On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:58:42 -0500, Ron Canazzi wrote:


>Hi Martin,
>
>Good to see a bit of perspective on this issue.  In 1989, there was a 
>serious issue with a sever solar storm.  But time has not stood still since 
>then.  More recently launched satellites have been hardened to withstand 
>greater solar activity.   Some though certainly not all power grids have 
>been strengthened against such events.  Anything is possible.  We could walk 
>out the door tomorrow and one of us could theoretically be hit on the head 
>by a meteorite large enough to kill us.  I wouldn't waste time worrying 
>about it.
>
>Just think of all the things predicted in the past several decades that 
>didn't happen.
>
>In 1970, The Late Great Planet Earth predicted  the tribulation and end of 
>the age by 1988; didn't happen but made Hal Lindsey several tens of millions 
>of dollars.
>In 1989, Father Malachi martin assured us that a blaming bolloid would 
>strike the earth on or about June 28, and destroy civilization--evil for its 
>acceptance of homosexuality (we weren't burning them at the stake in 1989)
>
>Heaven's gate, Jonestown, ETC. ETC. and so on.
>
>And then there was y2k; enough said!
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Martin McCormick" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 12:31 PM
>Subject: Solar flare and Calamities, Not So Fast!
>
>
>I read the link recently posted about the Solar flare. It is
>pretty good, but we should be careful about dire warnings. We
>have had bad Solar storms in the past and they did, in fact,
>disrupt some power and telecommunications systems but it is more
>likely to be annoying and frustrating than disastrous. Some
>Solar storms disrupt the Earth's magnetic field and make it seem
>to move around. The huge Solar storm in 1989 actually caused
>magnetic compasses in the North Sea to be off by as much as 5
>degrees which made Petrobium operations in the North Sea stop
>for a while.
>
>What can happen when the magnetic field varies is that
>long runs of wire such as telephone and electrical cables start
>to behave like generators. One would see low DC voltages at high
>currents begin to ebb and flow in the wires. It is possible to
>reach several amps of what might look like DC on the wire. The
>current would rise and fall and reverse polarity so you could
>really call it an ultra-low-frequency alternating current.
>
>A really bad thing that would not immediately be
>apparent is that electrical currents would also try to flow in
>long pipelines under ground and water and those currents would cause
>electrolysis of the metal which could eventually lead to early
>failure.
>
>As for 2012, the only Solar disturbances we can predict
>are the ones we just had. In other words, we can't predict
>individual events ten minutes from now much less a year.
>
>As for those big currents in long wires, they are more
>likely to occur in the far North and the far South as
>geomagnetic disturbances cause more disruption in Polar regions
>than they do in most of the world.
>
>The power systems that have been effected suffered
>interesting failures such as tripped breakers and maybe even the
>magnetic saturation of the iron cores in power transformers, but
>they were able to restore power eventually.
>
>I am saying, annoying and possibly expensive, yes but
>cataclysmic ending of civilization, not likely.
>
>Martin