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Solar Shield--New NASA Project to Protect the North American Power Grid | |
| Why Now? User ID: 619959  Canada10/26/2010 04:04 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 1127672  United States10/26/2010 04:07 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 1118331 United States11/05/2010 12:31 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | NASA plans to "battle blackouts with blackouts"? So they'll just shut down the power/grid BEFORE the CME hits? NASA is Building a 'Solar Shield' to Protect Power Grids from Space Weather [link to www.popsci.com] NASA is now in the process of creating a “Solar Shield” that should be able to minimize the damage to power grids caused by electromagnetic disturbances in the atmosphere and ground caused by foul weather on the sun. The threat to power grids during bad solar weather is known as GIC, or geomagnetically induced current. When the sun ejects a huge coronal mass in our direction, the impact with our atmosphere shakes up Earth’s magnetic field. That generates electric currents from the upper atmosphere all the way down to the ground. These can cripple power grids, overloading circuits and in some cases melting heavy-duty transformers. Those transformers are very necessary to keep the power flowing. They’re also expensive, irreparable in the field, and can take a year to replace. Meaning that a massive coronal ejection could knock down entire power grids for long stretches of time, grinding economies to a halt and making life more than a little inconvenient. But NASA has a plan to battle these blackouts with blackouts. If transformers are offline at the time the storm hits they will not be affected, so the trick is to figure out where and when a storm is going to hit before it reaches the atmosphere. To do that, NASA’s SOHO and two STEREO spacecraft identify a coronal mass ejection (CME) heading toward earth and create a 3-D image of it, allowing researchers to characterize its strength and determine when it will hit. [continues..] |
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| Anonymous Coward User ID: 686345 United States11/05/2010 07:32 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Why now... why only protect the north american grid? Quoting: Why Now? 619959From NASA Science News: Solar Shield--Protecting the North American Power Grid Oct. 26, 2010: Every hundred years or so, a solar storm comes along so potent it fills the skies of Earth with blood-red auroras, makes compass needles point in the wrong direction, and sends electric currents coursing through the planet's topsoil. The most famous such storm, the Carrington Event of 1859, actually shocked telegraph operators and set some of their offices on fire. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warns that if such a storm occurred today, we could experience widespread power blackouts with permanent damage to many key transformers. "Solar Shield is a new and experimental forecasting system for the North American power grid," explains project leader Antti Pulkkinen, a Catholic University of America research associate working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe we can zero in on specific transformers and predict which of them are going to be hit hardest by a space weather event." Since the beginning of the Space Age the total length of high-voltage power lines crisscrossing North America has increased nearly 10 fold. This has turned power grids into giant antennas for geomagnetically induced currents. With demand for power growing even faster than the grids themselves, modern networks are sprawling, interconnected, and stressed to the limit—a recipe for trouble, according to the National Academy of Sciences: "The scale and speed of problems that could occur on [these modern grids] have the potential to impact the power system in ways not previously experienced." A large-scale blackout could last a long time, mainly due to transformer damage. As the National Academy report notes, "these multi-ton apparatus cannot be repaired in the field, and if damaged in this manner they need to be replaced with new units which have lead times of 12 months or more." While many utilities have taken steps to fortify their grids, the overall situation has only gotten worse. A 2009 report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the US Department of Energy concluded that modern power systems have a "significantly enhanced vulnerability and exposure to effects of a severe geomagnetic storm." <50% [link to science.nasa.gov] . |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 686345 United States11/05/2010 07:48 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Why now... why only protect the north american grid? Quoting: Why Now? 619959From NASA Science News: Solar Shield--Protecting the North American Power Grid Oct. 26, 2010: Every hundred years or so, a solar storm comes along so potent it fills the skies of Earth with blood-red auroras, makes compass needles point in the wrong direction, and sends electric currents coursing through the planet's topsoil. The most famous such storm, the Carrington Event of 1859, actually shocked telegraph operators and set some of their offices on fire. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warns that if such a storm occurred today, we could experience widespread power blackouts with permanent damage to many key transformers. "Solar Shield is a new and experimental forecasting system for the North American power grid," explains project leader Antti Pulkkinen, a Catholic University of America research associate working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe we can zero in on specific transformers and predict which of them are going to be hit hardest by a space weather event." Since the beginning of the Space Age the total length of high-voltage power lines crisscrossing North America has increased nearly 10 fold. This has turned power grids into giant antennas for geomagnetically induced currents. With demand for power growing even faster than the grids themselves, modern networks are sprawling, interconnected, and stressed to the limit—a recipe for trouble, according to the National Academy of Sciences: "The scale and speed of problems that could occur on [these modern grids] have the potential to impact the power system in ways not previously experienced." A large-scale blackout could last a long time, mainly due to transformer damage. As the National Academy report notes, "these multi-ton apparatus cannot be repaired in the field, and if damaged in this manner they need to be replaced with new units which have lead times of 12 months or more." While many utilities have taken steps to fortify their grids, the overall situation has only gotten worse. A 2009 report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the US Department of Energy concluded that modern power systems have a "significantly enhanced vulnerability and exposure to effects of a severe geomagnetic storm." <50% [link to science.nasa.gov] 0 |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 686345 United States11/05/2010 08:14 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Why now... why only protect the north american grid? Quoting: Why Now? 619959From NASA Science News: Solar Shield--Protecting the North American Power Grid Oct. 26, 2010: Every hundred years or so, a solar storm comes along so potent it fills the skies of Earth with blood-red auroras, makes compass needles point in the wrong direction, and sends electric currents coursing through the planet's topsoil. The most famous such storm, the Carrington Event of 1859, actually shocked telegraph operators and set some of their offices on fire. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warns that if such a storm occurred today, we could experience widespread power blackouts with permanent damage to many key transformers. "Solar Shield is a new and experimental forecasting system for the North American power grid," explains project leader Antti Pulkkinen, a Catholic University of America research associate working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe we can zero in on specific transformers and predict which of them are going to be hit hardest by a space weather event." Since the beginning of the Space Age the total length of high-voltage power lines crisscrossing North America has increased nearly 10 fold. This has turned power grids into giant antennas for geomagnetically induced currents. With demand for power growing even faster than the grids themselves, modern networks are sprawling, interconnected, and stressed to the limit—a recipe for trouble, according to the National Academy of Sciences: "The scale and speed of problems that could occur on [these modern grids] have the potential to impact the power system in ways not previously experienced." A large-scale blackout could last a long time, mainly due to transformer damage. As the National Academy report notes, "these multi-ton apparatus cannot be repaired in the field, and if damaged in this manner they need to be replaced with new units which have lead times of 12 months or more." While many utilities have taken steps to fortify their grids, the overall situation has only gotten worse. A 2009 report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the US Department of Energy concluded that modern power systems have a "significantly enhanced vulnerability and exposure to effects of a severe geomagnetic storm." <50% [link to science.nasa.gov] |
