diy solar

diy solar

Prepping for impending grid outage

Interesting read
science.nasa.gov

Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012

July 23, 2014: If an asteroid big enough to knock modern civilization back to the 18th century appeared out of deep space and buzzed the Earth-Moon system, the near-miss would be instant worldwide headline news. Two years ago, Earth experienced a close shave just as perilous, but most newspapers...
science.nasa.gov science.nasa.gov
 
42OhmsPA said:
Interesting read
science.nasa.gov

Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012

July 23, 2014: If an asteroid big enough to knock modern civilization back to the 18th century appeared out of deep space and buzzed the Earth-Moon system, the near-miss would be instant worldwide headline news. Two years ago, Earth experienced a close shave just as perilous, but most newspapers...
science.nasa.gov science.nasa.gov
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You would expect near misses during the 500 year average, since near misses are included in the average. The problem is when one of the near misses is too near.
 
hwy17 said:
We would figure it out. In 2020 store shelves actually got a bit bare, and none of that "oh as soon as the shelves look empty, all hell will break loose" stuff turned out to be true. People just said ok no chicken or beans today, we'll figure out something else.

Water system has generators, gas stations have generators, we'd get by.
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Exactly.

“Even if the food runs out, we still have each other.” - Jeffrey Dahmer
 
DIYrich said:
Carrington event of 1859 are estimated to happen every 500 years, on average. It is not unusual for 100 year events (in other contexts) to happen in back to back years. Large CME's are frequent, but pointing at Earth is rare. Could be unlucky with one pointing at us soon. Or, it could be another 500 years.
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I'd be interested in an actual analysis of what the impacts of a carrington event would be. Their telegraph systems survived it, despite some damage. I don't really buy the idea that it would just kill all electrical devices.

www.scientificamerican.com

Should You Really Worry about Solar Flares?

The sun is unleashing powerful outbursts that could strike Earth, but these events are far more common—and much less worrisome—than some hyped headlines suggest
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
 
hwy17 said:
I'd be interested in an actual analysis of what the impacts of a carrington event would be.
Click to expand...
The Carrington event is estimated to have been X-47. It is estimated because the guy with the meter was on vacation.
In comparison, the flare on March 13, 1989 was measured at X-15 and knocked out power for 6 million people for 9 hours. Astronomers have measured X-1000 CMEs on sun like stars.
 
HighDesertOffgrid said:
The Carrington event is estimated to have been X-47. It is estimated because the guy with the meter was on vacation.
In comparison, the flare on March 13, 1989 was measured at X-15 and knocked out power for 6 million people for 9 hours. Astronomers have measured X-1000 CMEs on sun like stars.
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Ok, 9 hour outage. I don't think it's so clear that we can jump to the conclusion that x-47 means weeks months or years outage. It's a very complex consideration that would require educated analysis.

It doesn't seem like x-47 means internally trying a generator head, for example.
 
hwy17 said:
That would be an incredibly powerful EMP. Like underneath an atmospheric nuke EMP strength.
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That’s what it would take to disrupt the country otherwise it would just be a regional annoyance and a Giant flag saying Nuke ME I sent the EMP.
 
hwy17 said:
I'd be interested in an actual analysis of what the impacts of a carrington event would be. Their telegraph systems survived it, despite some damage.
Click to expand...
Telegraph system is orders of magnitude simpler than an electric grid. At a minimum, you can expect surges to knock out transmission lines. Hopefully that doesn't burn out wires or toast transformers. That would cause a cascading islanding of generators as they become overloaded or underloaded. Hopefully that doesn't cause permanent damage to the generators.

But, the event would be expected. So, would the grid be shutdown to protect?

Either case, assuming no damage, you are looking at a mulit-day restart of the grid.

I saw an estimate of $1 trillion to harden the grid to survive a Carrington event. I though that was a lot of money, until the past few years and all the trillions the fed is wasting.
 
One thing I learned from the Northridge 6.7 magnitude earthquake in 1994 (we lived 2 miles from the epicenter) is that cash is king. When there's no power, everything is down. It is also possible that if the entire grid is down, water could stop flowing as well since some water lines use pumps. During the Northridge earthquake, no public utilities were working due to breaks in the lines. No power, no gas, no water, no phones. Oddly enough some cell phones still worked. But that was 1994 and very, very few people had cell phones. Credit card machines were down so you can't buy anything. Can't pump gas even if you pay cash because registers are down and pumps are down. If you need gas for your generator, you are out of luck. The local 7-11 was selling what food they had left. A blueberry muffin was $8.00. (JERKS!) But if you were hungry and had cash, it was yours.

So what do you need to prep for impending grid outage? Cash. With enough cash you can get whatever you need from someone who is willing to sell it.
 
DIYrich said:
I saw an estimate of $1 trillion to harden the grid to survive a Carrington event. I though that was a lot of money, until the past few years and all the trillions the fed is wasting.
Click to expand...
They'd rather send the trillions overseas to be laundered than to actually do something useful with the tax dollars and printing press.
 
time2roll said:
Can talk about it right here. What are your specific concerns?
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chances are batteries with built in BMS could get be affected. I put a charge controller and inverter in a Faraday cage. Nothing major, just want something to charge small batteries. what about panel damage? should I a few tucked away?
 
SupraSPL said:
In an emergency the vast majority of our energy usage can be cut loose (clothes dryer, hot water). The exception being winter heating, blower and circulation fans. My oil furnace draws about 450 watts for example and those Wh can really add up.

Refrigeration would probably be the biggest remaining load but even a modest off grid system woukd be able to handle that.

If an emp kicks off, grid down for sure but do we know if that would actually effect our MPPTs, inverters or BMS ?
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I read a post from some so-called electricity expert that said we would have to be close to the blast for most items to be affected. not sure if thats true
 
marionw said:
I think an EMP is less likely than a physical attack on the electrical grid. With who knows who has come across the southern border over the last 3 years anything can happen. Do an internet search on "national electric grid vulnerabilities"
There are only a couple dozen critical interconnect substations, those that convert the 384,000 and above volt transmission lines to lower voltages for distribution and most have no physical security.

National Electric Grid Vulnerabilities

National Electric Grid Vulnerabilities
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think you are right. Documentary “grid up power down” hosted by Dennis Quaid was enlightening. also the Netflix movie “Leave the World Behind” produced by the Obamas is probably a scenario that's most likely to happen
 
time2roll said:
I am a bit more worried about water from the TX example a few years ago when a few of the municipal water supplies shut down for lack of power.
Have a pool but might need to look at some of those filters to make sure it is drinkable.
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thats what I did.. we keep the jacuzzi filled and lots of filters
 
hwy17 said:
Ok, 9 hour outage. I don't think it's so clear that we can jump to the conclusion that x-47 means weeks months or years outage. It's a very complex consideration that would require educated analysis.

It doesn't seem like x-47 means internally trying a generator head, for example.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is hard to precisely predict all the effects (or lack thereof) which a CME hit on earth would cause. But it is important to keep in mind that at the time of the Carrington event, there were NO electronics with sensitive semiconductor junctions and really very little to nothing in terms of power lines. The only long distance conductors were telegraph lines and railroad rails. Both of those saw effects and some damage.

A similar CME today would be quite different. Many thousands of miles of power lines to pick up voltage and current; power transformers which will not handle the DC currents, lots of sensitive electronics in most devices which are plugged into the grid. Of coarse it will all depend upon the details of the event, but the possibility is there for a lot of damage to infrastructure and "appliances".
 
marionw said:
If you like fiction and want to read a series of books on the results of an EMP, internet search for author "William Forstchen".
Takes place in Black Mountain/Montreat North Carolina.

Couple of hours from me and I had to drive up there just to see the community. Pretty much as described in the books.
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Deep
 
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