Where a Massive Solar Storm Could Take Down the US Power Grid for Millions

A new study published Friday in AGU Advances “depicts the most advanced picture yet of how a rare but massive solar storm could affect some US industries and electric systems more than others,” reports CNN.

“During a 250-year solar storm, the East Coast would have widespread potential for grid failure.”

Researchers modeled what a Carrington Event — a 1-in-150-year geomagnetic storm or even rarer — could mean for the modern day. They estimate the US economy would lose about $1.5 billion to $2 billion per day from direct and indirect costs, as millions of people face power outages. The findings show the most vulnerable areas are the Northeast and the Northern Plains, especially locations at higher latitudes.
No one knows when the next big storm will hit. While the most severe geomagnetic storms are labeled as once-in-a-century or rarer, these events don’t follow a fixed schedule. “That timing only averages out on very long timescales,” said Anna Kelbert, a geophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not involved in the study but previously studied solar storm effects on power grids. “The event can occur at any time, as soon as a week from now, or centuries later….” [Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado], said the sun is now coming down from a period of heightened activity, which is also when some of the biggest storms to hit Earth have occurred in the past. “We still need a lot of work to be ready….”

“We haven’t really seen events like this size in the modern era, where we’ve had all of this high technology and we’ve had the power grid of this size,” said Ed Oughton, researcher at George Mason University and lead author of the new study… Because the US grid’s actual structure is proprietary for security reasons, the team used engineering models to create various network and transformer setups including the 10,464 substations and 16,256 transmission lines found across the country… The grid structure also contributes to higher risk in some areas. For instance, the eastern US is linked together in a single grid interconnection. A voltage issue in Maine, if not isolated early, could cascade through the grid to Washington, DC. The West works similarly, whereas the Texas interconnection operates mostly within the state…

Power is restored over time depending on any alternative electrical paths that could bypass the substation or availabilities of spare transformers, for instance. “This nationwide analysis shows that we are currently ill-prepared to face a major magnetic storm, and that the societal impacts would be catastrophic,” Kelbert said.

“The study estimates power disruptions for 5.1 million people and 135,000 businesses,” according to the article, and “The outages could last from hours to days to weeks depending on the damage and resources available to get back online, said Oughton.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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