Get the candles -

[observer]

According to scientists - an increase in solar flare activity by the Sun, could knock out our electricity supplies during 2013, presume this is due to EMP?

[Lt Kije]

The last one was in the 1850's As you would have had first hand knowledge Obs what was it like

[Bazj]

I can see why you fix electric things and don't tell jokes for a living Kije

[Lt Kije]

You should try reading some of yours

[Dizzy]

Wouldn't worry about it Obs as according to the Mayan Tribe? and their calendars the word is due to end in 2012 anyway.

 

(Think that's what they are called anyway )

[Lt Kije]

[observer]

In the 1850s they were probably using candles anyway Kyje; so may not have noticed. Thought for a minute. with your expertise (!), that you would be explaining EMP to the audience?!

[Bill]

Solar discharges don't produce any electro magnetic pulse, they only occur in stuff like atomic explosions.

 

Kyje would know this but he's probably too much of a gentleman to point it out to you!

 

Bill

[Lt Kije]

Watch, I will be tabling questions

 

[Bazj]

ahhh so that is the fountain of your knowledge Kije........ youtube???

[Lt Kije]

If you had bothered to look Baz you would have seen who made the video

 

Its a case of not putting brain in gear before you typed

[observer]

Well that's strange Bill; the BBC science correspondant spent 20 minutes explaining just how solar flares cause an EMP; as occured in 1859 and how in this modern age of electrical and electronic dependency, the grid will be at risk.

[Evil Sid]

and here's me thinking we voted in our EMP's

[Bill]

Well the end results might be similar in that they both break power and communications but they really are two very different phenomena. It?s rather like calling a flood (after days of torrential rain) a tsunami because they both involve water and cause devastation.

 

Strictly speaking and electromagnetic pulse is something that only lasts for a fraction of a second rather like a lightning discharge (the tsunami) while the effects from the sun causes a slow build up of current (flood) in anything conductive including the ground.

 

Pity we can?t harness this excess free electricity, now there?s a thought!

 

Bill

[observer]

So Bill, will it "take out" the grid or not? Talking of "harnessing" this energy; watched that Stephen Hawkings prog the other night; and he mentioned how advanced life forms could "milk" energy from a sun, using reflectors to focus it to one point.

[Bill]

Yes it would but it wouldn?t be the flash bang wallop of an emp but a gradual build up of excess energy that the power stations just aren?t designed to deal with. The problem is then that because our power grids are so finely balanced, a sudden and unpredicted shutdown of just one can causes a knock on effect that can take the whole network down like a pack of dominoes. Quite scary when you think about it.

 

As for getting power from the sun on a large scale, well that may be possible but not in my lifetime. Personally I think the better option is to think of the earth as being a massif dynamo, after all it?s a lump of iron rotating in a magnetic field so all I need to work out is where the bloody connections are.

 

Bill

[observer]

So - IF the grid goes down - no TV, no PC, no Moby etc etc: just what are folk going to do?

[Lt Kije]

Invest in a new baby boom generation

[observer]

a logical conclusion.