Nasty Solar Storms Ahead

reply to post by camaro68ss

There was no solar flare (or storm) on Sunday June 6.


There was a single sunspot on the right limb of the Sun.







[edit on 6/10/2010 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


idk much about the sun but think that sun spot could of done anything more per say than normal?

Yea don't think we have really seen a solar storm the size that the NASA peeps are worried about.

Messed up part is if we do see the big solar storm to end all transistors.... we will not be able to post up about it.

lmao

reply to post by robbinsj

That sunspot was tiny and it was not "aimed" in our direction. It didn't do anything.

Solar storms don't necessarily have much effect on Earth. It's only when the strong and turbulent solar wind produced by them hits Earth that we may might have problems. It produces geomagnetic storms.

The electronics in satellites are at risk from such events but on the Earth's surface it is really only power grids that create problems. It isn't an EMP. Your car, iPod and laptop will be just fine (unless it's plugged in at the time).

reply to post by Dr Expired


The information I was referring to was from a guy that was posting on GLP that was privy to information about an unknown object interacting with our sun and causing possible problems with our grid and us being able to respond to possible problems

The information sounded legit but take it for what its worth. Unknown person stating they had clearance but who really knows with the internet They guy stated to prep to be without power for at least 6 months possibly longer in rural areas in case the fails safes didn't do what they are suppose to do... But again unknown person posting on a forum.. take it for what its worth.

Oh my god, what if this storm knocked out a nuclear power plant and the power plant could not control the control rods. INSTANT MELTDOWN. No power for months or maybe even a year. Talk about total chaos in the cities. Especially at nite. NO TV, NO CELL PHONES, NO GPS,NO COMMUNICATIONS. Some cars will not work. Anything electronic will be affected in some way shape or form. TOTAL MAYHAN, Work will cease because the electronics fried. TRUCKS use electronics to deliver procucts, they will be down. Also because trucks down, food will not get delivered. I hope these two years comming, the sun will be nice to mother earth. If not and a really bad solar storm hits we all could go back to the horse and buggy days.

Originally posted by camaro68ss
yeah seen this on Yahoo a few min ago. the last huge solar storm that hit the USA took out all the teligragh line in the 1800. sorry for the spelling. if it can do that it can take out all electronics as we know them. hope you have an old car like me that doesent use a computer chip.

Doesn't work that way. The reason that telegraph lines were affected (and it didn't "take out all of them") was that they were miles long, and poorly insulated.

Shorter lines would be affected to a lesser extent or not at all. Nor would your computer be.

Originally posted by OuttaTime
reply to post by robbinsj

 

And we can only hope that all the recon sattelites go BZZZT!! That would sure level the field between us and them

To a great extent, you just "safe" them and wait.

If you get a lot of particle trapping in the lower magnetosphere causing beta ray damage to our spaceborne assets, they'll use HAARP to sweep the magnetosphere clean.

It's one of the things you can do pretty well from Gakona. We've also got satellites that can do it now.

reply to post by Phage


To what extent do you mean when you say plugged in? MY t.v is plugged in. The nuclear power plants are a direct line to power grids. Forklifts at work get plugged in, to regenerate the batteries. My computer and everyone elses is plugged in. All my house appliances are plugged in. My ac is plugged in. The electric stove is plugged in. No SATILITE, no t.v, no computer, no radio. What is not plugged in? These days one thing is connected to another in some shape way or form for it to work. I'M CONFUSED, PLUGGED IN.

reply to post by nite owl

My reply concerned this statement:

Messed up part is if we do see the big solar storm to end all transistors

Transistors are not affected by solar storms or geomagnetic storms...unless they are connected to a power outlet at the time. Yes, failure of portions of the power grid is possible. No, electronic equipment is not directly affected by geomagnetic activity. nite owl seems to be under the wrong impression about what the real problem would be.

[edit on 6/10/2010 by Phage]

I go to this link almost everyday to get the latest space weather - be sure and scroll down and read about today's solar activity.

spaceweather.tv...

reply to post by Phage


Second this post. A geomagnetic storm is NOT an EMP. I don't know why this got started. They're not the same at all.

Hell, even an EMP doesn't spell "the end of all transistors". That's a common journalist's meme, but these guys couldn't format a flash drive if you paid them.

What happens with a solar/geomagnetic storm/CME are two main things: geomagnetic heave, and particle impact, with possible late trapping.

When the coronal mass hits the geomagnetic fan, the Earth's magnetic field starts a low frequency bucking motion, sort of like your hand does when you hold it out the window of a car going down the highway. This oscillation in the field induces currents in long lines, like the ones used to distribute high voltage AC between electrical grids in the US. This is called geomagnetic heave. The problem this causes is somewhat technical for the average ATS user, but basically, the transformers they use are not designed to be able to deal with what is essentially a DC current superimposed on the AC they're designed for. It causes the cores to saturate. When this happens, their inductance collapses, and they become what is known as "short circuits". Then they burn up. It's not because of super solar power getting into them, it's because they become unbalanced and walk off their B-H curves, quit being transformers, and become loads.

There are ways to stop this, and it costs money, so they don't do it, because they plan to just shut down long lines during the worst bits. It's a bad gamble.

The other thing you have happen is damage to satellite assets due to direct impact by the incoming particles, and magnetospheric trapping which causes the incoming particles to loop in big circles at hellacious speeds, giving them lots and lots of passes at your satellites for a week or two after the event is over.

For the first part, you have some shielding on the satellites, but not a lot. It's best to just shut them down temporarily to prevent logic level upset damage. There's not a lot you can do about crystal lattice damage to solar cells, or damage to FLASH or EEROM data by x-ray bursts caused by Bremsstrahlung radiation secondary to impact with the satellite's skin and framework.

For the second part, you either wait it out or you can purge the magnetosphere of those particles going in loops using a really neat trick which HAARP can do, also a few satellites the USAF put up a few years back. You could also do it from the Antarctic back a few years ago but they discontinued that mission.

Found the following this morning on www.foxnews.com. At top of main page click on SCITECH tab.

Excerpt:"The House is so concerned that the Energy and Commerce committee voted unanimously 47 to 0 to approve a bill allocating $100 million to protect the energy grid from this rare but potentially devastating occurrence.

The Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act, or H.R. 5026, aims "to amend the Federal Power Act to protect the bulk-power system and electric infrastructure critical to the defense of the United States against cybersecurity and other threats and vulnerabilities."

Any thoughts??

reply to post by maybee


In places the article is actually correct - the mechanism of damage by a solar event is line trips and long-line transformer damage. That mechanism is by core saturation and inductance collapse, as I said but the article leaves out.

It sort of goes off the rails at the end - Bartlett is wrong, (nat geo also) in that it is not an EMP at all. Both HAND induced EMP and solar flare impact share geomagnetic heave, you get that on both events, but nuclear EMP has a large number of other effects that solar flare events lack, mainly the highly energetic, sharply bounded Compton effect pulse. Solar flares have heave, not pulse. Nukes cause both.

It doesn't make for a good disaster show, though.

edit: I got in trouble on another forum once by bringing this up, but one reason you'd be down for so long is that we do not stock any spares at all for the very specialized high voltage cross-country line transformers, and IIRC, they're only made in Germany. And it takes a long, long, long time for them to make one. If they were wiped out, we don't have the infrastructure, nor spares, to replace them. Thus the 4-10 years for total restoration.

Long ago and far away, when I was taking 'breaking people's infrastructure' class, we covered taking a Barrett to the long line transformers in the US. It turns out a dozen really pissed off snipers with a bug up their butts could also do this 4-10 years thing by just poking holes in the transformers with a .50 cal. They're not guarded.

If they wanted to get this 4-10 year timeframe thing down, they need to stock 100% replacements, fix the ground current issue (thus the $100 million) and maybe add some security. Like I said in an above post, it's not like you CAN'T remove this weakness, it's just that it costs money and time to do it, and the guys running the power companies are not about to spend either.

[edit on 11-6-2010 by Bedlam]