Sun v. Trains: Sun Wins
Most 2012 talk involving the Sun covers things like a cataclysmic breakdown of a power grid, and the effects of solar bursts in 1859 and 1989. Most people are unaware of these more subtle effects from recent times:
Although it would take a truly massive space storm to cause a catastrophe, it is becoming clear that even modest solar activity poses a threat in our technology-dependent world. It makes railway signals go haywire and rusts oil pipelines to the point that they may leak, not to mention wearing down key components in power grids, which could drive up the cost of electricity.
In the far North of Russia, solar storms have caused train signals to switch from green to red erroneously – “Space storms may have the same effect on the rails as a train, generating unwanted electric currents that could cause the voltage between the two rails to drop and the signal to turn red.”
The storms are also rusting pipelines, even in places like Northern Australia which are relatively close to the equator.
And damage to transformers is pushing up electricity prices by a few percent, even when the Sun is quite quiet. Expect a whole lot of unexpected consequences when a really big solar storm hit us.
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