Severe Solar Storms Could Paralyze Earth this Decade: says NOAA

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Solar storm and global chaos

A severe solar storm could cause global chaos, wreck satellite communications and take down the most important power grids and nuclear fuel cooling systems in the world for a period of years.

2013 not 2012

The NOAA predicted four “extreme” solar emissions which could threaten the planet this decade. Similarly, NASA warned that a peak in the sun's magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could enable extremely high radiation levels.

Nuclear power plants at cooling risk

with nuclear fuel storage cooling missing running into multiple Fukushima meltdown scenarios with US fuel stored aside the nuclear plant

Nuclear plants depend on standby batteries and backup diesel generators. Most standby power systems would continue to function after a severe solar storm, but supplying the standby power systems with adequate fuel, when the main power grids are offline for years, could become a very critical problem.

If the spent fuel rod pools at the country's 104 nuclear power plants lose their connection to the power grid, the current regulations are not sufficient to guarantee those pools won't boil over, exposing the hot, zirconium-clad rods and sparking fires that would release deadly radiation.

A report by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said that over the standard 40-year license term of nuclear power plants, solar flare activity enables a 33 percent chance of long-term power loss, a risk that significantly outweighs that of major earthquakes and tsunamis.