Image: NASA
A massive burst of solar wind that erupted from the sun Tuesday is expected to deliver only a "glancing blow" to the Earth's vulnerable magnetic field, NASA officials said yesterday. But it will preview what some experts call a potentially existential threat to the power grids of the United States and other nations, and the populations that depend on them.
Antti Pulkkinen, who leads NASA's "Solar Shield" satellite-based detection system at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said the cloud of ionized particles from Tuesday's violent "coronal mass ejection" will largely miss Earth, giving some North American residents a glimpse of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, this weekend. "It will not be a major event [for] the power grid," he said.
However, NASA spacecraft detected a much larger eruption last weekend on the backside of the sun headed away from Earth, generating a much faster-moving cloud.
"If this event was on a collision course with the U.S., we would have had a major space weather event," Pulkkinen said. "In this regard, we got lucky."
The next peak cycle of sunspot activity is predicted for 2012-2014, bringing with it a greater risk of large geomagnetic storms that can generate powerful rogue currents in transmission lines, potentially damaging or destroying the large transformers that manage power flow over high-voltage networks.
"Geomagnetically-induced currents on system infrastructure have the potential to result in widespread tripping of key transmission lines and irreversible physical damage to large transformers," a 2009 report by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) and the Energy Department says.
Agreement on the seriousness of the threat, but not the solution
In the worst-case scenario, the stockpile of spare transformers would fall far short of replacement needs. Urban centers across the continent would be without power for many months or even years, until new transformers could be manufactured and delivered from Asia. The transformers are not made in the United States.
"If the solar storm of 1921, which has been termed a one-in-100-year event, were to occur today, well over 300 extra-high-voltage transformers could be damaged or destroyed, thereby interrupting power to 130 million people for a period of years," Joseph McClelland, director of the Office of Electric Reliability at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said at a May 31 House Energy subcommittee hearing on the issue.
"The U.S. society and economy are so critically dependent upon the availability of electricity that a significant collapse of the grid precipitated by a major natural or man-made EMP [electro-magnetic pulse] event could result in catastrophic civilian casualties," Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said at the same hearing.
The U.S. grid currently relies for its defense on warnings from NASA that would alert U.S. utilities to take actions to protect their systems. Tuesday's storm did not require a response, NERC said.
But the alerts have the effect of advice and there are no mandatory, enforceable procedures or emergency actions, NERC officials say. No comprehensive plan exists to retrofit the transmission grid with protective devices, although the Electric Power Research Institute, the industry's primary research and development organization, is developing a range of technical responses.
The threat is a top priority for FERC and NERC, their officials say, but the two organizations have sparred over the reach of new federal authority that could be created to upgrade the grid's protective equipment and defensive plans.
While the House last year passed the "GRID Act," addressing vulnerabilities of the bulk power sector to natural threats and cyber attacks, action in the Senate is tied up by conflicting bids for jurisdiction by five different committees.
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5 Comments
Add CommentAccording to Sen. Inhofe solar "weather" is a hoax.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe Sen. Inhofe said something that sounded like, inshallah.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeeing that he received a BA degree, I would doubt that it would be in either physics, or engineering, and that he was elected due to his ideology rather than his critical thinking skills.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the bigger problem, that appears as little more than a footnote in the article, is that transformers are not available on a wide scale due to the fact that they AREN'T PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES. Perhaps we need to wake up to the fact that if we continue to rely on other countries - in much the same way that American auto manufacturers needed parts made in Japan after the tsunami - we will be out in the cold very shortly.
Wake up, America! The economic canary in the coal mine is gasping his last breath!!!! If you keep electing simply based on party lines than on competency, you will reap what you sow.
The modern electric grid has proven to be very vulnerable to the solar activities of the sun, the electric grid was not designed for overcapacity and with out any surge protections that would keep it safe from overload. As with an electric system in a house or a commercial building, there are built in safety features, like breakers that trip when there is an electric surge in order to prevent damaging electric appliances or outlets. The electric grid, that supplies the needs of residential and commercial communities their electric needs, has no safe guards built into the system. Like lighting seeking a ground, the energy from these sun storms seeks a ground, the electric grid. Electric dump wells for overcapacity caused by these coronal mass ejections in order to prevent the system from being fried and rendered useless. We need more that just a "smart" grid, we need an "AI" grid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolar flares are definately a scare to me and should be a scare to everyone else as well. But here's the thing, there's more ways than just this one that can cause our Power Grid to fail. Have you guys heard about Iran wanting to try to attack our Power Grid? There's a guy named Reza Kahlili who was undercover for the CIA over there and now he's here to tell us what's going on and how they want to attack our Grid. He's going to be on EMPact Americas radio blog to talk about different things having to do with this- should be really interesting. Here's the link to check it out: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/empact-radio/2011/06/29/pvp55--reza-kahlili-author-of-a-time-to-betray
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