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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare in extreme ultraviolet light on May 2. (Source: NASA)

Transpower has issued a precautionary grid emergency notice as the largest solar storm in two decades to affect Earth hits New Zealand this weekend.

Sixteen electricity assets across the country have been removed from service to prevent power cuts: seven in the North Island and nine in the South Island, Transpower said. The notice was expected to remain in place until midday tomorrow.

Transpower said in a statement earlier: “As part of our contingency plan we are removing some transmission lines from service across the South Island as a precaution. In order to do this, we have to issue a grid emergency notice, however this initial action should not impact supply of electricity to consumers.”

Executive general manager John Clark told 1News the solar storm induced electrical currents through the Earth.

“Those electrical currents like to use our long transmission lines as an alternative route.”

The currents were “not good to have” through the grid so the flow of currents needed to be limited by turning off transmission circuits where possible, he said.

“This is a preemptive measure to make sure other more important equipment, namely transformers and generators, aren’t damaged.

“We’re able to supply everybody, but we haven’t got quite the same level of redundancy in the power system.”

‘Extreme’ solar storm impacts NZ, power grid emergency declared

The most recent event of similar or greater magnitude occurred in October 2003.

‘Extreme’ solar storm impacts NZ, power grid emergency declared3:24

The most recent event of similar or greater magnitude occurred in October 2003.

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The Threat of a Solar Superstorm Is Growing—And We’re Not Ready

April 29, 2024

The Threat of a Solar Superstorm Is Growing—And We’re Not Ready

Someday an unlucky outburst from our sun could strike Earth and fry most of our electronics—and we’ve already had some too-close-for-comfort near misses

A solar flare, as seen by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory — Powerful outbursts from the sun—like this bright, flashing solar flare and the adjacent eruption of hot glowing gas—can wreak havoc with Earth’s power grids, computers and telecommunications

The sun is ramping up for a big year.

In one sense it already had a big year, thanks to the April 8 solar eclipse. But that was a terrestrial phenomenon. What we’re gearing up for is a decidedly solar one—our star is nearing the peak of its magnetic activity cycle, which means more sunspots, more storms and, potentially, more danger to Earth.

The sun’s magnetic field is generated in its interior, where conditions are so hot that electrons are stripped from their host atoms, forming an ionized gas. A basic law of physics states that moving electric charges generate a magnetic field, and it’s this ionized-gas-induced magnetism that so profoundly affects the sun’s behavior.

Unlike Earth, which has a fairly strong and well-organized magnetic field similar to that of a single gigantic bar magnet, the sun is dominated by countless locally generated fields. Each one shapes its own parcel of the solar interior. The actual dynamics of this magnetism are fiercely complex, but to simplify, you can think of our star’s overall magnetic field strength as waxing and waning over a period of about 11 years—what we call the solar magnetic cycle.

Hot material inside the sun rises to the surface and, once cooled, sinks again in a process called thermal convection, in a very similar way to water in a boiling teakettle…

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Coronal Hole ’30 Times Earth’s Size’ Hurls Solar Plasma Towards Earth

March 23, 2023

Coronal Hole ’30 Times Earth’s Size’ Hurls Solar Plasma Towards Earth

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory released a photo showing a massive coronal hole forming in the sun’s atmosphere, ejecting a stream of fast-moving solar winds toward Earth.

“The current coronal hole, the big one right now, is about 300,000 to 400,000 kilometers across,” Alex Young, the associate director for science at NASA Goddard’s Heliophysics Science Division, told Bussiness Insider. He said, “that’s about 20-30 Earths lined up back-to-back.”

Young said coronal holes unleash solar winds that can travel between 500-800 km per second. He explained the coronal mass ejection would reach Earth by Friday.

“We will probably start seeing the effects of the high-speed wind on March 24.

“When the high-speed wind reaches Earth, the particles and the magnetic field it carries will interact with Earth’s magnetic field, effectively rattling it or like ringing a bell,” he said.

Space Weather website SolarHam said when the solar winds hit Earth, it will produce a moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm.

Here’s a visual of the CME’s impacts on modern society.

In addition to this week’s geomagnetic storm risk, Sunspot Cycle 25 has already started and is anticipated to be active. This could spell trouble for the digital economy, as disruptions caused by solar flares may lead to economic harm.

Last year, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink lost 40 satellites after a geomagnetic storm knocked them out of orbit.

The Outage at the Federal Reserve

February 27, 2021

The Outage at the Federal Reserve

The outage of the National Settlement Service and the Fedwire Securities Service, which provides issuance, settlement, and transfer services for Treasuries and other government securities, was down and this has caused some concern and then conspiracy theories mixed in. The Fed made progress reversing the shutdown within a couple of hours, however, this has illustrated that a long-term outage of the Fed’s online services could cause intense chaos across the world financial system, preventing banks and businesses from finalizing transactions and impeding basic banking functions.

The Federal Reserve said an outage of its key financial services on Wednesday was caused by a maintenance mistake and it is taking steps to prevent a recurrence. The official statement read:

“The incident was caused by an operational error involving an automated data center maintenance process that was inadvertently triggered during business hours,” a Fed spokeswoman said. Such tasks are normally performed after-hours, she said, adding, “This was human error.”

“Our technical teams have determined that the cause is a Federal Reserve operational error,” the Fed said on Wednesday on its website. “The Federal Reserve Banks have taken steps to help ensure the resilience of the Fedwire and NSS applications, including recovery to the point of failure.”

There was no power-outage so it does appear that the Federal Reserve was honestly calling it a disruption due to an ‘operational error’. This raises the issue of concern surrounding digital currency. Indeed, solar flares and other solar–mass ejections that travel through space can overwhelm Earth’s atmosphere and generate powerful electric and magnetic fields. These magnetic storms can occasionally be intense enough to disrupt the operation of high-voltage electricity lines. A digital currency system could be brought to its knees with an EM attack.

(see report)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sunspot Could Send Solar Flares Toward Earth That May Disrupt the Power Grid

August 23, 2020

SUNSPOT COULD SEND SOLAR FLARES TOWARD EARTH THAT MAY DISRUPT THE POWER GRID

A massive sunspot on the surface of the sun has the potential to shoot solar flares toward Earth, and this particular sunspot is one of concern. A solar flare could disrupt the power grid and take down some radio communications.

A massive flare is expected from sunspot AR2770. Not only is a massive flare likely, but this sunspot is also expected to grow in size and cause eruptions, The Financial Express reported. According to the report, the sunspot with an expected diameter of 50,000 kilometers is likely to release a huge amount of energy that will lead to solar flares and storms. This phenomenon is known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) which impacts radio waves and satellite communications.

This sunspot is about the size of the planet Mars. According to NASA, “solar flares are a sudden explosion of energy caused by tangling, crossing, or reorganizing of magnetic field lines near sunspots.”

According to NASA, very large flares can even create currents within electricity grids and knock out energy supplies. When Coronal Mass Ejections strike Earth they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora. They can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates, and overload electrical systems.

A large influx of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers. This could shut off businesses and homes around the world.

Marin Katusa on U.S. Energy Dependence: “You Want Social Upheaval? Turn Off the Power Grid”

When Not Having Power Kills: 11 Types of Medical Equipment Dependencies and What You Can Do To Prepare

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Solar Storms Can Devastate Entire Civilizations

October 15, 2019

Solar Storms Can Devastate Entire Civilizations

Climate has inarguably become a hot topic of discussion in developed economies over the last decade, and it is getting hotter by the day as study after study warn we are close to doomed if we don’t change our ways urgently. Yet climate on Earth is not the only problem that humankind faces. There is another climate we need to pay attention to, and there is nothing we can do to change that.

Solar storms, whose more scientific name is coronal mass ejections, were until recently believed to be a rare occurrence—only happening once every couple of centuries or so. However, there is reason to believe they may be a lot more frequent than that. In a world increasingly dependent on electricity, this is, to put it mildly, a problem.

In 1859 the Sun spewed concentrated plasma that broke through its magnetic fields in the direction of the Earth. Commonly referred to as the Carrington Event, that coronal mass ejection hit the Earth’s magnetic field, which warped it and caused telegraphs around the world to fail. For a long time, the scientific consensus was that solar storms of this magnitude were a rarity.

That was in the 19^th century where telegraphs were cutting-edge tech. Now, we have power grids, airplanes, satellites, and computers, and all of them are potentially susceptible to the effects of another solar storm. We also know that solar storms of the magnitude of the Carrington Event or even worse occur more frequently.

“The Carrington Event was considered to be the worst-case scenario for space weather events against the modern civilization… but if it comes several times a century, we have to reconsider how to prepare against and mitigate that kind of space weather hazard,” the lead research in a study that reached that conclusion, Hisashi Hayakawa, said after the release of the study earlier this month.

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Earth Offline: A ‘Solar Superflare’ Could Impact the Grid Sooner Than We Think

June 14, 2019

EARTH OFFLINE: A ‘SOLAR SUPERFLARE’ COULD IMPACT THE GRID SOONER THAN WE THINK

Scientists are warning that a solar superflare on the sun could take Earth’s power systems offline sooner than previously thought. New research suggests that our sun could be capable of shooting a superflare in our direction, and it might be relatively soon impacting our power grid.

Even though our sun is older and less active than other stars in the galaxy, that doesn’t mean it’s totally lost its power, according to Yuta Notsu, a visiting researcher at CU Boulder. Notsu and colleagues used Kepler Space Telescope data to check for evidence of superflares on other stars like our sun. “The Kepler results suggest that slowly rotating, sun-like stars can also have superflares,” Notsu said during a press conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis on Monday.

According to a report by Forbes, Notsu said the type of superflares his team describes would be at least 100 times more powerful than the Carrington Event of 1859, which is said to have caused Aurora Borealis as far south as Hawaii and destroyed telegraph infrastructure. “Our study shows that superflares are rare events,” said Notsu. “But there is some possibility that we could experience such an event in the next 100 years or so.”

That would mean the power grid is potentially at stake. Depending on the severity of the super flare, we could have major problems that could stretch into months-long issues.

As humans, we are reliant on the power grid for almost everything in our daily lives. If something goes wrong, and people lose power, we could have societal upheavals and massive civil unrest. While this scenario seems less likely than an all-out economic crash, it’s still important to have the basics of survivalism in the forefront of your mind. Adopt a preparedness mindset and just consider the possible outcomes if we have problems.

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Huge Solar Storm Blasted Earth 2,600 Years Ago Could Strike Again, Researchers Warn

March 19, 2019

Huge Solar Storm Blasted Earth 2,600 Years Ago Could Strike Again, Researchers Warn

The most significant known geomagnetic storm to blast Earth occurred in 660 B.C., researchers say, based on traces of the storm’s particles preserved in both ice cores and tree rings. Though it had no impact on the pre-industrial and pre-technological world, such an event today would trigger widespread power outages and collapse communication and navigation systems. In short, modern society would come to a screeching halt.

The study titled Multiradionuclide evidence for an extreme solar proton event around 2,610 B.P. (∼660 BC) was published online March 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lead author Raimund Muscheler, a professor of Quaternary Sciences at Lund University in Sweden, said a burst of solar energy from the sun could overwhelm power grids, air travel, and disrupt satellite communications if this were to happen.

“Today, we have a lot of infrastructures that could be badly damaged, and we travel in air and space where we are much more exposed to high-energy radiation,” Muscheler told LiveScience.

Researchers analyzed ice cores from Greenland to uncover the mystery of Earth’s most powerful solar storms. One ice core, in particular, dated back more than 100,000 years and contained radioactive isotopes that showed a massive solar storm struck the planet around 2,700 years ago.

“If that solar storm had occurred today, it could have had severe effects on our high-tech society,” said Muscheler, a geologist at Lund University in Sweden.

One example of a documented severe geomagnetic storm was known as ‘the Carrington Event,’ occurred in 1859 and knocked out telegraph circuits around the world, starting fires and causing massive auroras as far south as Hawaii.

Another example was a solar storm that knocked out power stations across Quebec, Canada, in 1989 and Malmö, Sweden, in 2003.

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Government Agency Warning: Space Storms Could Cause Mass BLACKOUTS

November 21, 2018

Government Agency Warning: Space Storms Could Cause Mass BLACKOUTS

The Met Office has told United Kingdom ministers that space storms could cause massive blackouts and destroy computers. According to the government agency’s study, a space storm could bring down the internet and all communications.

According to The Sunday Times, a new report is claiming that huge solar flares can generate such intense magnetic fields over Earth which in a flash could burn out delicate electronics and even set them on fire. The report, co-authored with scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and Cambridge University said the UK should construct an early warning system because of their risk.

Great Britain is at a major risk of being crippled by huge electrical disturbances caused by solar storms in space unless a satellite network is built that can detect them coming. (And if you guessed the taxpayers are going to foot the bill, you’d be correct.)

“We find that for a one-in-100-year event, with no space weather forecasting capability, the gross domestic product loss to the United Kingdom could be as high as £15.9bn,” The Met Office study said. “With existing satellites nearing the end of their life, forecasting capability will decrease in coming years, so if no further investment takes place, critical infrastructure will become more vulnerable to space weather.”

It’s not like solar storms of this magnitude have never occurred either. According to Fox News, In 1859 a giant solar flare doubled the sun’s brightness for a few minutes, followed by a surge in magnetism that caused powerful electrical currents in telegraph wires across Europe igniting widespread fires. Another such solar event in 1989 struck Quebec in Canada and burned out power cables led to a blackout. Researchers fear another such event would burn out high-voltage cables and substations across the United Kingdom.

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This Is What A Massive X9 Class Solar Flare Looks Like

July 3, 2018

This Is What A Massive X9 Class Solar Flare Looks Like

Scientists from Caltech Astronomy examined the great solar flare of 1990 that occurred in active region NOAA 6063. The eruption and subsequent shockwave were so massive that scientist decided to write a report on their findings titled “Tangential Field Changes in the Great Flare of 1990 May 24.”

The region on the sun gave rise to a dangerous X9.3 flare, which was visible in white light. The flare was observed by several observatories, including the Big Bear Solar Observatory at Caltech.

Shockwave on the sun after solar flare

10:01 AM – Jun 27, 2018

Solar flares are enormous explosions on the sun that unleash streams of energy, light, and high-speed particles into space. The most dangerous solar flare is known as “X-class flares” based on a classification system that divides solar flares according to their strength.

If Earth faced, the solar flares and associated coronal mass ejection (CME) can create geomagnetic storms that can disable satellites, communications systems, and even ground-based technologies and power grids.

A massive solar storm in April 2017 allegedly interfered with power grids in San Fransisco, New York, and Los Angeles. On both coasts, critical infrastructure such as communication networks and mass transportation were severely impaired.

This was the period when mainstream media blamed the Russians for cyber hacking America.

Meanwhile, in a report from NOAA titled “Geomagnetic Storms and the US Power Grid,” the paper mentions how US power grids are highly interconnected and susceptible to damage from solar flares.

The report shows how the sun produces Geomagnetically Induced Current (GIC) [solar flares] and launches it to the Earth.

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Solar Storm Will Strike Earth Tonight, ‘Weak Power Grid Fluctuations’ Possible

February 16, 2018

Solar Storm Will Strike Earth Tonight, ‘Weak Power Grid Fluctuations’ Possible

emfsolarstorm

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts an aurora could light up the sky above areas in the United State including Michigan and Maine. A solar storm, which occurred Monday, is expected to strike Earth tonight.

On Monday, the sun spit out a slew of charged particles in a moderate solar flare. These particles are now making their way towards Earth. The planet’s magnetic field will block most of the particles, but some will make it into Earth’s atmosphere. The particles collect at the north and south poles and interact with atmospheric gases to create the aurora borealis or the Northern Lights. And some say this show could be quite spectacular.

Solar flares have been known to cause power grid failures, but it looks like we’ll only get the light show this time. Although a grid failure is possible, it is unlikely.

According to Seeker, the forecast calls for a high probability of a G-1 or “minor” storm, which could strengthen to a G-2 or “moderate” storm depending on how the stream of particles hit the Earth. Geomagnetic storms are ranked on a scale, with G at the bottom, R in the middle, and S as the most severe. Forecasts now say the particles will give our planet a glancing blow.

Although this storm has been categorized as “G-1,” which means it is minor, it could still cause some havoc down on Earth. Solar flares and particle ejections are associated with sunspots — dark areas on the sun’s surface — that host intense magnetic activity. As the magnetic fields in a sunspot cross, NASA stated, this can cause a sudden energy explosion, also known as a solar flare. This sends radiation out into space, and that radiation can be hurled toward the Earth.

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Huge Solar Flare Sparks Widespread Blackouts, May Deter Korean Missile Launch This Weekend

September 8, 2017

Huge Solar Flare Sparks Widespread Blackouts, May Deter Korean Missile Launch This Weekend

The sun just released a massive solar flare.

In fact, as SHTFplan.com’s Mac Slavo details, this is the largest solar flare emitted in the past decade, and the earth has already been affected by blackouts.

NASA has reported a huge solar flare was emitted by the Sun and it is the most powerful one since 2006.

This solar flare has already caused some radio blackouts on Earth and it may cause aurora visible as far south as London. On the morning of September 6, scientists watched as two X-flares were unleashed by the sun.

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The stronger flare was the second of the two emitted by the Sun yesterday morning and it was seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). At 5:10 AM EDT, the Sun unleashed an X2.2 flare, with X-class denoting the most intense flares. Then, at 8:02 AM EDT, a much bigger flare measuring X9.3 was unleashed. By comparison, the last time we saw a flare this big was in 2006, which measured at X9.0. The number shows the intensity, with X2 being twice as intense as X1, X3 three times as intense, and so on.

The loops of plasma emitted during these two flares were ten times the size of planet Earth. Scientists got to watch the massive coronal mass ejection from these flares, which can be seen below in the gif provided.

cme

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90% of U.S. population could be wiped out with doomsday electromagnetic weapon … Pentagon woefully unprepared

December 24, 2015

90% of U.S. population could be wiped out with doomsday electromagnetic weapon … Pentagon woefully unprepared

(NaturalNews) There is growing alarm among defense planners about the uptick in nuclear weapons development taking place among the various great powers, including the United States, Russia, India and China, as well as lesser powers like North Korea and Pakistan. Missile defense is, in part, to some degree designed to mitigate the threat of a nuclear attack via ICBM.

But the Pentagon is dreadfully unprepared for the fallout from an electromagnetic pulse, generated either from a nuclear explosion over our country, or from an EMP created by a giant solar flare, for which there is no defense, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.

What’s more, the U.S. is not only lagging behind in terms of defending itself against EMP weapons, it is behind in the development of its own design – though Boeing is at least one American defense contractor working on a prototype, the paper said in online editions.

However, the Daily Mail noted that some have suggested that 90 percent of the U.S. population would perish over the course of the weeks and months following a major EMP event that crippled or wiped out the bulk of the nation’s power grid.

But other developed countries’ populations would likely suffer similar levels of casualties if their grids were destroyed as well, which is what makes the development of U.S. EMP weapons such a vital deterrent. In fact, a recent report from The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says that the technology is “one of the most critical operational domains in modern warfare.” The U.S., however, has “unfortunately … failed to keep pace” in that battlespace “over the last generation,” it added.

Titled, Winning the Airwaves: Regaining America’s Dominance in the Electromagnetic Spectrum, the report adds that the technology will eventually be as revolutionary as smartphones.

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Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

June 3, 2015

Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

Establishment insiders are worried we’re too vulnerable

In the past here at Peak Prosperity, we’ve written extensively on the threat posed by a sustained loss of electrical grid power. More specifically, we’ve warned that the most damaging threat to our grid would come from either a manmade or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

A good friend of mine, Jen Bawden, is currently sitting on a committee of notable political, security and defense experts — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — who are equally concerned about this same threat and have recently sent a letter to Obama pleading for action to protect the US grid.

Before we get to that letter, here’s a snippet from what we wrote on the matter roughly a year ago:

We talk a lot about Peak Cheap Oil as the Achilles’ heel of the exponential monetary model, but the real threat to the quality of our daily lives, if not our lives themselves, would be a sustained loss of electrical power. Anything over a week without power for any modern nation would be a serious problem. A month would lead to chaos and many deaths.

When the power goes out, everything just stops. For residential users, even a few hours begins to intrude heavily as melting freezers, dying cell phones, and the awkward realization that we don’t remember how to play board games nudge us out of our comfort zone.

However, those are just small inconveniences.

For industrial and other heavy users, the impact of even a relatively short outage can be expensive or even ghastly. Hospitals and people on life-assisting machinery are especially vulnerable. Without power, aluminum smelters face the prospect of the molten ore solidifying in the channels from which it must be laboriously removed before operations can be restarted.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

June 3, 2015

Sounding The Alarm On The Country’s Vulnerability To An EMP

Last year, Elliott Management’s Paul Singer highlighted “one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence”– an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). As Michael Snyder previously details, our entire way of life can be ended in a single day. And it wouldn’t even take a nuclear war to do it. All it would take for a rogue nation or terror organization to bring us to our knees is the explosion of acouple well-placed nuclear devices high up in our atmosphere. The resulting electromagnetic pulses would fry electronics from coast to coast.

As PeakProsperity.com’s Chris Martenson explains, the country is extremely vulnerable to an EMP…

Before we get to that letter, here’s a snippet from what we wrote on the matter roughly a year ago:

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