POWER February 2011 - 24

ASSET MANAGEMENT
The Great Solar Storm of 2012?
The 2009 blockbuster movie 2012 about a global cataclysm combined Hollywood
special effects with supposed predictions by Nostradamus; a Mayan calendar that
ends on December 21, 2012; and a very rare planetary alignment that supposedly
occurs on the same day. Hollywood producers seldom let technical accuracy get
in the way of a good story, but suppose, this one time, the story has an element
of truth.
By Kennedy Maize
T
he event begins with a giant thermonuclear
explosion on the sun. The fusion
of hydrogen atoms swells up and
bursts open on the sun's surface, spewing a
stew of radiation and gas particles trapped
in the solar wind. The continuous but variable
flow of particles and magnetic fields
from the sun creates gusts that can quickly
reach Earth. Within hours, a space storm,
a " coronal mass ejection " (CME), accompanied
by a beautiful aurora borealis or
" northern lights " display of shimmering
celestial curtains, bombards Earth with
geomagnetic disturbances.
The consequences are dramatic: disruptions
to communications satellites, interference
with global positioning systems (GPS)
and air traffic control, and, most telling, taking
down the high-voltage electric transmission
system over wide swaths of the planet,
blacking out more than 130 million people in
the U.S. alone. Secondary effects due to the
loss of the grid involve water system failures,
severe disruptions to natural gas pipelines,
24
factories shut down for weeks or months, food
rotting in unrefrigerated warehouses, and unquantifiable
costs to the world economy.
The cost of damage to the U.S. totals $1
trillion to $2 trillion. More than 300 grounded
electrical high-voltage transformers in
the U.S. suffer damages so serious that they
need to be replaced, putting intolerable strain
on an already stressed supply chain. Recovery
takes as much as a decade, as the results
wreck havoc with the U.S. and world infrastructure
and economy.
" This is not science fiction. It is fact, "
says Joe McClelland, director of the office
of emergency response at the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC). It has happened
before, he points out, but with far less
severe economic consequences. It is likely to
happen again and, according to space scientists,
it could happen in the next few years, as
a period of unusually calm solar weather reverses,
picks up energy, and gets nasty. Many
predictions suggest that the " big one " could
come this year or next.
www.powermag.com
Source: NASA
Solar Storms Could Strengthen
The effects of solar storms have been the subject
of numerous recent studies and analyses, including
sophisticated computer simulations, funded
by the electric industry and the government.
There is much studying of once and future geomagnetic
storms and what to do about them. It
isn't clear that these studies, serious as they have
been, will offer any concrete protections to the
electric infrastructure in the event of a large solar
geomagnetic storm. Predicting solar storms
appears to be, in the reckoning of one industry
veteran, " a crap shoot. "
By many indications, our globe may be entering
a period of greatly increased jeopardy from
solar attacks. Solar activity, as astronomers have
known for centuries, follows a roughly 11-year
cycle, heralded by visible disturbances on the
surface of the sun, known as sun spots (Figure
1). Sun spot activity shows that today the sun
is at the end of a rather extended period of little
activity, a " solar minimum. "
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) physicist Douglas
POWER | February 2011
http://www.powermag.com
POWER February 2011

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