Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Protecting the Grid From Solar Storms

by Jean Kumagai
Every so often the Sun emits an explosive burst of charged particles that makes its way to Earth and, under just the right conditions, wreaks havoc on power grids. A powerful geomagnetic storm in March 1989 blacked out the entire province of Quebec, leaving millions of customers in the dark and damaging transformers as far south as New Jersey. Are we prepared for a repeat?
Thanks to two new satellites, we might be better prepared than ever. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, which will measure the solar wind at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, is set for launch next year. And an experimental solar-sail mission dubbed Sunjammer could become the basis for a space-weather early-warning system. Read morehttp://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/policy/protecting-the-power-grid-from-solar-storms

No comments:

Post a Comment