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White House report ignores life-or-death threat
WASHINGTON – The White House, along with the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, say that some 679 widespread power outages over the past 10 years have been due to the effects of severe weather on the U.S. electrical grid system.
The White House report, titled the “Economic Benefits of Increasing Electric Grid Resilience to Weather Outages,” said the cost of outages take various forms such as lost output and wages, spoiled inventory, delayed production, inconvenience and damage to the electric grid.
But left unaddressed is the potential impact that an electromagnetic pulse event would have.
In a just-published 28-page report, the White House said that severe weather has been the leading cause of power outages in the United States between 2003 and 2012, costing the U.S. economy up to $33 billion.
The report pointed out that the resilience of the U.S. electric grid system is integral to Read more…
Impact of space weather threat examined
Professor Hapgood examines the linkage between the science of space weather and its impact on technological systems, potential impact of Solar weather on orbital and ground based systems including power, energy and communications – as well as atmospheric physics.
Space weather is concerned with disturbances in Earth’s upper atmosphere and in near-Earth space that can disrupt the advanced technologies on which our society now relies. A proper understanding of space weather requires us to bring together a range of scientific, engineering and economic expertise, emphasizing the role of the electromagnetic force in many of the physical processes that cause space weather.
One example is the crucial role of plasma physics within the sources of space weather on the Sun, in the transmission of energy from the Sun to the Earth via the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere.
Another is the role of the electric currents that naturally flow with Read more…
How Space Weather affects the US Power Grid
The US power grid is a complex electrical apparatus that has well-known sensitivities to space weather disturbances. Recent changes in its design and utilization have significantly reduced its operating margins to supply us with on-demand electricity. This means there is less flexibility available with which to deal with power shortages and blackouts.
Space weather events can damage equipment over wide geographic regions so that recovery delays become substantially longer and more costly.
The 23rd Cycle – Chapter 4 – Describes in detail the state of the US power grid, and the forces which are driving it to be far more vulnerable to solar storms than at any time in the past.
“As North America has evolved into a unified power-sharing network of regions, each buying and selling a diminishing asset, US domestic power has become more vulnerable to Read more…
Texas Second Day of Power Outages May Be Avoided
A second day of controlled power outages by some utilities might not be needed in Texas in response to huge electric demand following a winter storm.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas early Thursday said “immediate concerns for the possibility of rotating outages this morning are reduced.” But ERCOT said the agency would continue to monitor the state’s electric grid for additional unexpected losses of generation, a day after the problem led to mandated outages across the ERCOT system.
Wednesday night, ERCOT said in a statement that electricity demand hit record highs and to be aware of the possibility of more rolling outages. See their original statement below.
Residents and businesses across Texas and in Brown County experienced rolling blackouts Wednesday due to the bitterly cold weather, and those blackouts could continue into Read more…
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