Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
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Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#2>A similar solar storm today would be catastrophic for modern technological society—potentially wiping out telecommunications and satellite systems, causing massive electricity grid blackouts, and costing us billions of pounds.
I wonder if any country has a disaster recovery plan for this kind on event.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#3The US needs to fund the Strategic Transformer Reserve! DOE estimated the cost would be $500m in 2017, but it would be a bargain at 4x the price.
https://www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/strategic-transformer-...
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#4The US needs to fund the Strategic Transformer Reserve! DOE estimated the cost would be $500m in 2017, but it would be a bargain at 4x the price. https://www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/strategic-transformer-...
I disagree.
A large solar storm is unlikely to damage many transformers. Transformers have low impedance, yet solar storms have the biggest impact on high impedance systems (like copper telephone cables, especially when 'on hook').
The only time a power network is high impedance is when it isn't connected (ie. when part of the power network is switched off). Trivial operational changes could be made to ensure that offline parts of a power network are grounded during a solar storm.
Reserve transformers might be a good plan for other reasons - eg. fast recovery after a war on US soil - transformers are usually early targets in war, and hard to defend.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#5[flagged]
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#6The US needs to fund the Strategic Transformer Reserve! DOE estimated the cost would be $500m in 2017, but it would be a bargain at 4x the price. https://www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/strategic-transformer-...
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Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#7The US needs to fund the Strategic Transformer Reserve! DOE estimated the cost would be $500m in 2017, but it would be a bargain at 4x the price. https://www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/strategic-transformer-...
I disagree. A large solar storm is unlikely to damage many transformers. Transformers have low impedance, yet solar storms have the biggest impact on high impedance systems (like copper telephone cables, especially when 'on hook'). The only time a power network is high impedance is when it isn't connected (ie. when part of the power network is switched off). Trivial operational changes could be made to ensure that of…
transformers are usually early targets in war, and hard to defend early targets in war, and hard to defend.
Not if they're more than meets the eye, like, say, robots in disguise.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#8>A similar solar storm today would be catastrophic for modern technological society—potentially wiping out telecommunications and satellite systems, causing massive electricity grid blackouts, and costing us billions of pounds. I wonder if any country has a disaster recovery plan for this kind on event.
We could always fall back to running the internet with RFC1149
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#9The US needs to fund the Strategic Transformer Reserve! DOE estimated the cost would be $500m in 2017, but it would be a bargain at 4x the price. https://www.energy.gov/ceser/articles/strategic-transformer-...
I disagree. A large solar storm is unlikely to damage many transformers. Transformers have low impedance, yet solar storms have the biggest impact on high impedance systems (like copper telephone cables, especially when 'on hook'). The only time a power network is high impedance is when it isn't connected (ie. when part of the power network is switched off). Trivial operational changes could be made to ensure that of…
Even a Carrington-level event, which refers to a solar coronal mass ejection (CME) observed in 1859, is indeed a concern for modern electrical infrastructure. During such an event, geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) could flow through electrical grids, potentially overheating transformers and causing them to fail. These GICs are particularly harmful to transformers because they can lead to half-cycle saturation, increasing the reactive power demand and causing internal hotspots.
While transformers themselves may have low impedance, it’s the connectivity and expanse of the grid system that makes them vulnerable during geomagnetic disturbances. The longer the conductive path, the more susceptible the system is to GICs, regardless of the impedance characteristics of individual components like transformers.
An X500-level solar flare would be many times more powerful than the Carrington event and could wreak havoc on our electrical infrastructure. Given our increasing reliance on electricity for everything from communications to transportation, the societal impact would be significant.
Hence, the idea of a Strategic Transformer Reserve isn’t just about preparing for solar storms; it’s a multi-hazard approach that also considers other threats like cyber-attacks, terrorism, or even conventional warfare.
The key question remains: do the potential catastrophic consequences justify the financial and logistical costs of maintaining a transformer reserve? From a risk-assessment standpoint, considering the dire impacts of a severe solar event or other threats, investment in a transformer reserve could be seen as a rational and scientifically justified precaution.
Particularly when the lead time to manufacture such equipment is in the order of years. A grid outage of that duration would be biblically catastrophic: without electricity, we have no water, no gasoline, no communications. We’d survive, but the suffering is not something it seems wise to consider an acceptable cost. Especially at a time of enhanced geopolitical competition, the effect of a storm whose severest effects would likely be localized to the sun-facing hemisphere, seems important not to underestimate.
I think it would be great if, instead of countries merely having arms races, they had preparedness races. I guess for us ape-brained humans, tribalism feels more compelling than a threat you can’t bite the face off.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
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