Are solar flares a legitimate threat?

EMP wasnt part of my focus, just was part of the information I found pertaining to shunt capacitors. The following I copied from wikipedia.

Electric grid
When magnetic fields move about in the vicinity of a conductor such as a wire, a geomagnetically induced current is produced in the conductor. This happens on a grand scale during geomagnetic storms (the same mechanism also influences telephone and telegraph lines, see above) on all long transmission lines. Power companies which operate long transmission lines (many kilometers in length) are thus subject to damage by this effect. Notably, this chiefly includes operators in China, North America, and Australia; the European grid consists mainly of shorter transmission cables, which are less vulnerable to damage.[13]

The (nearly direct) currents induced in these lines from geomagnetic storms are harmful to electrical transmission equipment, especially generators and transformers — induces core saturation, constraining their performance (as well as tripping various safety devices), and causes coils and cores to heat up. This heat can disable or destroy them, even inducing a chain reaction that can blow transformers throughout a system.[14][15][16] This is precisely what happened on March 13, 1989: in Québec, as well as across parts of the northeastern U.S., the electrical supply was cut off to over 6 million people for 9 hours due to a huge geomagnetic storm. Some areas of Sweden were similarly affected.

According to a study by Metatech corporation,[17] a storm with a strength comparative to that of 1921, 130 million people would be left without power and 350 transformers would be broken, with a cost totaling 2 trillion dollars[not specific enough to verify].

By receiving geomagnetic storm alerts and warnings (e.g. by the Space Weather prediction Center; via Space Weather satellites as SOHO or ACE), power companies can (and often do) minimize damage to power transmission equipment, by momentarily disconnecting transformers or by inducing temporary blackouts. Preventative measures also exist, including digging transmission cables into the soil, placing lightning rods on transmission wires, reducing the operating voltages of transformers, and using cables that are shorter than 10 km[citation needed].

link here en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by quest4info

The (nearly direct) currents induced in these lines from geomagnetic storms are harmful to electrical transmission equipment, especially generators and transformers — induces core saturation, constraining their performance (as well as tripping various safety devices), and causes coils and cores to heat up. This heat can disable or destroy them, even inducing a chain reaction that can blow transformers throughout a system.[14][15][16] This is precisely what happened on March 13, 1989: in Québec, as well as across parts of the northeastern U.S., the electrical supply was cut off to over 6 million people for 9 hours due to a huge geomagnetic storm. Some areas of Sweden were similarly affected.

According to a study by Metatech corporation,[17] a storm with a strength comparative to that of 1921, 130 million people would be left without power and 350 transformers would be broken, with a cost totaling 2 trillion dollars[not specific enough to verify].

link here en.wikipedia.org...

The astounding lack of logic in that statement gets me.

They are assuming a linear comparison.

One transformer blew in Quebec with that storm. So, one X times larger will blow 350.

Unh…. Think here.

The one transformer took out power to the entire east coast.

Once the power goes out, then how are you going to have abnormal heating from the transformer operating in a saturated state?

As I stated before, there is no way fathomable, that you could get the power to stay on long enough for 350 units to go south.

If another big one goes out on the east coast, that will take out power for the east coast again. Another couple in the west coast, and the whole country is out.

reply to post by Mr Tranny


Your post makes me feel better.

Our government has aways told us to keep at least a week of water stored, just in case, because in any disaster, they won't be able to get to us fast. It's good they tell us not to depend on them.

If only a few transformers go down, that's easy enough to fix. It'll take some time, but not months, thankfully. The media blows things out of proportion, I think they like to see people panicking. I have heard them talk about "all the transformers" blowing. It's nice to hear from someone who knows. Also Wikipedia comes in handy for lots of stuff, but it isn't always accurate.

reply to post by Phage


ok so i am a little confused, i thought solar flares and CME was one and the same, M and X Flare, one would just do some funny stuff to sat's in orbit the other good having lights, and then the talk of the "kill shot" no power at all any were, would you or could you enplane. thanks

reply to post by bekod

A solar flare is a burst of electromagnetic energy (sometimes accompanied by high energy particles). It arrives at Earth about 8 minutes after it occurs (speed of light). The class of a solar flare is a measure of the intensity of the x-ray energy released (B, C, M, X).

A CME is a burst of material (plasma) from the Sun and travels at much less than the speed of light. The products of a CME usually take about 3 or 4 days to arrive. There is no classification system for CMEs.

While CMEs are often associated with solar flares it is not always the case.

And above all else, beyond all the automated systems, there is the human factor.
That is a one of my pet peeves about the “perfect disaster” ”solar storm” edition. The part where the mayor, ….or what ever it was, makes the decision to cut the power.

Um…… No!!!!!!! Go back to start, do not collect $200.

The mayor does not own the utility. He/she is not an employee of the utility, that the utility has given the authority to safeguard it’s assets.

That is not his/her JOB!!!!!
If the mayor called the utility and demanded that they shut down the system, the control operator would tell him/her to pound sand.

There is a person slugging cherry cola, sitting behind a control panel that is covered in switches lights, and indicators. He sits there all day watching things, and throwing switches as the day progresses. If protection systems trigger, he can override, or let the go ahead and trigger shutting something off. He can try to balance loads to prevent BAD things from happening. He is the one that is given the sole responsibility to monitor the utility’s equipment. He is the one that the utility pays to safeguard it’s assets. If anything happens, it will be his butt in a sling.

If, and when the utility shuts it’s systems down, it will be the sole decision of that person sitting behind the control panel. Not the mayor, not the governor, and not even the president of the united states.

That person has multiple lines of information available for consumption. Weather forecast, current global temps and weather conditions, solar weather forecast and conditions, up to the second disaster reports, state wide power grid information, and anything else that will affect the system he is watching. He has one button communications access to all the control rooms of the utilities his is interconnected with.

It is an exciting day when a bird takes a dump on a bushing and causes the eastern interconnect to burp. They have aneurisms when it is the middle of consumption peak and a fan quits working on one of their central transformers, causing it’s temp to clime. If they see transformer core temps jumping across the system, and seen harmonic monitors jumping, they would be S###ing bricks.

When they hear other control rooms talking about systems going to red across the country, they couldn’t hit the FOB “Freaking OFF Button” switch fast enough.

Do you honestly think that the person sitting at the control room is going to keep overriding safety interlocks to keep the power flowing as he sits there and listens to audio from other control room operators screaming “What the &$#@ is going on!!!”, and watches the indicators in front of him slowly redline and sees the stations across the network burst into flam?

If I had a bunch of money, I would make a film that would just parody the stupidity of the “perfect disaster” episodes.

reply to post by Mr Tranny


I understand what you are saying and makes total sense to me, thanks again. Seeing how it only took 9 hours to restore Quebec, even if a larger event happened that affected a larger area it would appear that possibly days without power would be more realistic and not the years to fix infrastructure as some articles state.

Ive had snowstorms knock out power for longer than what it appears solar flares or CME's can cause.

Thanks for all the input to make this issue clearer.

reply to post by Phage


thank you now I've got it! will be watching the sun for some time