Solar Flare Doom in 2011?

[Vortex]

I have just watched a TV program which suggests that a solar flare in 2011 could wipe out our power grid and send us back to the (literally) Dark Ages.

As if Peak Oil, Global Warming, Islamification, WW3, water shortages, grey nano sludge weren't bad enough .....

All this makes me want to bury a tin box of goodies so my family can have at least of bit of luxury after whatever hits first!

(God forbid if they all hit at once!)

[J. R. Ewing]

grey nano sludge weren't bad enough .....

What exactly is this?

[Aurora]

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should all just sit back with a nice glass of wine and/or a toke, get comfy, and watch the spectacle unfold in all it's glory. Don't worry, be happy!

[mobbsey]

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should all just sit back with a nice glass of wine and/or a toke, get comfy, and watch the spectacle unfold in all it's glory. Don't worry, be happy!

I think Jim Morrison summed it up succinctly on the "An American Prayer" album:

I tell you this man, I tell you this... we're gonna have our kicks before the whole sit house goes up in flames.

In reality I think the "Chapman/Foley Paradox" will kick in -- both authors (Peter Chapman and Gerald Foley, who wrote a lot on energy in the late 70s) asked themselves why Paul Erlich's predictions didn't come true. They concluded that it was because he made them! Or, as the philosopher C.M. Jones said, "wee think of bad things in order that they do not happen".

[Vortex]

grey nano sludge weren't bad enough .....

What exactly is this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

[Andy Hunt]

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should all just sit back with a nice glass of wine and/or a toke, get comfy, and watch the spectacle unfold in all it's glory. Don't worry, be happy!

Ahaaa!!!!

Well I am prepared for every eventuality.

I saw the programme too, very interesting. I couldn't help thinking that it might be just another roundabout way to get people thinking about how they might live without power, though . . .

[Vortex]

Whilst on TV programs, I was very tired and accidentally watched "American Wife Swap" ... (blush)

A yokel wife from Iowa went to the Big City.

It was interesting that as she was driven into the city she said essentially that "These people will starve if any disaster hits."

Perhaps the country folk can sometimes see the blindingly obvious ...

[simonrichards912]

I didn't know we knew enough about the sun to predict these things 4 years ahead. Why can't we get tomorrows weather right?

[Bandidoz]

I have just watched a TV program which suggests that a solar flare in 2011 could wipe out our power grid and send us back to the (literally) Dark Ages.

I doubt very much that it would be a permanent effect. Canada and the US have suffered blackouts because their power grids are effectively large aerials which can "receive" energy from CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) causing their circuit breakers to trip.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_10_28/

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003 ... itwads.htm

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/workbook/storms.html

The March 24, 1940 storm caused a temporary disruption of electrical service in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Quebec and Ontario. A storm on February 9-10, 1958 caused a power transformer failure at the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority. On August 2, 1972, the Bureau of Reclamation power station in Watertown, South Dakota was subjected to large swings in power line voltages up to 25,000 volts. Similar voltage swings were reported by Wisconsin Power and Light, Madison Gas and Electric, and Wisconsin Public Service Corporation. A 230,000-volt transformer at the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority exploded, and Manitoba Hydro in Canada recorded power drops from 164 to 44 megawatts in a matter of a few minutes, in the power it was supplying to Minnesota.

Have a nice day!

Perhaps the most dramatic, recent impact occurred in March 1989 during the peak of the last sunspot cycle, when the sun produced one of the most powerful storms ever recorded. On March 13, 1989 Alaskan and Scandinavian observers were treated to a spectacular auroral display. In fact, this display was seen as far south as the Mediterranean and Japan. Although many millions of people marveled at this beautiful spectacle, many millions more were not so happy about it. Hydro-Quebec on Saint James Bay did the best it could to stabilize the power surges its lines received but ultimately failed the challenge. For 9 hours, large portions of Quebec were plunged into darkness.

According to John Kappenman, who is in charge of Transmission Power Engineering at Minnesota Power and Electric, the frequency of transformer failures is higher in geographic regions where magnetic storms are also more common such as the Northeastern US region which had 60% more transformer failures. Moreover, the number of failures follow a solar activity pattern of roughly 11 years. A conservative estimate of the damage done by geomagnetic storms to transformers by Minnesota Power and Electric was $100 million. Oak Ridge National Laboratories estimated that the collateral impact to the economy of another March 1989 storm of only slightly greater severity would produce a Northeast United States blackout, and cause $6 billion in damage. The North American Electric Reliability Council placed the March 1989 and October 1991 storm events in a category equivalent to Hurricane Hugo or the San Francisco earthquake in their impact upon the national economy.

Just as good for generating large induced currents as telegraph and power lines are long, uninterrupted segments of oil and natural gas pipelines. Currents flowing in pipelines are known to enhance the rate of corrosion over time, and this can have catastrophic effects. On June 4, 1989 a powerful gas pipeline explosion demolished part of the Trans-Siberian Railroad engulfing two passenger trains in flames. Rescue workers at the Ural Mountain site worked frantically to rescue passengers. Of the 1200, all but 500 could be saved. Many of the victims were children bound for holiday camps by the Black Sea. Apparently gas from a leak in the pipe line was ignited by the two passing trains. The gas settled into the valley that the trains were passing through at the time. Rumors of sabotage were wide spread among the local population, but no one suspected the aurora and the invisible corrosive currents it spawned over time. The Alaskan oil pipeline is a newer technology and is specifically designed to minimize these geomagnetic currents, but the Siberian pipeline was an older technology without these safeguards in place.

You would think that all this catastrophe would surely be picked up by major newspapers, but you would be quite wrong. The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and the London Times were curiously silent about the March 1989 blackout. Only the Toronto Star on March 13, 1989 reported that "Huge Storms on Sun linked to blackout that crippled Quebec" The problem is that many of these calamitous events are at the nuisance level, and they are seemingly unrelated. No grand conspiracy is afoot, and only small, geographically remote segments of humanity seem to be affected. But now times have definitely changed as we enter the Satellite Era with hundreds of millions of subscribers relying on the flawless and reliable working of satellite technology.

[grinu]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006 ... ycle24.htm

Dec. 21, 2006: Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one.

Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006 ... kwards.htm

Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, swinging back and forth between times of quiet and storminess. Right now the sun is quiet. "We're near the end of Solar Cycle 23, which peaked way back in 2001," explains Hathaway. The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin "any time now," returning the sun to a stormy state.

Satellite operators and NASA mission planners are bracing for this next solar cycle because it is expected to be exceptionally stormy, perhaps the stormiest in decades. Sunspots and solar flares will return in abundance, producing bright auroras on Earth and dangerous proton storms in space

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006 ... arning.htm

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.

In 1958 you couldn't tell that a solar storm was underway by looking at the bars on your cell phone; cell phones didn't exist. Even so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were sighted three times in Mexico. A similar maximum now would be noticed by its effect on cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other modern technologies.

Interestingly the peak of the next sun-spot cycle and polar reversal of the sun corresponds with the 'end date' of the Mayan calendar, which apparently is more accurate than our lunar calander. We live in interesting times.