Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the living-off-the-grid dept.

On March 13th, 1989 a surge of energy from the sun, from a "coronal mass ejection", had a startling impact on Canada. Within 92 seconds, the resulting geomagnetic storm took down Quebec's electricity grid for nine hours. It could have been worse. On July 23rd 2012 particles from a much larger solar ejection blew across the orbital path of Earth, missing it by days. Had it hit America, the resulting geomagnetic storm would have destroyed perhaps a quarter of high-voltage transformers, according to Storm Analysis Consultants in Duluth, Minnesota. Future geomagnetic storms are inevitable.

And that is not the only threat to the grid. A transformer-wrecking electromagnetic pulse (EMP) would be produced by a nuclear bomb, designed to maximise its yield of gamma rays, if detonated high up, be it tethered to a big cluster of weather balloons or carried on a satellite or missile.

[...] After the surge, telecom switches and internet routers are dead. Air-traffic control is down. Within a day, some shoppers in supermarkets turn to looting (many, unable to use credit and debit cards, cannot pay even if they wanted to). After two days, market shelves are bare. On the third day, backup diesel generators begin to sputter out. Though fuel cannot be pumped, siphoning from vehicles, authorised by martial law, keeps most prisons, police stations and hospitals running for another week.

[...] Yet not much is being done. Barack Obama ordered EMP protection for White House systems, but FERC, the utilities regulator, has not required EMP-proofing. Nor has the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pushed for a solution or even included EMP in official planning scenarios. (The Pentagon should handle that, DHS officials say; the Pentagon notes that civilian infrastructure is the DHS's responsibility.) As for exactly what safeguards are or are not needed, the utilities themselves are best equipped to decide, says Brandon Wales, the DHS's head of infrastructure analysis.

But the utilities' industry group, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), argues that, because EMP is a matter of national security, it is the government's job. NERC may anyway be in no rush. It took a decade to devise a vegetation-management plan after, in 2003, an Ohio power line sagged into branches and cut power to 50m north-easterners at a cost of roughly $6bn. NERC has repeatedly and successfully lobbied Congress to prevent legislation that would require EMP-proofing. That is something America, and the world, could one day regret.

Is a widespread blackout the end of the world?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by fnj on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:50PM (1 child)

    by fnj (1654) on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:50PM (#567794)

    The US government already has a large strategic petroleum reserve.

    Poor trusting deceived soul. Do you know how much is in this "large reserve"? About 38 days' worth. But it can't be withdrawn that fast! It would take 158 days to get it all back out, pumping at capacity. And the reserve is raided all the time. Millions of barrels were sold off after Katrina, and during Arab Spring, and during Desert Storm. Millions of barrels have been wasted on debt reduction; not for any emergency!

    The reserve is simple crude oil. It still has to be refined into product before it can be used for anything.

    Pssst. It's a sick joke.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by Demena on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:55PM

    by Demena (5637) on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:55PM (#567798)

    I think you replied to the wrong person. I'm with you. Significant EMP and everything stops working. You are back to making the tools to make the tools to....