http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...y.html?hpid=z2

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:23:29 -0500, Alan Browne
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...y.html?hpid=z2


<from> http://www.spaceweather.com/

RADIATION STORM IN PROGRESS: Solar protons accelerated by this
morning's M9-class solar flare are streaming past Earth. On the NOAA
scale of radiation storms, this one ranks S3, which means it could,
e.g., cause isolated reboots of computers onboard Earth-orbiting
satellites and interfere with polar radio communications. An example
of satellite effects: The "snow" in this SOHO coronagraph movie is
caused by protons hitting the observatory's onboard camera.

ALMOST-X FLARE AND CME (UPDATED): This morning, Jan. 23rd around 0359
UT, big sunspot 1402 erupted, producing a long-duration M9-class solar
flare. The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being an
X-flare, the most powerful kind. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory
captured the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash:

On Jan 23, 2:23*pm, Alan Browne <alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
wrote:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...iggest-solar-s...
>
> --
> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

So what's the physics behind power surges on the electrical grid? The
energetic particles aren't electromagnetic radiation so it's not an
antenna phenomena. Perhaps something like EMP where the charged
particles move along the magnetic lines of force generating radio
frequency energy.

--- CHAS

HIPAR wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2:23 pm, Alan Browne<alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
> wrote:
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...iggest-solar-s...
>>
>> --
>> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
>> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).
>
> So what's the physics behind power surges on the electrical grid? The
> energetic particles aren't electromagnetic radiation so it's not an
> antenna phenomena. Perhaps something like EMP where the charged
> particles move along the magnetic lines of force generating radio
> frequency energy.
>
> --- CHAS

VERY SIMPLISTICALLY think of ions as current through a 1
turn primary of a loosely coupled transformer whose n-turn
secondary is the power grid [ n > 0 ;]

The ion storm is how many amperes?
Over-current trips are how many amperes?
Just how tight does coupling have to be to create problems ;/
[In mid 20th century I knew how to do that calculation -
never used it after leaving school

Richard Owlett wrote:
> VERY SIMPLISTICALLY think of ions as current through a 1
> turn primary of a loosely coupled transformer whose n-turn
> secondary is the power grid [ n > 0 ;]
>
> The ion storm is how many amperes?
> Over-current trips are how many amperes?
> Just how tight does coupling have to be to create problems ;/
> [In mid 20th century I knew how to do that calculation -
> never used it after leaving school

And what frequency is involved? Transformers don't work at DC. Usually you
have to have quite high frequencies to get good coupling with no
ferro-magnetic material... (I only vaguely remember the qualitative stuff,
too.)

Mike.
--
If reply address is Mike@@mjcoon.+.com (invalid), remove spurious "@"
and substitute "plus" for +.

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:43 -0000, "Mike Coon" <Mike@@mjcoon.+.com>
wrote:

>Richard Owlett wrote:
>> VERY SIMPLISTICALLY think of ions as current through a 1
>> turn primary of a loosely coupled transformer whose n-turn
>> secondary is the power grid [ n > 0 ;]
>>
>> The ion storm is how many amperes?
>> Over-current trips are how many amperes?
>> Just how tight does coupling have to be to create problems ;/
>> [In mid 20th century I knew how to do that calculation -
>> never used it after leaving school
>
>And what frequency is involved? Transformers don't work at DC. Usually you
>have to have quite high frequencies to get good coupling with no
>ferro-magnetic material... (I only vaguely remember the qualitative stuff,
>too.)
>
>Mike.


Not just AC, but changing magnetic fields, which is sort of the same
thing, but not really.

An idea of the changing fields for Sunday night can be seen on the
Aurora Cam at:
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astrono...ery_replay.asp

"Mike Coon" <Mike@@mjcoon.+.com> wrote:

> Richard Owlett wrote:
> > VERY SIMPLISTICALLY think of ions as current through a 1
> > turn primary of a loosely coupled transformer whose n-turn
> > secondary is the power grid [ n > 0 ;]
> >
> > The ion storm is how many amperes?
> > Over-current trips are how many amperes?
> > Just how tight does coupling have to be to create problems ;/
> > [In mid 20th century I knew how to do that calculation -
> > never used it after leaving school
>
> And what frequency is involved? Transformers don't work at DC. Usually you
> have to have quite high frequencies to get good coupling with no
> ferro-magnetic material... (I only vaguely remember the qualitative stuff,
> too.)

It's the magnetic flux that matters.
And you have a lot of area...

Jan

On 2012-01-23 18:28 , HIPAR wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2:23 pm, Alan Browne<alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
> wrote:
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...iggest-solar-s...
>>
>> --
>> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
>> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).
>
> So what's the physics behind power surges on the electrical grid? The
> energetic particles aren't electromagnetic radiation so it's not an
> antenna phenomena. Perhaps something like EMP where the charged
> particles move along the magnetic lines of force generating radio
> frequency energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1...magnetic_storm

Quote

A river of charged particles and electrons in the ionosphere flowed
from west to east, inducing powerful electrical currents in the
ground that surged into many natural nooks and crannies.

/Quote

Quote

The utility's very long transmission lines and the fact that most
of Quebec sits on a large rock shield prevented current flowing
through the earth, finding a less resistant path along the 735 kV
power lines.

/Quote

Note: My GPS receiver is tracking fine and power is still on in Quebec.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

On 2012-01-23 18:28 , HIPAR wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2:23 pm, Alan Browne<alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
> wrote:
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...iggest-solar-s...
>>
>> --
>> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
>> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).
>
> So what's the physics behind power surges on the electrical grid? The
> energetic particles aren't electromagnetic radiation so it's not an
> antenna phenomena. Perhaps something like EMP where the charged
> particles move along the magnetic lines of force generating radio
> frequency energy.

http://spaceweather.com/images2012/2...ulse_strip.jpg

That ground current, if dissipated naturally, causes little harm.

However (see my prior post) if the ground is locally resistant, as it is
in Quebec, then the current finds the lower resisting lines of the power
grid resulting in trips. Hydro-Quebec has invested greatly in reducing
the likeliyhood of a trip since the 1989 event.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

Alan Browne wrote:
>
> Note: My GPS receiver is tracking fine and power is still on in Quebec.
>
I ran a Night O event tonight, near Oslo (60N), I got a very good track
log from my Garmin 405 watch even though Norway is getting amazing
Aurora Borealis these days, and the trees were snow-covered :-)

Terje
--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"