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The Government Spends Trillions On Unlikely Threats … But Won’t Spend a Billion Dollars to Prevent the Very Real Possibility of
Studies show that people are worry about the wrong things.
We are terrified of things that will probably never happen, and underestimate the real dangers which face us.
As we noted last year, 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 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 does a good job of reporting on this issue today:
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.
And see this.
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AN0NYM0US
4H? Karzai should just establish a "dead peasant" policy for the whole fucking country.
http://deadpeasantinsurance.com/
Dead Peasant Insurance is sometimes used as a shorthand reference for life insurance policies that insure a company’s rank-and-file employees and name the company as the beneficiary. This means that the company receives the life insurance benefits when the covered employees die. This insurance may also be called “janitor insurance,”
Maybe this is why no one in DC is worried about a $16trillion debt - maybe they got dead peasant insurance on us and are salivating at the idea of a revolution.
Its easy when it is other people's money.
Indeed. Wonder if any of them are going to give it to Al Queda with hopes of revenge? Wouldnt you if someone slaughtered your whole family? What good is 100,000 when your family is all dead?
OTOH, $50k would finance a whole lotta lone wolf vigilante "terrorism" ftw. It might be smarter for the US to give them enough money to allow them to get fat and happy.
I'm starting to think this whole human race is a failed experiment and needs to be burnt to a crisp. Maybe a few million years from now a civilization of cockroaches will take our place as ' the crown of creation' and do the planet and whatever fellow creatures survive alongside them a bit better than we have. Or not.
Can't say that I disagree. The UP/DOWN ratio to you post is perhaps an indication of the levels of cynicism.
I suppose we should be careful what we wish for.
Time travelers report that, sadly, the cockroaches look just like Corzine with an oily black carapace and six arms; maths reveal they can steal your money 300% faster.
If you ran a DNA analysis, you might find that the future cockroaches are descended from Corzine.
Glad you keep bringing this up, GW. I have been preaching this within my own circles for about 5-6 years now as I have knowledge and experience in the various disciplines involved. Amazing part is that one of the most rudimentary principles people learn in engineering is about fail-safe design for any product that has life and death, or even health and welfare implications. Somehow in our era of misdirection and backwards PC thinking, even the most basic realities are ignored. Incredible to have facilities with genocidal potential built without multiple levels of fail-safe for extreme challenges. I don't remember if any of the big reports (NAS, etc) calculate an overall worldwide probability of catastrophic breakdown of reactors per year. With so many reactors, the chance of another Fukushima or Chernobyl cannot be small. Natural and human disasters happen - it doesn't even require a solar event. As we've seen in Fukushima, even when they are localized (and support from other parts of the world are potentially available) they can turn into nightmare scenarios with long lasting effects. Large area disruptions, like a Carrington-type event, boggle the imagination.
"Somehow in our era of misdirection and backwards PC thinking, even the most basic realities are ignored. Incredible to have facilities with genocidal potential built without multiple levels of fail-safe for extreme challenges."
I do not think it is fair to blame "PC" or "PC era" for that in any direct sense. What you mention was built in the 1970s or even earlier. I am not sure how well entrenched the "basic engineering" of fail-safes was at that time. The "PC era" only allowed public (the part that is interested) to know about all these faults. Without PCs these people would have been happy ostriches.
To explain a little more clearly: there was an enormous push for nuclear power in the 70's and before. It captivated much of scientific groupthink and was sacrosanct because it gave a new level of legitimacy to physics, beyond just a philosophical and weapons pursuit. If you questioned it, as a couple famous scientists did ( e.g. Goffman, if I remember correctly), you were immediately branded a traitor to the cause.
This was a sorry ass state of affairs as it meant the reactors were going to be built no matter what. Nuclear energy has all sorts of problems but no one wanted to bring them out and really deal with them. ( There were public discussions in the scientific journals, but again, they were handled by the PC thinking of the times.)
In our current times, the analogy of OTC derivatives is useful. No one wanted to deal with the tremendous dangers of them, and most of the people who really understood were part of the system or even benefited directly. Same deal. The people who would be at risk, didn't know what was going on.
Aha... I only now realize that misread your post: PC as political correctness and as personal computer. You meant the former in your first comment, I assumed the latter in mine (for some inexplicable reasons).
Carrington Event, BITCHEZ!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
Not sure what I'm supposed to do with this information, George.
Great article George, thank you. Since I live in NYC I am pretty much screwed.
he lost me at "unlikely"...
This is Psychology 1on1, people know how to differeniate between real dangers and perceived dangers, but because the real dangers threaten them for duh! real they instinctively ban them from their heads but than to feel good they fight Wind Mills to make them selves believe they are doing something.
For example how many people think "I don't need a seat belt, nothing will happen anyway" or "I can smoke as much as I want too cancer happens only to other people" etc. but than "OMFG a man in a cave hates me and wants to throw rocks at me, lets spend 1Trillion dollars to stop him" or "those kids smoking Marihuana will grow up to be home grown terrorists, death penalty to all drug users!" etc. you get the point
People don't want to see real dangers because that brings them out of their comfort zone, but try fixing non-problems to placate their danger sensing brain, as a sort of reverse Placebo effect.
Here's all you need to know:
1. As bad habits go, coal power vs nuclear power is like smoking vs Russian Roulette.
2. There's no money in thorium, or in any form of safe nuclear power for that matter. Unsafe= massive engineering schemes and mechanical complication, and THAT = money.
3. Mechanical complications= breakdowns=spare parts=money... but what happens when there's no money? ...whoops...
4. 450 nuclear power plants all melting down at once in a massive CME scenario means there's no place to hide. Not anywhere.
All these words when it ALL depends on who is getting paid rather than why. When we have the planned-by-careful-avoidance event, the right people like Bechtel and the dark privates will be paid in spades.
We now have the ability to know a day or two in advance when a CME is headed our way. From sites like spaceweather.com .
If you see a monstrosity like the 2003 X-45 event ( I call it "the Dragon" ) coming towards us, get your house the hell off the grid. I am trying to research this, but I believe that by disconnecting the main circuit breaker you will protect your house circuitry from large voltages induced on the very long conductors of the grid. Remember, the Carrington event was poweful enough to start fires in telegraph offices.
The other thing you can do is look at a map of nuclear plants (and their spent fuel ponds) and prevailing winds, and move the hell away from their worst fallout footprints.
When I first came here and saw all those spent-fuel ponds sitting out in the open, I said "Oh, shit. Somebody's getting ready to depopulate this planet."
But by then, of course, it was too late to leave.
Getting your house off the grid is a waste of time if the grid goes down.
Unlike a lot of the stuff on ZH that makes you wonder (what do I do with this information?), this is clear. If we have a major event of any sort that crashes the electric grid, get the hell away from nuclear plants. Go somewhere that has hydroelectric, farms, not too many people. The entire country blacked out will get ugly fast, especially urban areas. Like Katrina times 10. Run away.
Get lead (not too expensive in rolls from a contractor's outlet). Make a lead-lined cardboard box. Put your i-thingies in it when a flare is going to strike your area according to Spaceweather (or when you go to bed if you don't trust Spaceweather/corp/gov). Wake up and see if the power is still on.
Unplug the house at the master breaker. Get a generator for back up.
Get a Geiger counter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter
;o)
and put the generator in a lead or aluminum lined box also - the generator won't work if its' electronics are fried.
I believe something as simple as a galvanized steel garbage can will work for laptops, radios, etc. as well. Might work better with an isolated ground, i.e. a grounding rod with a #10 copper wire that is connected only to said can. I have also been told a simple microwave oven, unplugged, could work as well.
It's called Faraday cage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage , if done properly, then will protect from either natural or man-made EMP. http://www.faraday-cage.com/
For small electronics you can do it even like that: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_a_Faraday_Cage_Wallet
Bend over ,and kiss it goodbye maybe ?
I think George said to buy phyzz instead of that new iThingy.
Usually take GW's hysterics w large grain of salt. But he's got this one right. No worries. As soon as I'm Prez, will do.
I'd actually vote for you. Setting aside the problems I have with your beliefs, you are a man of conviction.
Too bad your comment and mine are irrelevant, left in the dustbin of history.