Aug 24 2009

Time to Do Something About Space Weather

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Forget the economy, health care and Afghanistan. I want to know what the government is going to do about the weather.

Not the local weather in San Francisco, where the summer chill seems impervious even to global warming, but space weather--solar geomagnetic storms that have the power to disable satellites, disrupt radio transmissions and even knock out electrical power to wide areas, as when most of Quebec province went dark for hours in 1989.

As noted previously on NEXT100, a study group convened by the National Research Council reported this year that a really bad geomagnetic storm could black out most of North America, costing trillions of dollars in losses and requiring a decade for full recovery--if our social institutions survived at all. 

The cost and complexity of dealing with the problem have stymied solutions and left modern civilization highly vulnerable. When I asked for details of current action plans several weeks ago, a spokeswoman for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is tasked with preventing widespread blackouts, said only, "it's certainly an issue that NERC is looking into."

In a briefing paper released today on "Electromagnetic Pulse & Geomagnetic Storm Events," NERC concedes that geomagnetic storms "have the potential to physically damage electrical and electronic equipment throughout North America's critical infrastructure, notably including Extra High Voltage transformers and industrial control systems . . . The most significant electric reliability concern is the potential for simultaneous impact to large portions of the bulk power system, from which restoration and recovery may be challenging and prolonged."

NERC explains why the problem remains so great:

Essentially all of the system's critical conductive elements are exposed to this threat, as are many of its critical control elements. As a result, deploying controls and equipment that could prevent damage . . . may require considerable expertise, time, and financial resources.

NERC notes that a commission authorized by Congress to address the problem recommended several steps, including: 

• Assure there are adequate communication assets dedicated or available to electrical system operators.
• Protect the use of emergency power supplies and fuel delivery, and importantly, provide for their sustained use as part of the protection of critical loads.
• Separate the present interconnected systems, particularly the Eastern Interconnection, into several nonsynchronous connected subregions or electrical islands.
• Install substantially more black start generation units coupled with specific transmission that can be readily isolated to balancing loads.
• Improve, extend, and exercise recovery capabilities.

In partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and in collaboration with the Canadian government, NERC says it is convening a committee of government and industry experts to further assess the risks and--at a workshop later this year or next--will "consider potential preventative and planning measures to minimize their impacts on bulk power system reliability."

In addition, NERC says it will "work to coordinate various planning and mitigation actions with North American governmental authorities and other critical infrastructure sectors. A comprehensive, crosssector approach will be needed to ensure North America is adequately protected from these threats."

Bottom line, as I read it: expect more studies but not a lot of action anytime soon. We have a long way to go before we can sleep easier about the impact of solar storms or nuclear bomb explosions that create similar devastating electromagnetic pulses.

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