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Preventing Armageddon Would Cost Only $100 Million … But Congress Is Too Thick to Approve the Fix
The government has thrown tens of trillions of dollars at the big banks, even though bailing out the big banks hurts – rather than helps – the American economy. See this, this and this. (And it doesn’t take a PhD economist to guess that using bailout funds to buy gold toilet seats and prostitutes is probably not the best way to stimulate the economy as a whole)..
Nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz says that the $3-5 trillion spent on the Iraq war alone has been very bad for the American economy. See this, this and this. Security experts – including both hawks and doves – agree that waging war against Iraq and in other Middle Eastern countries weakens national security and increases terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
The government has thrown money at all sorts of other useless projects.
And yet Congress refuses to spend a mere $100 million to prevent Armageddon.
Specifically, well-known physicist Michio Kaku and other members of the American Physical Society asked Congress to appropriate $100 million to harden the country’s electrical grid against solar flares.
Congress refused.
Kaku explains that a solar flare like the one that hit the U.S. in 1859 would – in the current era of nuclear power and electric refrigeration – cause Armageddon.
Not only could such a flare bring on multiple Fukushima type accidents, but it could well cause food riots nationwide.
Kaku explains that relief came in for people hit by disasters like Katrina or Sandy from the “outside”. But a large solar flare could knock out a lot of the power nationwide. So – as people’s food spoils due to lack of refrigeration – emergency workers from other areas would be too preoccupied with their own local crisis to help. There would, in short, be no “cavalry” to the rescue in much of the country.
Such an event would be the most likely Armageddon-type event to hit us (from a secular source, anyway … remember, the Mayans aren’t predicting the end of the world this year.)
In addition, we’ve spent tens of trillions on the “war on terror”, but have failed to take steps to protect against the largest terrorist threat of all: an attack on the power supplies to nuclear power plants. As discussed in more detail below, an electromagnetic pulse (emp) which took out the power supply to a nuclear power plant would cause a Fukushima-style meltdown, and spent fuel pools are extremely vulnerable to terrorism.
We’ve sounded the alarm for years about the failure to harden our electrical system against electromagnetic storms from our sun.
For example, we noted last year that the extreme vulnerability of nuclear power plants to solar flares is a very real threat which we must address:
Nasa scientists are predicting that a solar storm will knock out most of the electrical power grid in many countries worldwide, perhaps for months. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
Indeed, the Earth’s magnetic field protects us from the sun’s most violent radiation, and yet the magnetic field fluctuates over time. As the Telegraph reported in 2008:
Large hole in magnetic field that protects Earth from sun’s rays … Recent satellite observations have revealed the largest breach yet seen in the magnetic field that protects Earth from most of the sun’s violent blasts.
I’m not predicting some 2012 Mayan catastrophe. [Indeed, I think the whole Mayan 2012 thing is fake.] I am simply warning that a large solar storm – as Nasa is predicting – could knock out power throughout much of the world, especially if the earth’s magnetic field happens to be weak at the time.
What would happen to nuclear power plants world wide if their power – and most of the surrounding modern infrastructure – is knocked out?
Nuclear power companies are notoriously cheap in trying to cut costs. If they are failing to harden their electrical components to protect against the predicted solar storm, they are asking for trouble … perhaps on a scale that dwarfs Fukushima. Because while Fukushima is the first nuclear accident to involve multiple reactors within the same complex, a large solar storm could cause accidents at multiple complexes in numerous countries.
If the nuclear power companies and governments continue to cut costs and take large gambles, the next nuclear accident could make Fukushima look tame.
I’m not saying this will happen in 2012, or 2013 (although Nasa appears to be hinting at this). But a large solar storm which knocks out electrical grids over wide portions of the planet will happen at some point in the future.
Don’t pretend it is unforeseeable. The nuclear power industry is on notice that it must spend the relatively small amounts of money necessary to prevent a widespread meltdown from the loss of power due to a solar storm.
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Most current reactors are of a similarly outdated design as the Fukushima reactors, where the cooling systems require electricity to operate, and huge amounts of spent radioactive fuel are housed on-site, requiring continuous cooling to prevent radioactive release. [Designs which would automatically shut down - and cool down - in the event of an accident are ignored for political reasons.]
The conservative G2 Bulletin reported earlier this year:
As scientists warn of an impending solar storm between now and 2014 that could collapse the national power grid, thrusting millions into darkness instantly, a debate has flared up between utilities and the federal government on the severity of such an event.
NASA and the National Academy of Sciences previously confirmed to G2Bulletin that an electromagnetic pulse event from an intense solar storm could occur any time between now and 2014.
They say it could have the effect of frying electronics and knocking out transformers in the national electric grid system.
Already, there are separate published reports of massive solar storms of plasma – some as large as the Earth itself – flaring off of the sun’s surface and shooting out into space, with some recently having come close enough to Earth to affect worldwide communications and alter the flights of commercial aircraft near the North Pole.
But in February, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which represents the power industry, issued a stunning report asserting that a worst-case geomagnetic “super storm” like the 1859 Carrington Event likely wouldn’t damage most power grid transformers. Instead, it would cause voltage instability and possibly result in blackouts lasting only a few hours or days, but not months and years.
NERC’s assertion, however, is at serious variance with the 2008 congressional EMP Commission, the 2008 National Academy of Sciences report; a 2010 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report; the 2012 report by the Defense Committee of the British Parliament, and others.
Even the British scientists who contributed to the parliament report came to their own independent assessment that a great geomagnetic storm would cause widespread damage to power grid transformers and result in a protracted blackout lasting months, or even years, with catastrophic consequences for society.
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[The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or "FERC"], which regulates interstate electricity and other energy sales but has no authority now over local utilities to harden their grid sites, says that as many as 130 million Americans could have problems for years.
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U.S. transformers on the average are more than 30 years old and are susceptible to internal heating, according to FERC experts.
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There is ample evidence in the possession of the FERC revealing the damage to transformers from previous geomagnetic storms. For example, there was serious transformer damage to the Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey in the aftermath of the same geomagnetic storm that caused the March 1989 Hydro-Quebec blackout.
There’s An Easy Fix … Are We Smart Enough to Take It?
Japan’s nuclear meltdown, the economic crisis and the Gulf oil spill all happened for the same reason: big companies cutting every corner in the book – and hiding the existence of huge risks – in order to make a little money.
There are relatively easy fixes to the threat from solar flares:
The head of the leading consulting firm on the effect of electromagnetic disruptions on our power grid – which was commissioned to study the issue by the U.S. federal government – stated that it would be relatively inexpensive to reduce the vulnerability of our power grid:
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.
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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.
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If you’re talking about the United States, there are about 5,000 transformers to consider this for. The Electromagnetic Pulse Commission recommended it in a report they sent to Congress last year. We’re talking about $150 million or so. It’s pretty small in the grand scheme of things.
Mechanical engineer Matthew Stein [notes]:
There are nearly 450 nuclear reactors in the world, with hundreds more being planned or under construction…. Imagine what havoc it would wreak on our civilization and the planet’s ecosystems if we were to suddenly witness not just one or two nuclear meltdowns, but 400 or more! How likely is it that our world might experience an event that could ultimately cause hundreds of reactors to fail and melt down at approximately the same time? I venture to say that, unless we take significant protective measures, this apocalyptic scenario is not only possible, but probable.
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In the past 152 years, Earth has been struck by roughly 100 solar storms, causing significant geomagnetic disturbances (GMD), two of which were powerful enough to rank as “extreme GMDs.” If an extreme GMD of such magnitude were to occur today, in all likelihood, it would initiate a chain of events leading to catastrophic failures at the vast majority of our world’s nuclear reactors, similar to but over 100 times worse than, the disasters at both Chernobyl and Fukushima.
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The good news is that relatively affordable equipment and processes could be installed to protect critical components in the electric power grid and its nuclear reactors, thereby averting this “end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it” scenario. The bad news is that even though panels of scientists and engineers have studied the problem, and the bipartisan Congressional electromagnetic pulse (EMP) commission has presented a list of specific recommendations to Congress, our leaders have yet to approve and implement any significant preventative measures.
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Unfortunately, the world’s nuclear power plants, as they are currently designed, are critically dependent upon maintaining connection to a functioning electrical grid, for all but relatively short periods of electrical blackouts, in order to keep their reactor cores continuously cooled so as to avoid catastrophic reactor core meltdowns and fires in storage ponds for spent fuel rods.
If an extreme GMD were to cause widespread grid collapse (which it most certainly will), in as little as one or two hours after each nuclear reactor facility’s backup generators either fail to start, or run out of fuel, the reactor cores will start to melt down. After a few days without electricity to run the cooling system pumps, the water bath covering the spent fuel rods stored in “spent-fuel ponds” will boil away, allowing the stored fuel rods to melt down and burn[2]. Since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) currently mandates that only one week’s supply of backup generator fuel needs to be stored at each reactor site, it is likely that, after we witness the spectacular nighttime celestial light show from the next extreme GMD, we will have about one week in which to prepare ourselves for Armageddon.
To do nothing is to behave like ostriches with our heads in the sand, blindly believing that “everything will be okay” as our world drifts towards the next natural, inevitable super solar storm and resultant extreme GMD. Such a storm would end the industrialized world as we know it, creating almost incalculable suffering, death and environmental destruction on a scale not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.
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There are records from the 1850s to today of roughly 100 significant geomagnetic solar storms, two of which, in the last 25 years, were strong enough to cause millions of dollars worth of damage to key components that keep our modern grid powered.
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“The Carrington Event,” raged from August 28 to September 4, 1859. This extreme GMD induced currents so powerful that telegraph lines, towers and stations caught on fire at a number of locations around the world. Best estimates are that the Carrington Event was approximately 50 percent stronger than the 1921 storm.[5] Since we are headed into an active solar period much like the one preceding the Carrington Event, scientists are concerned that conditions could be ripe for the next extreme GMD.[6]
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The federal government recently sponsored a detailed scientific study to better understand how much critical components of our national electrical power grid might be affected by either a naturally occurring GMD or a man-made EMP. Under the auspices of the EMP Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and reviewed in depth by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Academy of Sciences, Metatech Corporation undertook extensive modeling and analysis of the potential effects of extreme geomagnetic storms on the US electrical power grid. Based upon a storm as intense as the 1921 storm, Metatech estimated that within the United States, induced voltage and current spikes, combined with harmonic anomalies, would severely damage or destroy over 350 EHV power transformers critical to the functioning of the US grid and possibly impact well over 2000 EHV transformers worldwide.[7]
EHV transformers are made to order and custom-designed for each installation, each weighing as much as 300 tons and costing well over $1 million. Given that there is currently a three-year waiting list for a single EHV transformer (due to recent demand from China and India, lead times grew from one to three years), and that the total global manufacturing capacity is roughly 100 EHV transformers per year when the world’s manufacturing centers are functioning properly, you can begin to grasp the implications of widespread transformer losses.
The loss of thousands of EHV transformers worldwide would cause a catastrophic grid collapse across much of the industrialized world. It will take years, at best, for the industrialized world to put itself back together after such an event, especially considering the fact that most of the manufacturing centers that make this equipment will also be grappling with widespread grid failure.
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In the event of an extreme GMD-induced long-term grid collapse covering much of the globe, if just half of the world’s spent fuel ponds were to boil off their water and become radioactive, zirconium-fed infernos, the ensuing contamination could far exceed the cumulative effect of 400 Chernobyls.
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The Congressionally mandated EMP Commission has studied the threat of both EMP [i.e. an electromagnetic pulse set of by terrorists or adversaries in war] and extreme GMD events and made recommendations to the US Congress to implement protective devices and procedures to ensure the survival of the grid and other critical infrastructures in either event. John Kappenman, author of the Metatech study, estimates that it would cost about $1 billion to build special protective devices into the US grid to protect its EHV transformers from EMP or extreme GMD damage and to build stores of critical replacement parts should some of these items be damaged or destroyed. Kappenman estimates that it would cost significantly less than $1 billion to store at least a year’s worth of diesel fuel for backup generators at each US nuclear facility and to store sets of critical spare parts, such as backup generators, inside EMP-hardened steel containers to be available for quick change-out in the event that any of these items were damaged by an EMP or GMD.[12]
For the cost of a single B-2 bomber or a tiny fraction of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bank bailout, we could invest in preventative measures to avert what might well become the end of life as we know it. There is no way to protect against all possible effects from an extreme GMD or an EMP attack, but we could implement measures to protect against the worst effects. Since 2008, Congress has narrowly failed to pass legislation that would implement at least some of the EMP Commission’s recommendations.[13]
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Citizens can do their part to push for legislation to move toward this goal and work inside our homes and communities to develop local resilience and self reliance, so that in the event of a long-term grid-down scenario, we might make the most of a bad situation. The same tools that are espoused by the Transition movement for developing local self-reliance and resilience to help cope with the twin effects of climate change and peak oil could also serve communities well in the event of an EMP attack or extreme GMD. If our country were to implement safeguards to protect our grid and nuclear power plants from EMP, it would also eliminate the primary incentive for a terrorist to launch an EMP attack. The sooner we take these actions, the less chance that an EMP attack will occur.
Will we insist that these inexpensive fixes to our electrical grid be made? Or will we focus on over-blown dangers … and ignore the thing most likely to actually get us?
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GW ... You've made my Friday real Black
Bear: If we all called and yelled at our congressmen, even they - as corrupt and stupid as they might be - would be forced to cough up 100 large (or so) to fix this.
Worked real well for the bank bailouts! (citizens were united on this one) </sarc>
They'll only find it worthwhile if they find personal value -$$- in it. And, really, it's not enough of a jackpot to spend a lot of energy on.
P.S. As noted by others, there's NO way $100 million is a "fix." $100 million would be what it would take to do a complete study/analysis and, perhaps, also design "fixes." Actual implementation of "solutions/fixes" would take a LOT more. Keep in mind that big projects and inflation = cost-creep.
I'm with you there ... I'm copying your post and sending it to my Congressman ... just because Friday is Black, doesn't make the whole weekend bleak
We should have required "Presumption of Freedom, Presumption of Innocence of American Citizens Sensitivity Training", administered through human resource departments of all government agencies.
These classes will include the citing of law that backs up and reinforces the training topics covered in the lessons.
I'll have more on this subject as I develop my new realm of education for government employees.
I'm starting this New Entrepreneurial business today and invite you to participate and join me in this endeavor.
I presume there's some government seed money available for this?
Lots of money to be made and grant money available for selling instructional materials and implementing programs.
One step further. Make it a COLLEGE. Accreditation can be bought for a song, compared to the potential income stream.
Point out that "Over 93% of our graduates move on to something stronger." Then the applicants AND student loans will roll in.
Each student receives an instructional DVD containing not only all course material, but also lots of 'artists renderings' of the future campus. And the school song and a few peppy cheers would also be part of the package. This complete 4 year education could be sent to all students as the major portion of their $49,999 tuition.
Because this is a progessive school, students would be required to test and grade themselves. This gives them greater self esteem and better grades. It also eliminates the need for instructors.
And if you can convince them to live at home, you can offer them a $14,999 virtual housing loan for a nice room on the future campus (artist's rendering included) and a $5000 rebate for travel expenses. And since they won't ever actually be using the room, they just might be able to pocket the travel rebate.
The 'College' gets paid for the whole roll right up front, and the student gets to defer payments for the rest of his or her life. Or 25 years, whichever comes last.
It's just another example of how a hard working American can apply him/herself and become wealthy through a good idea and a positive attitude.
Missing one more ingredient:
As the Ponzi slows solicit involvement by foreigners. Best to seek out the real obedient types, such as from Japan and China, as they will work really hard to "succeed" in paying back in to the Ponzi, whether they actually are able to utilize the training or not (mostly not, but they can say that they have a "degree," which is really how success is measured).
I'm assuming that in a smaller generator, such as one found in a car, the surge could generate enough heat to melt the varnish and cause a breach in the winding component's field integrity? Which is why a Carrington Event (CE) wouldn't just be a problem for the large transformers, but would also be a problem for small ones?
No, a solar storm is not going to damage your car -- not unless your car is plugged into the grid at the time of the solar storm.
Note that the worst solar storm the Earth has ever seen couldn't do any harm at all to a power transformer if that transformer were free-standing (or mounted in your car). The only reason the power transformers get damaged by solar storms is because they are connected to the power grid, and the power grid is large enough to collect the energy from a very weak field and concentrate that energy at a relatively small point. (If we were talking light rather than voltage, it's like the difference between you standing out in the sunlight, or you standing out in the sunlight with a 10 kilometer diameter magnifying glass over your head concentrating 30 square kilometers of sunlight on your person. One of those is a non-event, the other will produce a really bad smell as you get vaporized.)
Also, you've got the order backwards. If your car were plugged into the grid during a solar storm so it was subjected to very high voltages, the order is not "melt" and then "breach" (breakdown). Instead it is breakdown, and then melt/vaporize. Breakdown means that electrons (or in general charge carriers, but typically electrons) are moving through an insulator (or a reverse-biased semiconductor), such as the wire insulation. Breakdown happens when the voltage present exceeds the part's "breakdown voltage". As the electrons move through insulator they will transfer energy to anything they hit (or otherwise interact with) such as atoms in the insulation. Any energy left over when the electrons make it to the other conductor (the anode) will tend to be converted mostly into heat, and some into (weak) X-rays and other lower-energy photons.
Appreciate all the information...
I've never been one to advocate for grid-tied electric cars.
I think that the larger risk is always where it tends to come from- human folly. Humans will do a better job of fucking up their systems than the sun is likely to.
Yes, the net effect is the same regardless of system size. The problem with EMP/CME in consumer electronics, vehicles, etc., is that the high voltage induced on the conductors in the system (wires, copper traces on a circuit board) could potentially exceed the capability of the insulation. When this happens, the circuit shorts and becomes ineffective. Exactly the same as with the grid.
I suspect that what will happen is not so much as complete failure but rather, corrupted sensitivities, controller parameters/logic getting all messed up. Maybe the programmed coffee pot turns on and then, instead of brewing, abruptly turns off. Might be a bit more problematic in controllers running transportation switching mechanisms... In the end this might be worse since things will have the appearance of, and may in some ways appear to operate: buttons that will eventually demonstrate this problem will still be glowing "press me," whereas if such buttons are dark people wouldn't likely be pressing them (especially if there's smoke swirling all around said buttons).
George
I think this is your best piece that I have read. Many people do not know of the 1800s flair that zapped the telegraph wires. Shut down. Those wires were a lot thicker than today’s micro mechanics.
Loss of the electric grid and water systems (remember many have electric driven pumps) in a wide area is an almost unthinkable scenario.
However, it may be possible that a super sun storm could take out ALL communications systems, shut down all fuel supplies, and kill electric components in transportation units.
Cars, trucks that haul food and emergency needs. For sure your cell phone is dead for emergency needs and a battery radio may not work either.
Even tractors and farm equipment may have problems. Run a John Deere into an electric fence (sometime used instead of barbed wire) and it kills the tractor.
One can only wonder at the millions of components needed to make things work, World Wide, and the months or years to accomplish that task.
FEMA will not be of much help if their vehicles and communications are down.
Some stored water, food, cold weather emergency gear, and a hand crank radio are of use in almost any emergency. It is easier to get it before than after. A 22 or a 410 and fishing gear is mostly already owned by the people that know how to hunt and fish.
I remember the early 1980s and all the highly sensitive electronics in computers. One would be shot dead if one were to touch any board or chip w/o proper grounding. Now days you can almost go so far as to, without such grounding, rub components in your hair and not have problems: I don't do this; and, I still prefer to minimize risk by being properly grounded.
I have to wonder what value a hand-crank radio would be if everything is down (radio stations).
Also, I never found it a good idea to carry a 22 or a 410 to an elk hunt... But, I suppose w/o game wardens around you wouldn't worry about being fined for not using a proper caliber...
"Even tractors and farm equipment may have problems. Run a John Deere into an electric fence (sometime used instead of barbed wire) and it kills the tractor."
Is that so? Do you have a reference?
I don't have a John Deere, but I do have a tractor, a Kubota (if that matters). I've hit my electric fencing and haven't experienced a problem (other than fucking the fencing up): hit them with metal parts of the tractor, not the tires; and, for true concerns (electrical conductivity) I've hit them with a brush hog, in which case this attachment, which is in contact with the earth via swirling/cutting blades, provides a reasonable path to ground. I believe that I have a pretty typical fence energizer: putting out 7k+ volts.
I suppose it would depend on the circumstances, whether a particular circuit was closed or a path to ground existed through a component, etc.
ECMs can easily be fried when arc welding (low volt, high amp) is conducted on a vehicle without the battery being disconnected.
There is a reason that the idea of using resistors on large power transformer grounding connections to protect against EMP and CME is propagated by physicists and mechanical engineers (and plenty of other 'smart' people on the internet with virtually no knowledge of power or electricity) - it's nonsense. I've pointed this out in detail on a previous George Washington post on this matter a couple of months back. I'm not surprised that it has resurfaced, as the allure of a 'simple, one stop solution' to our worries is frequently too sexy to pass up.
Any electrical engineer with a background in power generation or distribution (me, for example) will tell you that adding a resistor to a transformer neutral is not something that can simply be done at the whim of the federal government. Simply adding elements to a complex and interconnected system because 'Congress says so' is a recipe for disaster.
During fault events (times at which fault current may flow through the transformer ground connection), current flow can routinely reach up to the 40 kA range on strong grids, which is in line with common bus ratings at the higher voltages (and typical ratings go up to 63 kA). Even the smallest amount of added resistance in the path of this fault current will drammatically increase the winding voltage within the transformer, to the point where it could well exceed the insulation rating of the paper separating phase windings from one another. In the event of an EMP or CME, fault currents would more than likely be in the tens to hundreds of kiloamperes, even for just a few cycles, far more than enough to irreparably damage the transformer before the system's circuit breakers could react (~3 cycles). Under such a condition, a large fault current flowing through a resistively grounded neutral could very likely cause a breakdown in the insulation and a flash between phases (or potentially from phase to core), putting the transformer out of service due to an internal fault.
In addition, most large power transformer manufacturers would cease to warranty their products in service if grounding reactors were installed without a comprehensive evaluation in house. I've experienced this personally - the manufacurer wants to be absolutely positive that the insulation on the windings could withstand the projected rise in voltage due to the resistor - even one very, very small resistor could create a major internal risk (for the purist, this is the difference between a solidly grounded system and an effectively grounded system - they are not the same, and the manufacturer won't be happy if you tell him one and then install the other).
In short, the idea of adding resistance to the ground path is not only unwise, but perhaps actually worse than doing nothing at all.
The real solution, unfortunately, does not yet exist - the fault current must be drawn away from the transformer and transferred through a separate grounding path. Utilities (and consumers) commonly use metal oxide varistors (MOVs) for this purpose, but MOVs are too slow to act to fast rise-time transients such as the E1 transient of an EMP. With current technology, the damage would already be done before the MOV had time to react. What we need is a varistor-type device which can respond much more quickly and one which is robust enough to handle fault current in the hundreds of kiloamperes.
The other possibility is to come up with a fast response neutral protection scheme, in which a rapid response current transformer (CT) located on the neutral could trip a fast responding breaker or fault interrupter, isolating the incoming transmission lines from the transformer completely. This setup is currently in use in virtually all substations, but the response time of the protection and breaker operating time is too slow to adequately protect the substation in the event of an EMP or CME.
Here's to hoping (again) that this lengthy comment finally puts this stupid idea to rest.
The Bulletproof Patriot, MSEE
www.thebulletproofpatriot.com
As a complete layperson re electricity I tend to do more research than the average person. Just wiring up a residential "sub panel" I found myself engaged in reading folks' discussions on electrical codes (folks challenging logic in existing code), specifically about grounding. And it was this discussion in which I became more aware of what "ground" really meant, how it works. As you note, it's all about trying to divert a transient, external energy spike AWAY from something: think of a Bull as the transient spike and a "red cape" as ground, with oneself, the matador, as the circuit to be protected. And as they say in so many arenas, "timing is everything." One has to catch that spike before it "infests" your circuit.
I'll refrain from showing how ignorant about electricity I am, I won't disclose how I killed my favorite DMM (Digital Multi-Meter) on an electric fence... oh the shame! Well, OK! I thought that I could at least capture that the line could hit the DMM's upper range of (5k volts?), and that it's fused so nothing could go wrong... Good news: I have a couple of new, spare fuses. Bad news: I shelled out for another DMM (though it was used, so not a big $$ hit); the old one was a gift, so the greatest damage was to sentimentality.
Hopefully TheBulletProofPatriot will correct anything that I may have gotten wrong.
So what could be done, regardless of cost? That would be helpful.
Or, we could encase the earth in one big Faraday Cage!
Space, the final frontier in which money can be made to disappear...
We could do what the Fed does, print money! :-) Yeah, money fixes everything! Shovel more in to the runaway train...
Well explained, thank you, as I have lost my patience to explain in such detail....
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Robert A. Heinlein
Grok.
Salient points, very well put.
It's not just the induced overvoltage issue, rather the net energy issue. The absorbed power (symmetrical or not) on a long line system is going to be humungous, and we're talking high giga-voltamps, maybe even tera-voltamps, not MVA here. What will be the effect of reactive power? Will the VAR management systems be able to cope for a single-cycle event? What about multi cycle (with consequent current flows?).
Then consider that at the transmission level, protection systems are designed to reclose (under the common assumption that many faults are transient). "Still in Fault" reclosure could (would??) be a real problem and the electromechanical stresses on protection systems would suggest that failure will be likely rather than unlikely, with one failure mode being welded contacts.
I'm not even going to visit the known liabilities of the extensive SCADA infrastructure here.
Maybe we'll see the return of Steam Trains? And the return of manual signalling too (since the rails act like long lines, and traffic / signalling management is another SCADA application area!)
Bicycle for short distances, Horse and Cart for longer.
I don't know about anyone else here,but me personally? I feel dumber than a (former) Hostess union boss @ BCTGM about now.
ya, know you guys really know how to fuck up a pretty cool simple-fix {burp} 'lectronic horror story!
Buzz Killers!
The wonderful thing about ZH is, there are those who take the time to comment in their field of expertise.
"Journalists" get to comment about everything, implying expertise ;-)
I thought journalists just said what they were told to say? Isn't that what "journaling" is?
A reporter on the other hand...
Glad they came over nmewn, I don't know a dang thing about higher electronic function. Pretty embarrased at how much I don't know...
@bp, even though the 'real solution' doesn't yet exist, I am surprised you didn't mention the new defensive strategy tested this year in Houston. I am by no means waving the flag for DHS, but they did lead a joint effort with industry to develop and pilot the new form factor Recx transformers for rapid recovery from a failed EHV transformer. The concept is to replace the EHV three phase transformer with three smaller single-phase units. The pilot replacements are around 56 tons and highway shippable. In the test deployment, the replacement was installed in a week. http://www.abb.us/cawp/seitp202/c838625f4d7a38e4c1257a92001e9b8a.aspx
Okay - this post is for the people who know stuff, not for the lip flappers.
Per a suggestion from an article, I used a grounded "space blanket" to cover my portable generator. (ie hopefully a cheap easy "Faraday cage".)
Q 1 - does a Faraday cage have to be completely enclosed (360 degrees of enclosure)? Or can it be a top-and-side covered grounded cage?
Q 2 - If I attach a ground wire from the body of a vehicle (car/truck/etc) to a ground rod, would that protect the vehicle from a Carrington-type event? (ie the car's body becomes a sort-of Faraday cage.) Or would the windows provide enough coverage gap to allow radiative induction to get to the vehicle's systems?
We now return you to your regularly unscheduled bon-mots and attempts at humor. :-)
The critical metric you need to look at is volts per unit distance. That is, for an object of a given length, how many volts will be developed across that object.
EMPs from nukes produce thousands or tens of thousands of volts per meter. For such an event, even smallish items would need a faraday cage for protection. E.g., at 10k volts/meter, an unprotected 1 cm circuit board in an electronics device will see 100 volts, which if it is designed to operate at 1.8V may be enough to fry it. Note that small devices on large boards will tend to see higher voltages as the total voltage will concentrate at whatever part(s) provide the most resistance. If the device is plugged into the power grid or connected to an antenna or some other large conductor, that too will increase the voltage the device is subjected to.
For a solar superstorm, you're looking at something on the order of 100 volts per kilometer (which is a tiny 0.1 volts per meter). [That number is taken from the Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol 116: http://www.agu.org/pubs/current/si/links/2011JA016830.pdf] The powergrid (and everything attached to it) are at risk because the powergrid is large enough to collect rather large voltages even in a weak volts/meter field, and concentrate that voltage at vulnerable devices. Everything you use daily (your car, TV, computer, etc.) is perfectly safe from such an event -- as long as they are not plugged into the power grid or connected to something rather large (like a cable TV network).
And don't rely on incomer transient / surge protection. If you do have advanced warning of a significant event (which should be the case), just unplug. In most cases this'll provide more than enough protection. Don't forget external antennae (or things that might act as antennae).
I can see a few protection schemes that I would actually expect to work in a solar superstorm event (but not for a nuke-based EMP):
1. Like you say, unplug. (If your data is backed up to hard drives, these should be external hard drives that are kept completely disconnected from everything when not in the process of making a new backup. Use two different backup drives so one is always disconnected. That way the backed-up data isn't lost even if you don't get sufficient advance warning to unplug.)
2. Another form of unplugging: Be your own (small) grid and never connect to the big grid. (Use a generator, maybe natural gas for fuel to avoid having to constantly transport fuel. Or use solar + batteries. There are several other options as well.)
3. Use a properly configured isolation transformer. The primary and secondary need to have mutiple kV of isolation between each other, and there needs to be a path from the primary to ground with a very low breakdown voltage. Furthermore, the output voltage needs to still be in a safe zone when the transformer core saturates, with the secondary far enough from the primary that direct through-air inductive coupling is minimal. (Multiple winding directions can be used to bring it effectively to zero even at short distances.) All interconnected devices should be powered by the same transformer (or you'll get a loop that may breakdown -- without a loop everything just "floats"). An electrostatic shield (tied to the secondary) needs to be placed around the equipment and its interconnections to prevent capacitive coupling to ground. This solution is likely to cost thousands of dollars. In an event, the transformer primary will be blown (keep a spare ready), but the connected equipment should be safe.
4. Use a dual energy conversion scheme. For example, convert the wall power into light, then use solar panels to convert back to electricity. In an event the "primary" (the lights) will be blown, but the connected equipment will be safe. (This is easier to analyze than #3, but more exensive, and potentially a lot less efficient. #3 is technically just a special case of #4, with a magnetic field as the intermediate power stage, but is complicated by the fact that everything that conducts magnetism well also tends to conduct electricity at high voltages.)
Great, and pretty innovative ideas; Nos 3 and 4 are not going to be cheap (they don't sell 10KvA transformers on Ebay . . .), and my concern would be saturation and the high possibility of "stray flux" events. The problem with pri/sec. spacing and insulation would certainly mean a custom transformer, and the spacing might need to be significant if the dv/dt slope is fast (a la Tesla coil!); Even with the protection / shielding strategies you mention (which will also impact on transformer efficiency) the best you can hope for is an elevated degree of protection (compared with "ordinary mains"). Option 4 is really nice (Opto-Isolation at POWER levels!!) but with the anaemic performance of solar PV (12% efficiency??) it'll be less than realistic.
Since we live on a boat, Option 2 is one we have already (solar PV and wind), however shorepower is a nice luxury we would probably miss in the short term, particularly the winter . . . .
. my concern would be saturation
Saturation is not a problem. Rather, it is an absolutely essential part of the described solution. When the primary gets hit with high voltage, it's going to emit a LOT of power in magnetic form. The core saturating is one part of ensuring that the amount of that magnetic power that reaches the secondary is strictly limited. (In normal operation, at full rated load, the design should be such that the core material is already approaching saturation. That way the secondary side does not have to deal with much higher voltages during a solar storm event than it does during normal operation.)
The problem with pri/sec. spacing and insulation would certainly mean a custom transformer
We're probably talking custom. There are standard isolation transformers that are multi-kV rated, but I am not familiar with one that is designed to protect the secondary side even when the primary side is abused with voltages greatly exceeding those ratings. Maybe such devices exist, but it would probably be cheaper to build your own. (Even if they exist they are going to be very low volume products which means most of the cost is labor and poorly-amortized NRE.) If you build your own you can place more trust in it because you know its exact design specifications, you can make exactly what you want rather than accepting only what's available, and this would also be a fun/cool project to do yourself anyways.
and the spacing might need to be significant if the dv/dt slope is fast (a la Tesla coil!)
I think you are thinking the primary and secondary are centered on a common axis. That is not what I had in mind. Rather, stick the coils on completely different parts of the core material (like how flyback transformers are made, but much bigger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer).
With the through-core-material flux limited by saturation, the main other linkage to worry about is through-air flux. Previously I was thinking of using multiple winding directions to cancel that out, but it occurred to me that a much cleaner solution would be to introduce a 90 degree twist to the core material between the primary and the secondary. With the primary and secondary at 90 degrees to each other, through-air inductive linkage will be pretty much zero. (That's assuming of course that the coil configuration is symmetric -- if it's not symmetric then the stray flux you mentioned won't cancel out. The twist in the core material may mean that stray flux coming off the core material is not symmetric, but that flux is already limited to manageable levels by core saturation.)
Note that on the primary side, there will be multiple layers: Core material in the center, then a multi-kV insulation layer, then a slotted but otherwise solid heavy copper layer connected to ground, then a very thin insulation layer (designed to breakdown at around 600V), then the primary winding. While saturation and coil placement are used to prevent too much magnetic power from getting from primary to secondary, the grounded copper layer is used to prevent high voltages from going directly from primary to secondary. (It has to be slotted length-wise so eddy currents don't short out the magnetic circuit.)
Even with the protection / shielding strategies you mention (which will also impact on transformer efficiency) the best you can hope for is an elevated degree of protection (compared with "ordinary mains").
Well, an "elevated degree of protection" is exactly what I was shooting for -- specifically, more than enough protection to safely get through any solar superstorm event (but not nearly enough to protect against a nuke-based EMP event).
Option 4 is really nice (Opto-Isolation at POWER levels!!) but with the anaemic performance of solar PV (12% efficiency??) it'll be less than realistic.
It's perfectly realistic (and might even be considered the best solution) if the devices you are trying to power and protect are fairly low power. Not so much if your goal is to run your gaming rig and a deep fryer (or your whole house) during a solar storm. But as mentioned, there are many other options for #4. For example, a more efficient possibility (easily 80+% efficiency, maybe 90+%) that would still be fairly simple to understand would be a back-to-back electric motor+generator with a non-conductive shaft transferring the power from the motor to the generator. And of course, for #4 you can run multiple (same type or different types) in parallel if one doesn't do the trick. (I.e., you don't have to use a single giant motor and a single giant generator -- use whatever you can get off-the-shelf that provides the best bang/buck, or whatever you have lying around, and use enough of them to meet your power needs.)
My sister called this morning. She listened to George Noory last night. He had a guy on who was saying we should be expecting a magnetic pole shift and that it could happen any day now. Or not. Kills everyone. Somehow related to the Mayan stuff, I think. They had lots of time on their hands to think about such things.
I'll do a Faraday cage for the flares. The pole shift puts me under 500 feet of water. Gold doesn't float, does it?
Gold floats just fine in Pelican boxes, just don't overload them.
And if the poles shift and you're in 500 feet of water, grab any Pelican boxes that float by.
Still, you may want to load some of those boxes with heirloom seeds - might be a better bartering item when you find a 'floating' island.
"The pole shift puts me under 500 feet of water. Gold doesn't float, does it? "
If it drifts in currents then you might luck out and find all the stuff that others here have lost in various boating accidents!
Always look on the bright side of life!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo
Just make the utilities do it. Regulate it, not tax us for it.
And who do you think will be picking up the tab for the "regulations" (and the cost of enforcing them)??
Hint - it WON'T be the Corporations.
The smarter you are the more stupidity you notice:(
Tepco cntinues to say Fukushima was worse than they first admintted.
Based on what scientists know so far
-the initial quake, tsunami and explosions released the equivalent of about 700 Hiroshimas in radioactivity
and
-the daily release is estimated at 11 Hiroshimas
Thats a total of 7,000 Hiroshimas
Once again, Geroge hits the nail ont he had. My friends tell me to worry about Climate Change, that it will kill us. I would rather the countries of the word stimulate the world econonomy by printing trillions and putting millions to work fixing nuclear power.
"My friends tell me to worry about Climate Change, that it will kill us. I would rather the countries of the word stimulate the world econonomy by printing trillions and putting millions to work fixing nuclear power."
Ugh!
Your friends are idiots, and you're not too far behind, sorry...
What we should work on is to ADAPT to a changing climate/environment. One doesn't change climate change (let alone stop "it").
There is no "fix" for nuclear power. For every action there is an opposite and equal action: "defeating" the Japanese meant killing thousands of civilians (and letting The bomb genie out of the bottle); and, poor Japanese (think they'll ever get it?), Fukushima. If you think there's only a BIG upside then you ought to reconsider that equation.
BTW - the "world economy" is one big fucking Ponzi. Boosting it isn't a recipe for success.
Good article... now if more people would become aware of the problem instead of playing on their Ipad...
Hell one of my uncles is high level in the biggest energy company in the country and he didn't even know what EMPs and solar flares could do to his company/hardware/grid until I brought it up 2 years ago... When even the high level people of energies companies miss/don't know/ignore these problems, you know they never gonna fix it... and then it'll be too late and we'll have a hundred Fukushima overnight and human civilization will collapse... but eh, as long as keep spending money on BS problems like cow farts and rising sea levels, everything is well!
"High level" depends... being a CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and a CSO (Chief Scientific Officer) [or similar] matters. If your uncle is in the tech side of business then, yes, that's a BIG concern; no so much if he's on the financial side (though I'd figure that the financial side should know about risks that exist within the technical side of things).
But... keep in mind that everything is supported by rate payers, and that if you price the poor and elderly to their early graves it would be bad for publicity (and there would likely be some lawsuits). Oh, and there's often (for the profit-driven businesses) shareholders to be concerned about.
Congress puts their might behind pushing power companies to shore things up and then these companies pass the costs along to you and I*. I can already hear all the folks crying out about being forced to pay MORE, even those here who are blasting power companies for not being prepared (this is repeated for many other things). * If you're less connected then anything that you might use/consume/buy that reduces your exposure is likely going to be jacked up in price as that will be the compromise that the power business will agree to (Congress will back-door those receipts back to the power companies in the form of subsidies, which will then be used to prop back up the poor and elderly). One can try and run, but they'll have no qualms about shooting you in the back...
Hey ... Don't rain on my parade, I'm working on the 'Fartless Cow' project.
Yep I been pimping out the Extinction level event that a large CME could have.
Call it the Carrington Event.
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/p/carrington-event-and-astronomy.html
Humans are so special. We are so above extinction/cleansing. Black Friday is testament to the greatness and superiority of Mankind as a remarkable, balanced, compassionate race of Sapien Sapien Sapien Homo's.
er, why would they fix anything if they are counting on it or other black swans to use as cover to steal even more of your rights, land and wealth?
Remember, "never let a good crisis go to waste"
Rahm Emanuel, Team Obama