Solar Flares and the Power Grid

[Dotini]

Back in the 1850's a solar flare known as the Carrington Event surged enough electrical current through the earth to cause telegraph lines to overheat and maybe even set small fires. In more recent times, smaller solar flares have caused regional blackouts in North America, apparently due to transformer failure. It is said that another Carrington Event sized flare could cause extensive damage to a full continental region of the planet. Efforts have been made to reduce the danger to the power grid. But the largest modern power grid transformers are said to be foreign made and take years to manufacture. So the danger of solar storms and X-class flares are supposed real.

Please use this thread to debunk or confirm the risk of solar flares to our electrical grid, and to post notices of pending or arriving flares.

I track flares over NASA's website, Spaceweather.com. Below is a snippet of today's edition:

INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters have boosted the odds of an X-flare today to 30%. Earth-facing sunspot AR3182 has developed an unstable 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that poses a threat for strong explosions. Shortwave radio blackouts and Earth-directed CMEs are likely this week. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.

WHERE THE ACTION IS: A new, hyperactive sunspot is emerging over the sun's southeastern limb: AR3184. This 10-hour movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured at least half-a-dozen eruptions, most of them M-class:

None of the debris plumes will hit Earth; the sunspot is not facing our planet. It will turn in our direction later this week. Meanwhile, amateur astronomers with solar telescopes should point their optics at the southeastern limb. It's where the action is. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.

more images: from Sylvain Weiller of Jerusalem, Israel; from Martin Wise of Trenton, Florida

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

 

[Dotini]

The third X class solar flare in a week! These events have caused regional power outages in the past, and will likely do so again. Solar storms can cause position errors and problems acquiring signal from GPS and satellite-based services.

From today's edition of Spaceweather.com:


ANOTHER X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: The sun produced another X-flare on Jan. 10th, this time from new sunspot AR3186. This movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the X1-class explosion hurling a plume of debris into space:

Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing a shortwave radio blackout over the South Pacific: blackout map. Mariners and ham radio operators may have noticed fadeouts and other unusual propagation effects at frequencies below ~30 MHz.
This is the 3rd X-flare in a week, and each flare has come from a different sunspot. It's not just a single active region; the *whole sun* is becoming more active. NOAA forecasters say there is a 30% chance of another X-flare on Jan. 11th. X-flare alerts: SMS Text.

Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter​

SOLAR FLARE CAUSES RARE 'MAGNETIC CROCHET': The X-flare of Jan. 9th did something rare. It jerked Earth's magnetic field. Here is a composite of magnetometer recordings from Boulder, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Fredericksburg, Virginia:

Full recordings: FRD, BOU, HON. Credit: International Real-time Magnetic Observatory Network (INTERMAGNET)​

The "jerk" is circled in yellow. It began around 1846 UT, and was detected by many magnetic observatories across the dayside of Earth.
The phenomenon is called a 'magnetic crochet.' Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere and caused currents to flow 60 km to 100 km above Earth's surface. These currents, in turn, briefly altered Earth's magnetic field. Everything returned to normal a few minutes later.

 

[hobie1dog]

fascinating stuff, thanks for posting all of this.

 

[cls]

Short answer: yeah, it's an increasing risk (Quebec 1989), for the coming active sun years around 2025.

Long answer: get your amateur radio license and enjoy the best HF propagation we've had in years

Worst answer: what about solar flares if you are unprotected? ISS in LEO is one thing; exposed on Artemis in deep space or on the moon is another. good luck.

 

[hobie1dog]

Long answer: get your amateur radio license and enjoy the best HF propagation we've had in years

I got my license I think in 2012 and it's been downhill ever since so I'm looking forward to the increased sunspot activity and ham radio propagation.

 

[Peartree]

We talked about the potential for a Carrington event when I got my degree in elec. engineering in the late 80s. Such an event would be devastating largely because many power generational transmission systems did not have breakers or protective devices that could trip fast enough (or at all) and that many of the components likely to be damaged or destroyed were both very expensive and had years-long lead times for replacement.

The end result was that utilities were unlikely to do much to protect themselves from a 1 in 100 scenario. To my knowledge, from reading professional magazines, that's probably (mostly) still true. The profit margins for our power grids are small enough that utilities can barely pay to do the things that really need done let alone things that might happen ten, or thirty, years from now.

But can you imagine what happens if Chicago, New York, or any other international major city, or an entire region, was without power for a year (or three)?

But again, while governments would be able to encourage measures to prevent that from happening, they are unlikely to do so because it looks like they're subsidizing private industry, it's expensive, and it's unlikely so you can be sure that doing anything about it would be politically unpopular.

 

[jazzviper1]

Solar flares, hell I am hoping for a full-blown NOVA!

 

[dhbarr]

The end result was that utilities were unlikely to do much to protect themselves from a 1 in 100 scenario. To my knowledge, from reading professional magazines, that's probably (mostly) still true. The profit margins for our power grids are small enough that utilities can barely pay to do the things that really need done let alone things that might happen ten, or thirty, years from now.

Utilities refuse to protect themselves from routine-every-decade weather events, so ....

 

[Peartree]

Utilities refuse to protect themselves from routine-every-decade weather events, so ....

It's worse than that. Ten years ago, a sizable chunk of northern Ohio's power grid collapsed, and the outage cascaded across Pennsylvania, New York and into New England because a utility wasn't trimming trees along it's lines. And that's a regular maintenance sort of thing crews should be doing somewhere every summer. Since then, we're told, regulators are making sure that they do better, but that event still speaks volumes about their unwillingness/inability to even think about infrequent or rare events.

 

[rocketman328]

Thought this was a Rocketry Forum ???

 

[hobie1dog]

Thought this was a Rocketry Forum ???

with lots of people who enjoy off topic subjects that are allowed.

 

[Banzai88]

Thought this was a Rocketry Forum ???

You're in the Watering Hole, where off-rocket topics reside. You're spamming your silly little complaint all over this section of the forum. Do us all a favor and ignore the whole section!

 

[Peartree]

Thought this was a Rocketry Forum ???

You must be new here.

 

[tsmith1315]

Thought this was a Rocketry Forum ???

This particular area is designated for off-topic subjects.

One great thing about this forum is the collective knowledge of its members. Keep watching, you may be surprised what you learn!

 

[KenECoyote]

FWIW I was following, watching and warning about this for decades and so far nada. Seems every few weeks or months I see some article about a massive record breaking solar flare coming (doomsday articles), but the worst I've noticed is having some GPS issues. Not saying it won't happen, but I've given up following and will deal with it if it comes. Extreme weather is the more immediate threat imo.

 

[Dane Ronnow]

The end result was that utilities were unlikely to do much to protect themselves from a 1 in 100 scenario. To my knowledge, from reading professional magazines, that's probably (mostly) still true. The profit margins for our power grids are small enough that utilities can barely pay to do the things that really need done let alone things that might happen ten, or thirty, years from now.

Cost-benefit analysis of protection against events that have an unknown probability of occuring must weigh the worst possible outcome—in this case a large, metropolitan area without power for a few weeks, as opposed to, say, the entire U.S. without power for a year or more. Keep in mind that large power transformers, which may be irreparably damaged in such an event, require as long as 10 years lead time to replace.

I wrote a political thriller in 2018 in which Iran and North Korea collaborate to bring down the U.S. power grid by detonating a nuclear weapon in LEO (200 miles). The triggering event is different than a coronal mass ejection, but the mechanism of destruction is essentially the same, resulting in the loss of power generation and transmission capability across most of North America.

Whether the cause is a solar event or a geopolitical adversary, the outcome could easily be catastrophic.

Twilight’s Last Gleaming by Dane Ronnow

In Ronnow’s impressive, all too plausible near-future thriller, U.S. president Edmund Wheeler is faced with only difficult choic...

www.publishersweekly.com

 

[Peartree]

Cost-benefit analysis of protection against events that have an unknown probability of occuring must weigh the worst possible outcome—in this case a large, metropolitan area without power for a few weeks, as opposed to, say, the entire U.S. without power for a year or more. Keep in mind that large power transformers, which may be irreparably damaged in such an event, require as long as 10 years lead time to replace.

I wrote a political thriller in 2018 in which Iran and North Korea collaborate to bring down the U.S. power grid by detonating a nuclear weapon in LEO (200 miles). The triggering event is different than a coronal mass ejection, but the mechanism of destruction is essentially the same, resulting in the loss of power generation and transmission capability across most of North America.

Whether the cause is a solar event or a geopolitical adversary, the outcome could easily be catastrophic.

Twilight’s Last Gleaming by Dane Ronnow

In Ronnow’s impressive, all too plausible near-future thriller, U.S. president Edmund Wheeler is faced with only difficult choic...

www.publishersweekly.com

I've not read it, but many years ago, I used to listen to Larry Burkett's radio show on finance in Moody Radio and remember that he wrote a book, Solar Flare, about just such a scenario in which everyone ends up needing the Amish because they're the only ones who have horses to farm with,

Solar Flare linky

 

[hobie1dog]

similar to the book "one second after" about an EMP going off over the East Coast and killing everything that had a circuit board in it

 

[Dotini]

CMEs are interesting. Not only can they cause various electrical phenomena on our planet, but also break off comet tails!
From today's edition of Spaceweather.com:

CME IMPACT SPARKS AURORAS: Arriving earlier than expected, a CMEstruck Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 17th around 2200 UT. Its arrival was signaled by an abrupt shift in the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth. The impact sparked a brief outburst of Arctic auroras, which has since subsided. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

A 'DISCONNECTION EVENT' IN COMET ZTF: Something unusual is happening to the tail of Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3). It's being disconnected. The break is inset in this picture taken by Austrian astrophotographer Michael Jaeger on Jan. 17th:

​

This is a disconnection event: A piece of Comet ZTF's tail has been pinched off and is being carried away by the solar wind.

Blame space weather. CMEs hitting comets can cause magnetic reconnection in comet tails, sometimes ripping them off entirely. NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft watched this happen to Comet Encke in April 2007: movie. This month, multiple CMEs have swept past Comet ZTF as a result of surging solar activity. One of them is responsible for the disconnection event.

Soon, we'll get a better look. Comet ZTF is approaching Earth for a close encounter (0.28 AU) on Feb. 1st. Between now and then, the comet's brightness will cross the threshold of naked-eye visibility, possibly peaking at magnitude +5. CME effects will be increasingly visible as the comet approaches. Stay tuned!

 

[Dane Ronnow]

I've not read it, but many years ago, I used to listen to Larry Burkett's radio show on finance in Moody Radio and remember that he wrote a book, Solar Flare, about just such a scenario in which everyone ends up needing the Amish because they're the only ones who have horses to farm with,

Testifying before a 2004 Congressional hearing on the effects of EMP, Dr. Lowell Wood characterized it as a continental time machine that would move us back a century in technology, adding that if we were no longer able to fuel agricultural machinery in this country, food production would simply stop, and as much as two-thirds of the present population would starve to death.

The Amish are among the relative few in this country who are self-sufficient, not just with agriculture, but building as well, using brace bits, hand drills and buck saws for construction. Mormons have been encouraged since day one to keep a year's supply of food on hand, primarily through bottling home grown fruits, vegetables and meats.

similar to the book "one second after" about an EMP going off over the East Coast and killing everything that had a circuit board in it

A good book, though sparse on what caused the EMP.

Arriving earlier than expected, a CMEstruck Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 17th around 2200 UT. Its arrival was signaled by an abrupt shift in the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth.

In July 2012, a powerful CME barely missed hitting the Earth. It was estimated that had Earth been just nine days further along in its orbit, we would have taken a direct hit, comparable to the 1859 Carrington Event.

 

[hobie1dog]

"One Second After"

A good book, though sparse on what caused the EMP.

I though at the end that the military showed up and the official explained that they traced it most likely to a terrorist group who shot the missiles from a container ship in the Gulf?

 

[Dotini]

In July 2012, a powerful CME barely missed hitting the Earth. It was estimated that had Earth been just nine days further along in its orbit, we would have taken a direct hit, comparable to the 1859 Carrington Event.

It's better to be lucky than good!

"I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."
- Thomas Jefferson

 

[Dane Ronnow]

I though at the end that the military showed up and the official explained that they traced it most likely to a terrorist group who shot the missiles from a container ship in the Gulf?

Sorry, I meant events leading up to it. The bulk of Forstchen's plot is what life was like after the collapse. Like I said, a good read, but to me, a good thriller has as a primary component the recognition of a potential catastrophic event, with a race to avoid it if possible. It's an added dimension to a doomsday novel. Again, that's my feeling, and the reason I wrote "Twilight's Last Gleaming". The first third of the book is the lead up to the collapse.

 

[Dotini]

From today's edition of Spaceweather.com ;

POSSIBLE EARTH-DIRECTED CME: Yesterday's X1-class solar flare attracted all the attention, but it did not produce a CME. Another explosion did. Five hours before the X-flare, a filament of magnetism erupted from the sun's northern hemisphere and hurled a CME into space: movie. It is a halo event with an apparently Earth-directed component. ETA: Feb. 14th. Arctic sky watchers could get a light show for Valentine's Day. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

SOLAR FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT (UPDATED): Yesterday, Feb. 11th @ 1548 UTC, Earth-orbiting satellites detected an X1-class solar flare from sunspot AR3217. Extreme UV radiation ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing a strong shortwave radio blackout over South America:




Ham radio operators, aviators, and mariners may have noticed unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 30 MHz for as much as an hour after the flare. This was an impulsive flare, intense and fast. It did not last long enough to lift a CME out of the sun's atmosphere. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.

 

[Dotini]

From today's edition of Spaceweather.com:

STRONG X2-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Sunspot AR3229 erupted on Feb. 17th (2016 UT), producing a strong X2.2-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the extreme ultraviolet pulse:

​

Ultraviolet and X-radiation ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing a deep shortwave radio blackout over the Americas. Mariners, aviators and ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal and other unusual propagation efftects at frequencies below 30 MHz for more than an hour after the flare. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.

SOLAR RADIO BURST: Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft of New Mexico did not expect an X-flare yesterday, but he was perfectly positioned to observe it. "The sun was right in my radio telescope beam when the flare occured, and my spectrograph captured the full force of the resulting radio burst," says Ashcraft. Listen to the roar of static that emerged from his loudspeaker:

Click to listen, then take a look at the complete dynamic spectrum​

This is a Type II solar radio burst. Shock waves from the flare rippled through the sun's atmosphere, creating plasma oscillations that emit shortwave energy. Briefly, the sun turned itself into a natural radio transmitter.

 

[Dotini]

From today's edition of Spaceweather.com:

AURORAS IN THE USA: Earth's magnetic field is reverberating from the impact of a CME on Feb. 26th. Its arrival brought a gust of solar wind blowing faster than 800 km/s (the highest value in years), and triggered a strong G3-class geomagnetic storm. Rocky Raybell photographed the light show from Keller, Washington:

​

"The auroras appeared at 7:15 pm PST," says Raybell. "They were so bright, I was able to capture the red colors with only a 3-second exposure (ISO 3200)."

The lights spread across multiple US states including Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Idaho, Montana, New Jersey and North Dakota. At maximum, the lights descended as far south as Colorado.

"Here are two of my good friends and co-workers witnessing their first ever auroras--in OHIO, of all places!" reports Marybeth Kiczenski, who photographed the display from the edge of Lake Erie:

​

"What a special night!" says Kiczenski. "We were able to see the auroras naked eye, even through the moonlight and light pollution!"

Europe experienced a good display, too. "It was aurora madness!" says Ruslan Merzlyakov of Nykøbing Mors, Denmark. "Auroras blew up the sky!" reports Conor McDonald of Doire, Ireland. "And here in Germany it was a mega-event," adds Heiko Ulbricht of Herzogswalde, Saxony.

Don't miss the next storm. Subscribers to our Space Weather Alert Servicereceive instant text messages when CMEs arrive and geomagnetic storms are underway.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter​

EDG

 

[Tyeeking]

I’ve had the good fortune to witness the Aurora many times. It is absolutely stunning to watch. There is very much a surreal quality to it.

 

[Dotini]

The 7th X-class flare of the year has occurred. From Spaceweather.com, March 29 edition:

SOLAR WIND, INCOMING (UPDATED): A minor stream of solar wind is heading for Earth. ETA: March 31st. The gaseous material is flowing from a relatively small hole in the sun's atmosphere, now facing our planet. Arctic auroras are likely when the solar wind arrives. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

ANOTHER X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: This is becoming routine. The sun just produced another X-class solar flare, the 7th of 2023. The X1.2-category explosion came from sunspot AR3256 near the sun's southwestern limb:




Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing a strong shortwave radio blackout over southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal and other propagation effects below 30 MHz for as much as an hour after the peak of the flare (March 29th @ 0233 UT).

A faint CME left the sun after the explosion. NOAA analysts have determined that it will miss Earth--no impact.

The real significance of this flare may be the number "7." That's the total number of X-flares in all of 2022. With today's flare, the sun has already matched that total in 2023--and it's only March.

This is yet another sign that Solar Cycle 25 is rapidly intensifying. If the trend continues, we could have nearly 30 X-flares by the end of 2023, an order-of-magnitude greater activity than only two years ago. Official forecasts are calling for Solar Maximum to arrive in 2024 or 2025. If so, there is plenty of time for the solar cycle to intensify even more; X-flares could become routine, indeed. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.

-------------------------------------------

The Guardian, often considered a reliable news source, has reported an association between earthquakes and electrical effects:

"...it is surprising to discover there is an electrical dimension. Not only do earthquakes cause a variety of electrical effects, but we now know how to trigger them using a pulse of artificial lightning."

Sparks that signal the shock

David Hambling on the current thinking on electricity and earthquakes

www.theguardian.com

----------------------------------------------

So there seems to be evidence that electric effects, potentially from solar flares and EMP events, may induce earthquakes.

"The horizontal electric field perturbation inside the Earth is caused by telluric currents during earthquakes...

"Many minerals are piezoelectric, which means that when they are put under pressure, as in a fault zone, they can produce an electric potential.

It also means that when electricity is applied they vibrate slightly. An electric pulse could set a large mass of rock vibrating, enough perhaps to start slippage and trigger an earthquake. A lthough the underlying physical principles may not be understood, the implications are literally earth-shattering. We now have a relatively simple and easy means of inducing earthquakes."

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JD028489

----------------------------------------------

The government says, "Fallout from an EMP event, either man- made or natural, could be extremely significant ranging from the loss of electrical power for months, ...:

- THE EMP THREAT: THE STATE OF PREPAREDNESS AGAINST THE THREAT OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) EVENT

----------------------------------------------


For whatever reasons, the crater lake at Yellowstone has been swarming with dozens of minor earthquakes recently.