[Milsurplus] Coronal Mass Ejection

[mstangelo at comcast.net]

There was damage done in Quebec and to a transformer here in New Jersey during a CME event in 1989:

<http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/>

A large event could cause major outages.

Mike N2MS
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Gottlieb <nerd at verizon.net>
To: Gene Smar <ersmar at verizon.net>, milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 13:57:11 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Coronal Mass Ejection

Indeed.  Such gear usually has a long lifetime so there is no need for huge 
production capacity.

Free markets are better suited for a limited range of supply and demand and not 
surges like that.

Another hitch is that those huge transformers are very difficult to transport.

Perhaps microgrids might be a way to mitigate against this?  That way much will 
stay up and/or be faster to restore?

Does anyone really know the kind of surge/interference a CME would cause?  Is it 
a low frequency event which mostly disrupts things like the grid due to it being 
such a large antenna?