The Sunspots That Kicked Off This Week's Solar Storm May be Just Warming Up

We are supposed to be able to see those faster than they hit us right. If scientists out there were taken by surprise then someone was not doing his job.

I hope they continue monitoring the suns tantrums cause we need to react if need be..These things can wipe out our electric grid. They've done so in the past,

Question. Is there any way to shield our electrical grid from solar activity, or better yet, an EMP? It would seem a worthy exercise to fortify our electrical infrastructure.

Another question. Is this solar activity an indication that the sun is in fact not going into a solar maximum, or just another bad storm?

@intrepidDesign

The cheapest way to protect our power grid from solar weather is prediction. If the right transformers are taken off the grid at the right time, there will be no damage to infrastructure. However, the will be no electrical power during this period. But a few hours without power is better than a few days.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-10/nasa-building-solar-shield-protect-power-grids-space-weather

Solar maximum/minimum is defined by the amount of solar activity (sunspots, CMEs, prominences etc). There is increased activity during a solar maximum and little to no activity in solar minimum. So a large solar flare would be evidence that our sun is at or near a solar maximum.

I liked the book Preppers Road March which is a fictional account of one man surviving after a solar storm takes out the grid

THE UNRECOGNIZED DANGER IS NUCLEAR PLANT MELTDOWNS!

NASA warns a Solar Superstorm can collapse the power grid for months.

A nuclear plant without grid power for a month is a meltdown candidate.

See the Aesop Institute website for an overview and maps worth a few thousand words.

The grid can be protected by devices developed by two firms. Of the 5,500 vulnerable transformers, 350 are critical. Installing devices the size of a washing machine can protect them.

Meltdowns can be prevented by installing Joule Unlimited's solar panels that create diesel from sunlight, water, CO2 and bacteria. They are in pilot plant production. See Moving beyond Oil on the Aesop Institute website.

Decentralizing power should be another high priority.

Mark,you stole the words out of my mouth.I have been pontificating about what have said for months.I couldn't agree with you more.

Here here MarkGoldes! Scary reality that would be more difficult to visualize had the nuclear disaster in Japan not just illustrated this very point.

I hope the people of the world can pause long enough to get the message... especially the politicians who are supposed to be *leading* rather than incessantly pandering for political contributions and power.

I have always thought any kind of detailed photos of the sun are fascinating!

@intrepidDesign

We are currently headed towards another solar maximum that will begin about two years from now.

@MarkGoldes

Go back to your crazy hole please build your bunker and stay in it do us all a favor...good lord....

@Delkomatic - it's hard to fill a cup that's already full, eh?

Do some research and stop being a moron. I thought people on this site were here to learn, not be a$$es, but you proved that hypothesis incorrect.

Go Google "solar storm electrical grid danger", and read up. National Geographic has a great article on this (among other credible sites), and they are hardly quacks.

When you're done with that, please do us a favor - get back on your meds, and rung off your favorite Fox "News" channel, ok buddy?

@ johnnyphoenix,

I hope that Delkomoron comes back to view your comment, then proceeds to the aforementioned website(s) and gains a respectable point of view on the subject. Highly doubtful, still hopeful.

@ Delkomoron-

Ignorant people such as yourself are the reason advances in humanity are beginning to fall behind the advances of technology. It is the lack of education combined with a lack of ambition and the presence of arrogance as an unhealthy companion. Go educate yourself before you open your perverbial mouth and make a mule out of yourself. Or to translate into your rhetoric, Check yourself before your wreck yourself!

I always wonder how sun spots develop in the first place. Like maybe from a early time, be it a day, week, month or long a asteroid slammed into the sun and now the sun is reacting to it and producing a different type of burst of radiation.

...and so 2012 arrived....

_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.

- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri

There are cycle of time of which the earth is hit with larger amounts of meteorites. I wonder if the same thing happens to the sun and causes and increase in solar flares in cycles too.

These spots are over 1300 times the size of earth, I dont think a little meteor would have any effect on the sun. They are probably cause because of the two powerful forces of the sun, one nuclear pushing out constantly, and two gravity pulling in.... Im sure this causes stress on the surface and this increases in flares happen about every 11 years.

@Newbeak, and johnnyphoenix)

"Aesop Institute" is a creation of Mark Goldes, and as such citing it as a reference in his own post is a bit disingenuous. You suggest that Delcomatic do a bit of research and educate himself, and that is great advice, so I invite you to do the same regarding Mark Goldes.

Mark Goldes has a long and glorious association with various forms of "green energy", "free energy", "perpetual motion" machines, "Zero point energy systems" and all manner of pseudo-scientific BS. He is a shill, a fraud, a huckster and snake oil salesman. He generates about two press releases a year under the guise of one of his front companies promising that some or other impossible "Black Swan" breakthrough has been made and will be ready for commercial release "in a year". He has been making the "in a year" claim for at least the last 16 years, and nothing has ever been brought to market. Let me repeat that: nothing. Neither press releases nor obtaining funding for research does not mean a theory is valid.

Yes, I know he lists a biography chock full of accolades, high offices held, and casual mentions of his many degrees, but if you read carefully, you will see that he, in his own words, was a "student of electrical engineering" and beyond that lists no areas of study for any of his degrees. They may very well be in Divinity for all we know. "Student of Engineering" is a polite way of saying "I did not or could not finish the degree." He either dropped out or failed out.

His contemporaries and associates are also scam artists, some of whom have been prosecuted for fraud.

And finally,to address his specific claims here (which I have found posted word-for-word in many other forums, almost as if he is advertizing) nuclear power plants have on-site fossil-fueled backup power generation to run cooling equipment. The Fukushima disaster is a result of those generators being flooded, not the loss of grid power. I will also add that while Mark's mention of diesel fuel from sunlight, water and CO2 is actually a viable technology in the process of commerciallization (which he had nothing whatsoever to do with) the technology also requires grid power to run pumps and close proximity to fossil-fuel powerplants for a supply of CO2.

Mark Goldes is either manic optimist who is genuinely ignorant of the laws of physics and thermodynamics, or he is a life-long con man. Take your pick.