Geomagnetic/Solar Storms
Congressional concern shown by passage of the The Grid Act, H.R. 5026, draws attention to the impact natural and manmade EMP can have on regional electric grids. See the Fox news link covering the legislation, threats and the National Geographic television programs that illustrate them. The EMP program, Electronic Armageddon, began airing on June 15, 2010. See the Nat Geo website for viewings of Cosmic Fire and other programs on geomagnetic storms.
NERC covered these threats in its report issued June 2010 on High-Impact Low-Frequency Events. FERC released a detailed series of reports on EMP including solar storms on electric grids.
Recent publications from the National Academy of Sciences, such as its Extreme Space Weather report, and subsequent reports of the Space Forum, an organization that includes NASA, NOAA, DoE, DoD, etc, reveal that the worst case effects of a 100-year solar storm have just been revised showing that the county can be hit with a one year blackout if measures are not taken to protect against the electromagnetic effects.
Emergency management organizations at the federal level supported by NOAA and at the local level in western New York have begun table top exercises in light of these disasters.
Geomagnetic Storm Grid Impact Map
(courtesy of John Kappenman of Storm Analysis Consultants)
The circled areas have the largest transformers which will experience the greatest amount of damage. They take 12-16 months to manufacture. In order to replace even 100's of the nearly 2000 in place, back logs would take years to fulfill and power shortages could persist 4-10 years unless these resources are protected or hardened local power sources are deployed.
