Solar Flares…No Power, No Problem…Halli Again
Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Halli Stone on her blog talk radio show. It is always fun to speak with her. We discussed solar flares again and it got me thinking about a few things. I knew last week there was a sun spot which caused an interruption to radio communications. I know scientists are expecting a massive solar flare in the not too distant future and they are also expecting many places on the planet to be without power following that flare from weeks to months. Halli asked me if we would be warned when a flare was on it’s way and I didn’t have an answer. Since the flare will not harm us, only our way of life, it appears the government has no plan in place to warn of an impending crisis.
Then, this morning there are reports of severe weather again over night. It seems every day brings another disaster. Last night it was tornadoes in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and North Dakota. We don’t normally expect tornadoes in those states. Now, I graduated from college in Iowa and I know we had tornadoes but they were normally in the southern part of the state, not yesterday. There were 62 tornadoes reported some with wind speeds of 136 miles per hour.
While I am concerned about a solar flare and an extended power outage a short outage of a week or less is much more common and if we can prepare for those we will be prepared with the equipment and skills we need to deal with one that would last much longer.
I have been working on bread recipes which are baked in a Dutch oven, in the oven or using coals if the power is gone. These are in the May issue of the Totally Ready Newsletter. When I was in Houston I tried making the bread there and discovered I needed less water . I’m guessing it was do to the humidity. As with all recipes designed for one altitude and set of weather conditions, and then used in another, you will need to experiment a little. Do that now so you will have it conquered when the need arises and it is no longer a novelty to use a Dutch oven, but a necessity.
For the next few weeks we will concentrate on living without power as part of our disaster preparedness. I know we have done that in the newsletter and here but I will consolidate the tips and beginning next week ask you to try out some of them each week.
Hurricane season has begun and we have already witnessed deaths. Hurricane season extends until November 1st so we still have a long way to go! Last year a fire storm in Southern California came very, very close to taking out all the cell phone coverage in Los Angeles and taking down power. We have become so dependent on the grid that we need to really think about what we would do without it.
I’m including an article here that I found yesterday which I think explains the danger and worry about solar flares. If you are still wondering what it really means continue reading.
So, do we really need to worry about a huge solar storm burning out the electrical systems of half the world in 2013? Masochists that we are here at the Telegraph, we love to shoot down our own stories, and I was cracking my knuckles for this one. It’s got all the ingredients – white-coated authority, grave warnings of impending doom, exciting science nuclear nemesis in space. NASA! Solar flares! Planes falling out of the sky! Etc.
But I read the piece, and spoke to the reporter, and – while always remembering that I am no more an astrophysicist than I am a black belt in taekwon do – it sounded pretty solid. Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, is very clear in the quotes, and our reporter, Andrew Hough, was very careful to check his facts with Dr Fisher before publishing. It sounds like a lot of serious people think that this is a real danger.
Apparently the concern is in 2013, the sun will reach a stage of its cycle when these large events are more likely. This might strike you as a bit strange, as you’ve probably heard (as have I) that the sun has been especially active for the last half-century or so and is expected to die down in the next couple of years – I spoke to Marcus Chown, the physicist and author of We Need to Talk about Kelvin, who said “Solar activity has been abnormally high for the past 50 years, but the extremely feeble start to the latest 11-year cycle suggests this activity is coming to an end and things are going to be quiet on the Sun for quite a few years.” Dr Ruth Bamford, a plasma physicist at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, agrees: “The sun has been particularly quiet for the last few years in a protracted solar minimum. It has just woken up, as it were, and started its usual 11-year cycle a bit later than most.”
So what’s going on? Well, something similar has happened before. In 1859 a huge solar storm burned out telegraph wires across Europe and the United States. Dr Stuart Clark has written a book, The Sun Kings, about when that happened. He says that the “Carrington flare”, as it was known, “smothered two-thirds of the Earth’s skies in a blood-red aurora a night later, and crippled all of global navigation and global communication, such as it was at that time. Compasses span uselessly and the telegraph network went down as phantom electricity surged through the wire.”
The sun had indeed been running at a record high for the latter half of the 20th century, and has now died down to its lowest level for a century. But Dr Clark warns that “average levels of solar activity has fallen does not mean that the Sun is immune from large flares or even giant ones. Low average levels of activity may even promote the giant flares.
“Perhaps like earthquakes, when there are constant flares/tremors the energy is dissipated evenly over long periods of time. But in periods of quiet, that energy can build up and then suddenly be released in a giant event. This remains speculation, however.”
2013 is when the next peak in the sun’s cycle of activity is expected, and while we cannot predict individual flares, Dr Clark says that the largest flares are often shortly after the peak.
Of course, if a proper “Carrington event” happens again, it has the potential to be far more problematic now than in 1859 when electric communication was barely in its infancy. Dr Clark says “There is absolutely no reason to believe that we are heading for solar armageddon in 2013, but sooner or later we should expect there to be another Carrington event and that is what these scientists [at NASA] are trying to prevent. Legislation in the US has just passed Congress to help harden the grid against solar flares.”
So – it’s a real thing, and we should be concerned. But preventive measures can be taken – satellites can be sent offline during big flares, power grids and communication networks can be shielded against electromagnetic radiation and so on. As Dr Bamford says: “The extreme events like the 1859 Carrington Event are 1-in-100-year probabilities, about the same probability as a storm of the level of Katrina hitting New Orleans – and New Orleans did not build their defences to withstand the extreme-but-unlikely magnitude. 100 years isn’t that long.
** A note from me: some scientists believe this will happen the second half of 2012.
For even more info and some really….impressive photos visit:
So…get ready, next week the power goes out!
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This comment was just posted in our yahoo group but I wanted to make sure you all saw it. Thanks Cherlynn!
I remember back in the mid to late 1980′s we had solar flare storms in the US. It became so common that no one thought anything of it. Cell phones were still not a big thing back then. But those of us with those big Satellite dishes that fill half the yard were told solar flares were coming and there was nothing that could be done and when they came there would be no satellite coverage hence no cable. I don’t remember any other problems but we had 4 months with very spotty satellite coverage. I’m sure these were not really big ones but enough to cause a problem. Today the same kind would cause pure havoc because everyone has satellites and use cell phones and many have satellite based internet services. And I’m probably missing a whole bunch of other stuff! But even small solar flare storms can cause some problems.
I grew up in a home that regularly cooked over an open fire. No AC back then for us and during those hot summers we’d sleep outside and cook all our meals over an open fire. I’ve done the same thing with my own kids. I had to laugh last year when I attended an online prep class based in Utah showing how to make bread. They said to use �exactly� 6 cups of whole wheat flour. Well I knew real quick that this person had always lived in the nice dry desert and never in Guam, Florida, Gulf Coast or Missouri where we regularly have very high humidity days and you just have to get to know bread dough and how it should feel and adjust things to get it there. My kids love food cooked over an open fire. They think that is the only way to cook corn on the cob! Biscuits or bread hot out of the coals is just this side of heaven! I hope you all will try cooking out on an open fire and learn this very important skill. Most folks now can’t do it. Cooking out to them means charcoal or a Coleman stove. In many 3rd world countries charcoal to them is wood that has been partial burned and they then reburn it to cook their meals. We start a wood fire and let it burn down good and use a small camp shovel to put the hot ashes on top of our dutch ovens and then set them into the hot ashes or on the grate just above the ashes depending on what we are cooking/baking and how hot the fire still is. You just have to practice and learn as you go. I offered to go to YW camp this year again but the YW presidency said I wasn’t needed. the girl’s all told me I was sorely missed because their YW Presidency had no clue hot to cook over an open fire and they survived mostly on peanut butter sandwiches and junk food. They were served things like bacon burned on the edges and completely raw in the middle and what they called Ash toast. The ones that were there last year said they tried hard to eat what they were served but they sure were dreaming of cast iron pizzas and black forest cobbler. BBQ Chcicken with dutch oven potatoes and melt in your mouth biscuits. I showed the girl’s how to cook last year but their leaders refused to let them help. I’m betting this Primary President goes to camp next year!
Love your website and thanks for the info on solar flares. Just one note though. You said “We don’t normally expect tornadoes in those states”. Absolutely we do. I live in WI and this time of year tornados are indeed expected and prepared for. I remember having some 30 tornadoes one evening back in 1993. It doesn’t happen often in those quantities but tornadoes are expected annually at this time at least in WI. Just wanted to correct that. Thanks!
Nice post…Thank you for sharing some good things.