Electricity and communications networks would be at a significant risk from a major solar event, according to a recent symposium attended by international scientists, industry representatives and Government.
“No-one really knows what would happen, but we need to be prepared, and the industry would like some sort of early warning system,” said Jim Wild from the department of physics at Lancaster University.
No-one really knows what would happen, but we need to be prepared
“There hasn't been a really big event since 1859, when a 'coronal mass ejection' made a huge impact on the internet of the age, creating lots of problems with the telegraph system.”
NASA records of that 1859 Carrington Event show that the power surge caused spark discharges that shocked telegraph operators and set the telegraph paper on fire.
According to Wild, the problems stem from solar eruptions that send out a huge geomagnetic surge, which crashes into the Earth causing disruptions in the magentic field.
“These electrical surges travel around the earth and they look for the easiest route, so they will use cabling rather than the actual earth,” he said. “The problem is that we have national and continental power grids and these include hundreds of transformers that are all earthed so they can be damaged and take down the grid."
“And because it is a grid the effects wouldn't be on one transformer it would be on laods of them across the networks – it would take months and billions of pounds to repair.”
Given sufficiently accurate warning, scientists believe they can better prepare to take action against solar flares to protect the system.
“You might be able to to take some transformers offline or reduce the load if they were more vulnerable,” said Wild, noting that turning off the grid could lead to serious problems.
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