http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...ectrical-havoc

Solar flare 2011: How a dazzling display can wreak electrical havoc



As we were reminded this week, the sun is no placid sphere that uniformly radiates warmth. On the contrary, our star roils, churns, belches, and, every now and then – just to remind us who really runs things in this solar system – spits fire in our direction.

It could have been much worse. In March 1989, a blast of solar wind tripped circuit breakers on Hydro-Québec's power grid, leaving six million people without electricity for nine hours. Later that year, another solar eruption caused computer crashes that brought trading on Toronto's stock market to a halt.

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According to the Times, the telegraphs ran on nothing but electrified air for two hours.

This happened at the dawn of the electric age. Today, a comparable solar flare could devastate our infrastructure. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences found that a major solar storm could cause twenty times the economic damage of hurricane Katrina.

YEEE HHHAAAAA!

Got candles?

-t