What We Can Do About Massive Solar Flares 224
Reader resistant sends in an update to our discussion a month back on the possibility of violent space weather destroying power grids worldwide during the upcoming solar cycle. Wired is running an interview with Lawrence Joseph, author of "Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End," and John Kappenman, CEO of electromagnetic damage consulting company MetaTech. The piece brings two new threads to the discussion: the recently discovered presence of an unusually large hole in Earth's geomagnetic shield, magnifying our vulnerability, and possible steps we can take over the next few years to make the power grid more robust against solar flares and coronal mass ejections. There's also that whole Mayan 2012 thing. Quoting John Kapperman: "What we're proposing is to add some fairly small and inexpensive resistors in the transformers' ground connections. The addition of that little bit of resistance would significantly reduce the amount of the geomagnetically induced currents that flow into the grid. In its simplest form, it's something that might be made out of cast iron or stainless steel, about the size of a washing machine. ...we think it's do-able for $40,000 or less per resistor. That's less than what you pay for insurance for a transformer. [In the US] there are about 5,000 transformers to consider this for. ... We're talking about $150 million or so. It's pretty small in the grand scheme of things."
Re:There's only one solution (Score:5, Informative)
In other news, I saw this on digg a couple days ago. Grats to slashdot on shamelessly reposting digg content.
Digg doesn't create content.
Interesting point that I'd never heard of, but... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think they know what "science" is.
The title of the book.... (Score:5, Informative)
"Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End"
So many things wrong with this title...first of all, the word Apocalypse derives from Greek 'Apokálypsis' which basically means 'lifting of a veil' or revealing something that was previously hidden to the majority of the population. Currently apocalypse enters into most people's lexicon in the biblical sense referring to the end of days (aka revelation).
2012...well I think we've all seen the movie (trailer). The Mayan calendar puts the end of time at approximately December 21, 2012. But that's not even the Mayan's interpretation of 2012...it just some projected wish that has exploded into popular culture. Many Mayan scholars simply think that the Mayans were simply going to reset the calendar on that day back to zero.
Either way the scientific exploration to the end of our planet or species (which are different things and scenarios) should avoid religious or theological possibilities (because they aren't real).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe [wikipedia.org]
Heat death of the universe and the big crunch are the two most likely scenarios (don't worry you won't be around for either of them). Heat death is basically where the universe becomes void of heat and motion and there is nothing left but immobile objects. The other best theory is the big crunch, basically where gravity pulls all objects together from existence into one singularity.
I always though that that singularity would interact with infinite absolute zero and most likely creates another big bang. If this is true then that would mean it could have happened an infinite number of times before, meaning time is an infinite loop and everything has happened before an infinite number of times and will happen again.
I haven't studied hard science in an academic environment for a while (I went to an amazing science oriented public high school) as I did my undergraduate studies in......sports broadcasting...so here's my disclaimer: some things above might be paraphrased or summarized incorrectly (I did my best).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_and_planet_Earth [wikipedia.org]
This article covers almost everything. Natural disasters occurring from earth (earthquakes, floods, global warming), to space based (gamma ray bursts, impact events), to human based events (nuclear war), to diseases and pandemics, and even things like an A.I. taking over or a singularity from nanotechnology taking over all life (search wiki for Grey goo), and then of course there is the probability (though unlikely) of aliens obliterating our planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_of_human_beings [wikipedia.org]
There was a recent poll on Slashdot asking everyone when the last human would be born...
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1749&aid=-1 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1751&aid=-1 [slashdot.org]
Oh...here comes my boss time to submit and get back to cutting Mets footage.
Balderdash (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is "Knowing" Better? (Score:3, Informative)
After seeing the movie Knowing [wikipedia.org]. I couldn't help but think how screwed Humanity would be if the planet would be in the Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time.
After seeing the movie Knowing, I couldn't help but think that I wanted my nine dollars back. As end-of-the-world scenarios go, that one was pretty weak.
Re:Act now! Avoid Doomsday! (Score:4, Informative)
So, he has determined a doomsday scenario that his company can prevent for $150 million?
He didn't "create" the doomsday scenario involved here, others, including scientists, have been considering this problem for awhile now. Note that TFA has links to two scientific reports that are entirely unconnected with the MetaTech CEO, one is from NASA itself, and the other is published by the National Academies and was funded by NASA.
Re:Act now! Avoid Doomsday! (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't exactly call it a doomsday scenario. These flares happen fairly often.
The NASA funded report that is linked to from TFA is talking about a "Coronal Mass Ejection" [wikipedia.org] which is different from a solar flare, though they are sometimes both created by the same underlying event.
Basically a giant ball of high energy plasma (ionized gas) that is shot out of the Sun, sometimes reaching speeds of 1/3 that of light. Note that a fast CME would give us almost no warning time at all, even if we had detectors close enough to the Sun at the time to detect it. Detecting a CME is not as easy as noticing a solar flare, never mind the problem of determing how large/dangerous it is, then calculating whether or not its going to hit the Earth.
The last one to disrupt power was in March 1989 ...
A more relevant example would be the "1859 Solar Superstorm" [wikipedia.org]. This was a solar event that generated both a CME (that hit the Earth) and multiple solar flares. If an event like this happened *now*, with our extreme dependence on so many things electrical and electronic, it would be a first class catastrophe. That is not hype, although it would not be a "life-ending" kind of catastrophe, it could very well be a "life-as-we-know-it-now-ending" kind of catastrophe.
Note that a large CME could impact the Earth over several days, as the 1859 event did, so we are also talking about a potential *global* catastrophe, not a regional one.
Finally, TFA also links to another recent NASA report about a huge hole just discovered in Earth's protective magnetic shield, so the important point to take away from TFA is that we are about to enter a period of Solar Maximum [wikipedia.org] with a gaping hole in the only shield which protects us. Getting hit by a large CME now, with that hole in Earth's magnetic shield still present, would lead to a *really* bad day for humanity.
Re:Interesting point that I'd never heard of, but. (Score:4, Informative)
When I hear our need for resistors to limit the damage of massive solar flares uttered in the same sentence as "the whole 2012 thing", the credibility for anything either one of these guys says is gone as far as I'm concerned.
It is unfortunate that we have this coincidence between the Mayan Long Calendar "prediction" for 2012, and the fact that we're entering a Solar Maximum period (which will peak in 2012) with a gaping hole in our planet's magnetic shield and a civilization extremely dependent on an electrical infrastructure that is itself extremely vulnerable to the effects of a large geomagnetic storm.
I leave it up to you as to whether you should ignore the latter just because of the former.
I don't think they know what "science" is.
"They" in this case aren't scientists, and aren't pretending to be. Note however that "they", and TFA, are all referring to scientific reports from NASA and the US National Academy of Sciences to base their ideas on.
I don't know about you, but I *do* think that NASA and the US National Academy of Sciences know what "science" is.
Re:EU safe? (Score:3, Informative)
As far as I know, the electrical grid in most of EU have always been protected against that.
Sure about that? [newscientist.com]
From the above link:
Neither is Europe sufficiently prepared. Responsibility for dealing with space weather issues is "very fragmented" in Europe, says Hapgood.
Europe's electricity grids, on the other hand, are highly interconnected and extremely vulnerable to cascading failures. In 2006, the routine switch-off of a small part of Germany's grid - to let a ship pass safely under high-voltage cables - caused a cascade power failure across western Europe. In France alone, five million people were left without electricity for two hours. "These systems are so complicated we don't fully understand the effects of twiddling at one place," Hapgood says. "Most of the time it's alright, but occasionally it will get you."
Re:Fairly small resistors (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm, well according to NASA [nasa.gov], a new solar cycle began at the start of last year, that was when the current solar minimum "bottomed out" so to speak.
So we've been coming out of solar minimum for more than a year now, with the expected increased activity to start showing up around 2012.
Its an 11 year cycle, so if NASA is right and the new one started in Jan. 2008, then the midpoint of the cycle, when solar maximum occurs, will be sometime in 2013.
Re:Wired BS (Score:3, Informative)
Million kilovolt transformers?
They're probably talking about the new (created within the last year by various manufacturers) 800-kV transformers (in other places 750kV is listed) that were made specifically for China's new electricity distribution projects. All prior transformer substations are rated somewhere south of 500kV.
That's a billion volts, into fantasy and beyond.
Well, first, these things are rated by their manufacturers at 800kV, which might be a conservative rating, for all we know they might be able to handle 1000kV right now, albeit with some risk, and second, since it won't be that big of a jump to go from 800kV to 1000kV (going from 500 to 800 was a relatively bigger jump), my response would have to be: "welcome to the future". :)
Here's a picture of one of them [siemens.com], made by Siemens. Those tiny figures you see in the bottom left of the picture aren't ants, they're humans! The thing is the size of a house!?!
Re:Fairly small resistors (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fairly small resistors (Score:4, Informative)
or has NASA backtracked from calling 2008 the start of a new one?
Never mind, I just found a couple of things that suggest NASA, nor anyone else, really know when cycle 24 will actually start:
http://solarchaos.blogspot.com/2008/11/history-of-cycle-24-predictions.html [blogspot.com]
http://solarchaos.blogspot.com/2009/04/nasa-4.html [blogspot.com]
And this shows actual sunspots have been deviating from predicted sunspots for the last 6 months or so:
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfjmms.html [sidc.oma.be]