our astronauts out of space in the last year?

reply to post by eriktheawful

But the gap in the spark plug is very small, so that potential is able to make the jump easily.

But you made a huge mistake here. Potential does not jump, its the electrons that are moving. Voltage is the difference in potential of two points. Means, electron count difference. Electrical field is the "space" in the conductor (can be air, too, see elco´s) between the potential.

We have to differ between that, its important.
When high energy electrons punch through the magnetic ribbons and hit conductors, they pose a external electron source so we could calculate the maximum electron count in all those conductors but its not the only factor, there is induction, too.

reply to post by lacrimaererum


I never understand when why some threads go flagged and yet unstarred

Don't let Phage dishearten you, he has a good eye for facts, but can be fallible and dogmatic,

If it helps your cause, since 2010 I've heard about the 2013 solar storms a cummin..

And I definately saw a NASA comment on it at one point, I'm sure there was a thread and everything.. Wonder where thats gone...

My OCD drives me mad when the stars don't equate to flags!! aha.

Permanent damage to the Salem New Jersey Nuclear Plant GSU Transformer caused by the March 13, 1989 geomagnetic storm. Photos courtesy of PSE&G.

reply to post by verschickter

If induced voltage hits the grid on the long 400+ kV lines, the transformators will transform it down / bridge the voltage down to the lower kV grids. Now if there is an voltage offset from 40.000 volts on your 230/400V power grid, your galvanic isolation is nullified because that arc will just bridge either the switching relais or directly over the contacts.

Why would it arc to an isolated generator system? If the system is isolated it is not likely to be the path of least resistance to ground.

Where does that 40,000 volts come from? It is calculated that under "ideal" conditions induced currents can reach about 12 v/km. That means that to produce 40,000 volts there would have to be more than 3,000 km of continuous transmission line subjected to the same ground current. That is not feasible.

Induced currents cause transformers (and capacitor banks, and relays) to fail through half cycle saturation, not extremely high voltages. The damage is due to out of phase currents, not extremely high currents.

reply to post by verschickter

Yes. Damage due to half cycle saturation. Not arcing.

Originally posted by impaired

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by impaired

 

Link is broken but NASA confirmed the possibility of something like this happening specifically in the beginning of 2013:

Please provide information from NASA specifically confirming the beginning of 2013.

A severe geomagnetic storm can happen at virtually any time. Next week, next month, next year, not for 10 years, not for 200 years. No one has the ability to predict them at this time.

Well, I can't find a DIRECT NASA link, but I see a lot of articles talking about how NASA said something.

yup.

edit on 8/22/2012 by Phage because: (no reason given)

"Deny Ignorance"

Edit:

At the very least, Michio Kaku and many other QUALIFIED people are saying something could go down. You can argue semantics with me, but you can not argue EXPERTS.

edit on 8/22/2012 by impaired because: (no reason given)

don't bother, he will try anyway

ty for the vid!

Sorry -- double post
[I quoted my post when I meant to edit my post]
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