"Communication systems, power transformers and satellites may malfunction" was the subheading to the recent story in the Salt Lake Tribune entitled "Two-Year Solar Storm Has Potential To Disrupt Everything Under the Sun".

I have heard differing views on the effects of flares on transformers. Anyone with more info on this subject?

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), March 09, 1999

Answers

Steve,

Here's a link to a recent thread on this:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000aT0

"Two-year solar storm has disruption potential"

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 09, 1999.

I think the threat is larger for long transmission lines (power- cables running for miles). A decade ago, when solar flares took down the power at a Canadian power-plant, they found that the moving magnetic field from the solar field induced a large voltage on the power-lines (sort of like an inside-out electric generator).

The Canadian power-company responded by putting "capacitors" in series with their transmission lines. Capacitors pass alternating- current (such as comes from generators), but not direct-current (which it seems was the problem from the solar flare).

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@anonymous.com), March 10, 1999.

I can't locate the URL on this but somewhere on the net there is a research paper on geomagnetic storms and transformers in which they actually measured a 80 degree c. rise in temperature due to geomagnetic variations. Yes I know that sounds like a lot, think tank circuit and eddy currents.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 10, 1999.

Think having your balls fried! I'm hearing different scenarios on what can happen. Like earth temperatures reaching 150 degreees, wind storms at 200 mph! WOW! Forget Y2K, I'm finding me a gold mine shaft!

-- Fried (Fried@Fried.com), March 10, 1999.

Fried - 150 degrees ain't nuthin. Ya chicken.

Flame me crispy, but would a sizeable flare resemble Nostradamus' fireball in the sky? No, I'm not a catastroph. Just pondering....

-- Lisa (lisa@work.again), March 10, 1999.

http://earthsky.com/1998/esmi980304.html

"Large systems, with their long transmission lines and multiple grounding points, are more vulnerable to geomagnetically induced currents GICs. GICs can produce half-cycle saturation of many transformers simultaneously across a network, overwhelming voltage regulators."

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/satellites/html/sp_weather.html

"A geomagnetic storm at 2:45AM on March 13, 1989 tripped five 735kV lines from James Bay causing a generation loss of 9450MW."

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 10, 1999.

http://www.mpelectric.com/storms/index.htm

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), March 10, 1999.

Gawd, just when I was getting used to global repercussions of Y2K.

Last night on CBS? ... pretty sure it was Dan Rather who covered the solar flare issue.

Got a cave?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 10, 1999.

Yep, Dan Rather covered solar flares last night on the news. We could be in deep shit with Y2K, solar flares and all these unknown viruses lurking.

-- Dave (dave22@concentric.net), March 10, 1999.

See ...

Last nights CBS Evening News with Dan Rather ...

Solar Storm of the Century

http://www.cbs2ny.com/prd1/now/ template.display?p_story=134642&p_who=network

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 10, 1999.

Just a friendly tip that there's another thread on this same topic at...

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000aT0

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 1999.

I do believe last night on the NBC Nightly News they showed a day-old NASA photo of a massive coronal ejection that is the harbinger of a big solar storm. Time to tune the shortwave to WWV (2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz) to listen to the Geomagnetic Index and Solar Activity reports.

Strange days indeed!

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), March 10, 1999.

"Solar Terrestrial Activity Report"

http://dxlc.com/solar/

This site is especially for DX'ers.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 1999.

Thanks, Kevin, hadn't seen that one - nice graph.

-- sparks (wireless@home.com), March 10, 1999.

Steve; In Atlanta's paper Wed 10,March the Nation section page A12 states an article concerning Solar Blasts.

The article states that a Japanese spacecraft can Xray the Sun and the picture will show a " S " figure shape of solar flare.

According to Montana State Univ at Bozeman,scientist Richard Canfield mentiones that this xray will give Earth at least 3-4 extra days to allow satellites to compensate. ANd with this tool it could add another 3-4 days added time to prepare.

The article states that a "sudden release of energy can hurl 10 billion tons of gas into space at speeds of up to 2 million miles an hour".

The article was written by Paul Recer Associated Press

All kinds of things happening. Time to stay awake !!!

Furie...

-- Furie (furieart@dnet.net), March 10, 1999.