Nexus - 1902 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Nuclear Power Plants and the Electricity Grid The End of the Grid As We Know It Our global system of electrical power generation and There are records from the 1850s to today of roughly distribution ("the grid"), upon which every facet of our —_100 significant geomagnetic storms, two of which in the modern life is utterly dependent, in its current form is ast 25 years were strong enough to cause millions of extremely vulnerable to extreme geomagnetic storms dollars’ worth of damage to key components that keep that tend to strike our planet on average about once —_ our modern grid powered. In March 1989, a severe GMD every 70 years. induced powerful electric currents in grid wiring that We depend on this grid to maintain food production tied a main power transformer in the Hydro-Québec and distribution, telecommunications, Internet services, | system in Canada, causing a cascading grid failure that medical services, military defence, transportation, nocked out power to six million customers for nine government, water treatment, sewage and garbage hours. The GMD also damaged similar transformers in removal, refrigeration, oil refining and gas pumping, and ew Jersey and the United Kingdom. More recently, in to conduct all forms of commerce. October 2003, a GMD of lesser intensity but greater Unfortunately, the world's nuclear power plants, as duration caused a blackout in Sweden and induced they are currently designed, are critically dependent powerful currents in the South African grid that badly upon maintaining connection to a functioning electrical | damaged or destroyed 14 major power transformers, grid for all but relatively short periods of electrical severely impairing commerce and comfort over large blackouts in order to keep their portions of that country as the reactor cores continuously regulators and utilities were cooled so as to avoid forced to resort to massive catastrophic reactor core ...the world’s nuclear power rolling blackouts that dragged meltdowns and spent fuel rod on for many months.’ storage-pond fires. plants, aS they ls currently On 14-15 May 1921, an If an extreme GMD causes designed, are critically extreme GMD produced ground widespread grid collapse (which . ae currents roughly 10 times as it most certainly will), in as dependent upon maintaining strong as the 1989 Quebec little as one or two hours after connection to a functioning incident, affecting the northern each nuclear reactor facility's . . hemisphere as far south as back-up generators either fail to electrical grid... Mexico and Puerto Rico and the start or run out of fuel, the southern hemisphere as far reactor cores will start to melt north as Samoa.’ down. After a few days without electricity to run the However, the great-granddaddy of GMDs in recorded cooling system pumps, the water bath covering the _ history is the 1859 Carrington Event. During this spent fuel rods stored in spent fuel ponds will boil away, | geomagnetic storm, which lasted from 28 August to 4 allowing the stored fuel rods to melt down and burn.' September, the northern lights were seen as far south as Since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Cuba and Hawaii. The GMD induced currents so currently mandates that only one week's supply of back- powerful that telegraph lines, towers and stations up generator fuel needs to be stored at each reactor caught on fire at numerous locations around the world. site, it is likely that after we witness the spectacular The best estimates are that the Carrington Event was night-time celestial light show from the next extreme — roughly 50 per cent stronger than the 1921 incident.‘ geomagnetic disturbance we will have about one week In a detailed study conducted under the auspices of in which to prepare ourselves for Armageddon. To do nothing is to behave like ostriches with our heads in the sand, blindly believing that "everything will be okay" as our world inexorably drifts towards the next naturally recurring, 100-per-cent inevitable, solar superstorm and resultant extreme GMD—which, in short order, will end the industrialised world as we know it, incurring almost incalculable suffering, death and environmental destruction on a scale not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. Solar coronal mass ejection (CME) (SOHO image, 9 June 2002) Nuclear Power Plants and the Electricity Grid Our global system of electrical power generation and distribution ("the grid"), upon which every facet of our modern life is utterly dependent, in its current form is extremely vulnerable to extreme geomagnetic storms that tend to strike our planet on average about once ene TA eee to as plants, as they are currently designed, are critically dependent upon maintaining 22 * NEXUS ...the world’s nuclear power connection to a functioning electrical grid... Solar coronal mass ejection (CME) (SOHO image, 9 June 2002) FEBRUARY - MARCH 2012 www.nexusmagazine.com