Solar storm may shut down the U.S. and other countries?!

[VoidEater]

Current technological society has survived flares in our lifetimes. We've even survived global emergency warnings and those that ignore them.

[Holy Diver]

Of course, because we all know that solar flares are caused by greenhouse gases.

Wrong! Solar flares are caused by evil Republicans.

[Sachi]

I just know that some environmentalist nut will make a movie out of this.

They kinda have, in a movie that my dad has all stoked to see, and I knew would be crap, and afterward he agreed with me.

Knowing starring Nicholas Cage

[THE Hal E. Burton 9000]

It sounds familiar, but I can't recall the source do tell.

My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are.

and H.R. Giger ftw

About a year to late for that Hal

hmm, you haven't looked at a Mayan calendar lately, have you?

[Synapsid]

My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are...wiki/H.R._Giger]

Ah okay, sorry about that I guess I'm just an airhead right now.

hmm, you haven't looked at a Mayan calendar lately, have you?

But it's just the end of a long count cycle... unless if you're implying some accompanying cataclism?

[Rommel]

Of course, because we all know that solar flares are caused by greenhouse gases.

Wrong! Solar flares are caused by evil Republicans.

Everything is caused by evil republicans.

[Guyver Spawn]

I just know that some environmentalist nut will make a movie out of this.

Someone would.

Their has been many movies based on solar storms like Contact which I think was based on (I have not seen the movie since the 90's and I forgot it until today when I watch South Park today).

[Alaska Slim]

Everything is caused by evil republicans, then allowed to happen by apathetic Democrats.

Fixed.

@Guyver Spawn:

Contact was about Contacting extraterrestrial life.

On the other hand, solar flares were the cause to blame in Stargate when SG-1 when back to the 1960's, this quality later served as a Deus Ex Machina to bail themselves out of trouble not once, but twice if I'm remembering correctly.

[Guyver Spawn]

Contact was about Contacting extraterrestrial life.

It been ages since I saw the movie and I don't remember that much of it. Well the Fantasic Four had a clouds of cosmic energy in space, and has calculated that one of these clouds is soon going to pass near Earth which would be the closet thing to a Solar Storm.

[Dartz]

IIRC, a Solar Storm caused an electrical blackout in Canada in the 80's. Powerlines acted as giant antennas and charged up with the increased Solar wind. There was so much energy going through the things that the whole electric grid collapsed.


There are safeguards in electrical grids to prevent such overloads (usually from lightning, or a helicopter hitting the lines), basically these are larger versions of the circuit breakers in your home. When a powerline faults, the breakers sense the extra current, and act to isolate the faulting line from the grid. They do this just long enough so that the fault will clear itself and any electrical arcing will extinguish. Then, they slam shut again. This is a Trip and Reclose. Ideally, this will all happen in less than a second.

If the fault is still live, the breaker will trip and reclose a second time. If this still doesnt clear it, the breaker will trip a third time, and remain open. There's obviously equipment damage somewhere out there.

Now normally, there's another way around, especially at the higher voltage levels, so 9/10, this will go unnoticed, except for customers connected to the isolated area. But, if a solar storm like this, is charging the entire grid, then a lot of breakers will trip and remain open, potentially leading the whole grid to collapse down, the whole lot will go to blackout.

There won't necessarily be any equipment damage from this mind, the whole reason the breakers are there is to prevent excess energy from damaging equipment, but even with no damage, it takes a long time to blackstart a dead national grid.

I remember one simulation, it took the best part of half a day just to bootstrap 2 single power stations here.

Factor in the communications difficulties caused by a loss of mobile phone towers and possibly landlines( since these must ultimately be fed by the grid) and things are going to get hairy pretty quickly. How long did it take to get power back to the Northeastern US after it blacked out a few years ago?

It is a problem, but remains very much improbable. 9/10, the only things that will have to worry about solar storms, are orbiting satellites getting zapped by the massive charges in the particles. Even then, foir a solar storm to hit Earth, it'll have to come off the sun at precisely the right angle to hit us. Space is big and 3d, and compared to the sun, the Earth is a very small target.

One thing is for sure, the decrease in Solar Activity this Solar minimum, must be a symptom of global warming and climate change. Sure, everything fucking else is.

[Mr. Tines]

One thing is for sure, the decrease in Solar Activity this Solar minimum, must be a symptom of global warming and climate change.

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

[Dartz]

One thing is for sure, the decrease in Solar Activity this Solar minimum, must be a symptom of global warming and climate change.

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

I was referring to the 11 year (or so) Solar Activity cycle. And of course, we go back to that video tracking climate heating, with Solar Activity....

[BEsERk EVA01]

When I first saw the title, I instantly thought:

Aw, so you're just going to leave Australia out of this? You know what, just fuck you. Lol. :)

If only it were true .. globally though.