Where Power is Likely to Go Out in a Solar Storm

[Huckleberry]

Seriously, you should be checking Space Weather. They also have a great app for your phone

https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/

 

[Alea Jacta Est]

Hey, have you thought about using that creek for power gen? I've read about it but not seriously and not for some time as I don't have a creek to use but from what I remember it is a great option if you have it.

Thanks sir. On it. I’ve got a guy...on my team. That’s what he did for a living.

Unless I make a fairly big investment in batteries, that source will end up limited to recharging stuff (or running radios) not unlike solar or wind. Alternative power sources are awesome but the storage component can be a deal breaker.

 

[Doco Overboard]

If your lucky enough to live near a nuke or demand plant power could be restored relatively y easily if the right contingency plans are in place. System supervisory equipment is where the problem could come from.

 

[Archeryrob]

I've said this a long time, generators are for short time power outages. if SHTF and we have long term power problems and people get get hungry and such. A generator is a loud advertisement to the Have nots, that you are in good supply. I would expect the "Have nots" to outnumber the "Haves" and you can't be on guard all the time and probably not hear them coming with that loud generator. I'd gladly live in a more obscure 18 century style life until they restore order.

I would personally would go solar and power banks and have a dark at dusk policy.

 

[lazarus]

Yep thanks for the link.
The takeaway for me.

"In the eastern United States, there is a particularly high hazard region just east of the Appalachian Mountains that trends northeast‐southwest and extends from Maine to Georgia (Kelbert et al., 2019). This area of high hazard between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Appalachian Mountains is associated with an anomalous coast‐parallel resistor within the upper mantle (Murphy & Egbert, 2017) and is in stark contrast to areas of relatively low hazard on either side of it."

What is missing is the a solar storm will take a region down, not a tiny part of a regional grid.

We are on the PJM grid which services Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

If lucky, it'll simply just do some minor damage taking out a few transformers and otherwise trip the various breakers and result in some bits being down for days and the rest taking 24-48hrs to bring service back as generators can be connected back in to the grid, stabilized, etc.

If less lucky, a lot of the major transformers will get destroyed and that will take months or years to repair the damage. They aren't the sort of thing where hundreds of spares are just sitting around thanks to just in time manufacturing. Which also means the factories that make them, are likely to be without power. These also aren't the sort of things that are made everywhere. There are a limited number of factories in the world that make US grid transformers (HV DC or major AC transformers).

 

[Alea Jacta Est]

Speaking of dark at dusk...candles. They are not so good for cooking but for light and even a little heat in the right circumstance...


Here’s a thought. The tall votive, religious candles in glass with etchings and paintings on the side, are widely available at WalMart. They’re cheap an burn off a long time.

 

[lazarus]

Speaking of dark at dusk...candles. They are not so good for cooking but for light and even a little heat in the right circumstance...


Here’s a thought. The tall votive, religious candles in glass with etchings and paintings on the side, are widely available at WalMart. They’re cheap an burn off a long time.

I've got plenty of the big like 48hrs candles. Left overs from my wedding. I've got probably 60 of the 2"x12" candles in a couple of Xerox sized boxes in my basement. Never bothered chucking them. Used them a couple of times for longer power outages.

 

[Doco Overboard]

What is missing is the a solar storm will take a region down, not a tiny part of a regional grid.

We are on the PJM grid which services Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

If lucky, it'll simply just do some minor damage taking out a few transformers and otherwise trip the various breakers and result in some bits being down for days and the rest taking 24-48hrs to bring service back as generators can be connected back in to the grid, stabilized, etc.

If less lucky, a lot of the major transformers will get destroyed and that will take months or years to repair the damage. They aren't the sort of thing where hundreds of spares are just sitting around thanks to just in time manufacturing. Which also means the factories that make them, are likely to be without power. These also aren't the sort of things that are made everywhere. There are a limited number of factories in the world that make US grid transformers (HV DC or major AC transformers).

Spare transformers are generally in abundance and for the most part store room stock and inventory. As long as other infrastructure does not become damaged like the supervisory controls like I mentioned up thread. Even then they can be overridden should the need occur.

Diesel electric locomotives are all over the place and mobile at that for an extent or extreme circumstances.
We paralleled a diesel locomotive with a three phase 1000kva padmount one time to power a small town. All you need is a rectifier or mobile substation that can be brought in by road tractor 5th wheel. In this case the help of some local farmers and CN who were able to derail, crib up and then drag the locomotive into a position for cable termination/ acces to the dynamo. this was during the Ice storm that affected a large part of the NE and canadian (HYDRO) ops prolly before some here were born.
Spare substation transformers are also in place already at most substations not to mention mobile subs that can be easily towed inside a gate somewhere and then put to use.
People need to be worried about a ice storm or cuzzin joe doing a car pole or shooting insulators off a transmission tower somewhere.
Anything that's that damaged cut and run could be used to isolate then back-feed as necessary whether it be from a temporary outside source such as a portable generator or other external source.

 

[Boxcab]

I would expect the same solar storm that puts a hurting on the power grid might do some damage to all these generators. Having spare circuit boards and ignition systems protected under ground or in a faraday cage might be needed. This goes for any man-made EMP that some nasty country might want to set-off over the USA while our focus is elsewhere....


*cough, cough, corona*




.

 

[Doco Overboard]

reminds me of...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

I worked for First Energy (Worst energy) when that happened. It was a freaking off corridor tree that caused the cascade effect. Supervisory controls those rascally hard to fix electronics)
They were more worried about hammering the arborist crews for the tree count so it was not addressed and unattended. It was also initially classified as a clear blue (non storm) event as they tried to cover it up.
The really scary thing is this same outfit thought it was OK to operate a nuke reactor I think it was Beaver Valley in OH outside NERC inspections/recommendations. It was only something minor like the core was cracked or something so they ran it for profit instead of lengthy cool down and repair etc. LOL They control the PJM that comes across form Allegany wanting to link up with Jersey for back feed across the bay.
Seen them hurt some good people vets, lineman, office , clerical HR etc.

 

[TheOriginalMexicanBob]

I've said this a long time, generators are for short time power outages. if SHTF and we have long term power problems and people get get hungry and such.

In the hurricane zone down south some of the wealthier folks have three generators for such long term issues. The generators switch off after so many hours so the others can be serviced and cool off.

When you have enough dollars you can usually find a way to keep from being too inconvenienced...maybe even hire your own private army to protect you. But I guess you need Kennedy money for that.

 

[lazarus]

I would expect the same solar storm that puts a hurting on the power grid might do some damage to all these generators. Having spare circuit boards and ignition systems protected under ground or in a faraday cage might be needed. This goes for any man-made EMP that some nasty country might want to set-off over the USA while our focus is elsewhere....


*cough, cough, corona*




.

Nope. Not if not connected. A solar storm is a very low frequency inductance. It effects long conductors, not short conductors. An EMP is what you are talking about effecting short conductors equally to long (with an EMP, it is the lower the total power a wire or circuit can handle that is the issue. An EMP isn't going to melt your house wiring or the alternator in your car. But it might fry your vehicle computer or a motor circuit board controller).

That is the importance of monitoring solar weather. If you know a solar storm is inbound, you can disconnect everything (or as much as you can) from the grid. You might still fry transformers and rectifiers that can't be physically disconnected (in time or at all). Also possibly melt some powerlines if the solar storm is sufficiently powerful. The damage to things like house wiring is going to be limited to non-existent. That said, if you DID know one was coming, turn off ALL the breakers in your panel (or pull fuses if you've got a fuse box) and unplug everything. Make sure all light switches are set to off in your house. You want the shortest possible circuit length to reduce induced power.

On the replacement transformers and rectifiers, there are spares if most of the transformers and rectifiers and high voltage DC converters blew? I don't simply mean a few hundred residential step down 240v transformers, I mean the big boys and most/all of them. Since we do monitor space weather now, hopefully we could disconnect most of the stuff.

However, if a real Carrington event hit, it would melt basically the entire grid in the hemisphere it hit for anything connected or anything using a long conductor (measured in at least hundreds of yards if not miles).

 

[Doco Overboard]

Substation x formers are AC. There are DC systems out there like mass transit trains, construction cranes, power shovels etc. but are fed from an AC source and not generally associated with a distribution system in that they are not used to express feed they are considered line loss for power quality.

 

[hobiecat590]

If your lucky enough to live near a nuke or demand plant power could be restored relatively y easily if the right contingency plans are in place. System supervisory equipment is where the problem could come from.

When the grid fails during an EMP event, even perfectly healthy nukes will SCRAM and stay down until the grid is back up. All Nukes, like Calvert Cliffs will stay down according to current protocols because off site power is needed to power the reactor and spent fuel pool cooling pumps. Assuming the diesel emergency generators to power the pumps can be started, after the 2 weeks or so the on site fuel supply will be exhausted. If this fuel can not be replenished the generators will stop and the water in 100 spent fuel cooling ponds across the US and the eastern seaboard especially will boil off and massive radiation contamination will result. Those of us "lucky enough" to live w/in 20 miles of a plant have about 72 hours to bug out once the pumps stop. Unfortunately, there is nowhere on the East coast to bug out to.

It is regrettable in the extreme that the NRC does not have a contingency plan to allow perfectly healthy nukes to power back up if only to keep their onsite pumps working. It is also regrettable that a 5 mile LNG pipeline from Cove Point to Calvert Cliff has not been built to provide emergency fuel to power the dual fuel generators in a worldwide natural or man made (China, N Korea, Iran) EMP event. If they never build a pipeline, perhaps natural gas fueled truck tankers could be used to feed Calvert w/ the some of the millions of gallons of LNG stored in those beautiful white tanks at Cove Point.

 

[Doco Overboard]

There probably is a gas line that's buried to CC all I know is our outfit has not done any horizontal drilling over there for gas distribution. Another option is maritime based external power sources.
If there is a significant event that melts transmission lines I'm sure the emphasis for daily electrical needs for things such as cell phone charging would have surely long since become a lower priority.
For most people anyway.

 

[hobiecat590]

There probably is a gas line that's buried to CC all I know is our outfit has not done any horizontal drilling over there for gas distribution. Another option is maritime based external power sources.
If there is a significant event that melts transmission lines I'm sure the emphasis for daily electrical needs for things such as cell phone charging would have surely long since become a lower priority.
For most people anyway.

A Navy nuke ship/sub could do the job for Calvert and Surrey 1&2 on the James River.

I don't much care about anything other than to keep the coolant pumps running to prevent radiation contamination in the air and the Bay. Not sure what could be done about the Peach Bottom, 3MI, and Susquehanna reactors that are cooled by the Susquehanna river.

 

[george g.]

My job can supply them with backup generators, we're good.

 

[Docster]

Actually old news but perhaps more info. If preppers haven't prepped for some sort of grid failure or power outage they're behind the curve. Solar, generator, monitoring. Something.

 

[hobiecat590]

90+% of Solar installations are Grid tie type and when the lights go out are useless while the grid is down. This surprises some folks.

The Solar City and similar installations that include inverters and "Tesla Power walls" will provide backup power for normal power out situations. An EMP event will most likely fry the solar panel charge controllers and misc electronic boards and batteries in these systems. Your car and backup generator will also be fried and won't work unless you park same in a Faraday cage.

If Tesla ever offers a "solution" that would permit integrating one of their car battery packs as a secondary energy store to the 6kv Power walls, they would sell a lot more solar roofs and cars. Just imagine how long you could power critical electrical loads on a battery pack designed to power a car 300-500+. For non-EMP outages, this would be a great system.

 

[Docster]

Funnily enough, i work on the mission that is responsible for monitoring solar weather events. People have no clue how bad it could be. If you ever want an interesting read look up the carrington event. Happened back in the 1800s and created Aurora visable all the way south of the equator, blew up telegraph stations, all sorts of crazy stuff.

Oh yes, The Carrington Event, a repeat of which would pretty much send us back into a primitive time due to our reliance on technology and electricity. The earth missed one by 3 days a few years ago

NOAA has a Space Weather monitoring site
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Another good site, non-governmental is this
https://suspicious0bservers.org/