Space Weather Anomalies, Power Grid Collapse And Nuclear Safety By VT Padmanabhan, R Ramesh and V Pugazhendi

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Space Weather Anomalies, Power Grid Collapse And Nuclear Safety

By VT Padmanabhan, R Ramesh and V Pugazhendi

23 October, 2012
Countercurrents.org

“More than half the gross national product of the earth, representing the accumulated wealth of our planet, depends in some way on the electromagnetic force.” -Michio Kaku

Summary

Severe space weather that involves transfer of massive amount of energy and matter from the Sun to the Earth is a one in hundred years event, that can cause collapse of power grid on a global scale. Recovery may take months and years. As the last event happened in 1921, there is high probability of a recurrance during the next few decades. Prolonged non-availability of electricity will cause meltdowns and explosions in nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools. Regulators in USA are considering to harden their nuclear assets against this. India and other nuclear nations have yet to spell out their action plan to prevent a radiological catastrophe.

Introduction

The largest power outage in history happened in India on 30th and 31st Jul 2012, affecting 320 million people. An estimated 32,000 MW(e) was taken offline and the restoration was rather quick. There are a hundred reasons for the grids to fail and a hundred plus one reasons to celeberate it. However, a prolonged outage is a serious affair with catastrophic consequences like meltdown and explosions of nuclear reactors . The possibility of global scale grid failures lasting for months and years due to space weather events has been under scrutiny by scientists and governments for over a decade.

Space Weather

The Sun's role as the donor of abandunt energy in the form of visible light and ultraviolet radiations is well known. Besides these, the Sun and other stars continuously bombard the Earth with other forms of energy and matter most of which are blocked or deflected by the Earth’s magnetosphere. Still, an estimated one million tons of particles arrive the Earth in a normal year. Known as cosmic radiation, this particle shower causes cloud formation and also generates geomagnetically induced current (GIC) of about one ampere on the Earth surface. This cosmic shower also causes ionization that accounts for about a third of the natural background radiation experienced on Earth's surface, ensuring one hit to one-third of all cells in our body every year. Occassionally there will be violent transfers of matter and energy known as 'space weather' and its main drivers are (a) solar flares, (b) solar proton events (SPE) and (c) coronal mass ejections (CME).

1. Solar Flares are magnetically driven explosions on the surface of the sun. These are powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation in the form of X-ray, extreme ultraviolet (UV) rays, gamma rays and radio burst that travel at the speed of light. These heat up the upper atmosphere and strip electrons from the atoms in the ionosphere.

2. Solar Proton Events (SPEs) are high-energy protons and ions, whch take around an hour to reach Earth, though an event of Jan 2005 had an arrival time of 15 minutes. SPEs produce auroras visible to the human eye, when they collide with Earth’s atmosphere. They also cause oxidization of atmospheric nitrogen. The nitrates from large SPEs during the past have been detected and measured in the ice cores drilled from the Antarctica and Greenland.

3. Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) are vast clouds of gas, charged plasma with imbedded magnetic field. CMEs may contain as much as 10 billion tons or or more of coronal material travelling at speeds as high as 3000 km/second. A CME strike can cause disturbance of Earth’s magnetic field called a geomagnetic storm and induce GIC of upto 100 amperes on the Earth surface.

While the above events normally happen in isolation a major eruption will involve all the three components. In September 1859, there was a big solar eruption, known as the Carrington event after Richard Carrington, a British astronomer who recorded it. It is estimated that this event transferred 10 billion tons of matter to the Earth in a few days. That is equivalent to about 200 grams per each square meter area of the planet. Telegraph lines were disrupted for days on in all continents. The only instrumental record of this event available today is from the the Geomagnetic Observatory at Alibag, Colaba, Mumbai. The next big event happened in 1921 and a smaller one with lower energy struck the Earth in March 1989, known as the Quebec event.

The Known Impacts of Space Weather

Severe space weather events have occurred at regular intervals in the past. Yet there is no mention of it in our history books or folklores because such events do not have any visible impacts on the human beings and other life forms. However, space weather is not neutral to our technological infra-structure. The main known impacts are listed below:

1. Grid failure due to geomagnetically induced electricity

A big CME causes a geomagnetic storm as it punctures the planet’s magnetosphere, leading to a surge in the earth’s current up-to 100 amperes. When this is communicated to the power grid (as a semi DC current), the transformers get burnt. The Quebec event of March 1989 destroyed several transformers in North America rendering more than five million people 'power-less' for nine hours in Ontario, Canada. In US, a transformer at the Salem nuclear plant in New Jersey was also burnt out and had to be replaced. The damage of two of National Grid’s transformers in the UK was considered the worst incident of its kind. Smaller, localized damages have been reported from several other places during the past three decades.

2. Damage to satellites

There are about 1000 human-made satellites above the earth, which are central to our communication , entertainment, business, military and science research. The satellites may lose their orientation or get destroyed and fall down. The outage in January 1994 of two Canadian telecommunications satellites was the first reported event.

3 Damage to Electronics

All the electronic gadgets we use will also suffer damage in a space weather event. There are suggestions to keep them in Faraday cages, but since they are part of almost all the machines we use, this is not practical.

4. Radiofrequency anomalies and the effects of Global Positiong System (GPS)

In Jan 2005, 26 flights involving polar routes had to be diverted to non-polar routes during several days due high frequency radio black- outs in USA alone. Disabling of the Federal Aviation Administration’s GPS-based Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) for 30 hours during October-November 2003 was another major event.

Scientific Studies and deliberations

1. US National Academy of Sciences, 2008

Space science places like NASA, European Space Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been tracking the Sun with the aid of more than two dozen satellites for over two decades. The ACE satellite located at L1 point, 1.5 million km above the Earth is the one that is the closest to the Sun. In 2008 the United States National Academy of Sciences (US NAS) published the deliberations of an expert committee consisting of scientists from NASA, NOAA, the military and the utilities (National Research Council, 2008) One of the conclusions is that a 1921 or 1859 type event can cause widespread, serious damage to the electricity grid throughout the Earth. (National Research Council, 2008)

Solar eruptions occur more frequently and most of them may not be earth-directed as this alert on 31st August 2012 shows: “a magnetic filament on the sun erupted in spectacular fashion, producing a long-duration solar flare, a coronal mass ejection (CME) and one of the most beautiful movies of an explosion ever recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The CME propelled by the blast might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field in the days ahead.” http://spaceweather.com, 2012). Advanced Composition Exoeiment (ACE) satellite stationed at L1 point, 1.5 million km from earth alone can tell us in advance if a particular burst is earth-directed. The lead time may be an hour so. Not enough time to take any preventive step at a naional or global level.

2. US Department of Energy (DOE)

US DOE and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) jointly sponsored a workshop in November, 2009. The attendees at the closed session included representatives from the Congressional Staff, Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), EMP Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and representatives from the electric industry’s major sectors. The report of the meeting concedes that the North American power grids have significant reliability issues in regard events such as severe space weather. “The design of transformers also acts to further compound the impacts of GIC flows in the high voltage portion of the power grid...These transformers generally cannot be repaired in the field, and if damaged in this manner, need to be replaced with new units, which have manufacture lead times of 12–24 months or more in the world market.” (NERC-US DOE, 2010) The government in USA or for that matter any goverment has probably never been so nervous and helpless as the report underlines that “in the affected area, the supply of food, water, and fuel would degrade within days. The facile communication of information to the general population would be greatly complicated by the loss of cell phones, internet access, and television. The economy would virtually shut down as electronic transactions could no longer be processed. After several days, widespread social unrest and confusion would ensue.”

3. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)

In October 2010, in a series of technical reports sponsored by DOE and DHS, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) estimated that “major geomagnetic storms, such as those that occurred in 1859 and 1921 occur approximately once every one hundred years. Storms of this type are global events that can last for days and will likely have an effect on electrical networks world wide. Should a storm of this magnitude strike today, it could interrupt power to as many as 130 million people in the United States alone, requiring several years to recover.”(ORNL, 2010) Many space weather experts believe that this one-in-hundred-years event can happen during the 24th solar cycle which began in 2009 and will end in 2021/22, with peak activities in 2012/13. The storm can happen any time during the cycle, but there is higher risk during the solar peak.

The Nuclear Risk

Even though almost all of our modern ventures need electricty. Loss of electricity will not cause any major accident in any of them. Hoowever, nuclear reactors and their spent fuel pools (SFP) require electicity for their safety related pumps. The reactor cores and SFPs need to be cooled even when the plants are offline. For nuclear campuses offsite electric power is the designed default power source and it is required to be supplied in a high-reliability, dual-circuit configuration to run the safety related coolant pumps. They do have diesel generators and batteries as backup just in case offsite power is not available. The reserve of diesel is generally for less than a week. When there is no offsite power and the generators are unavailable- a condition known as station blackout- the reactors and SFPs will experience meltdowns and explosions. All major nuclear events happened because of loss of coolant.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Grid failure

Seventy-one out of 104 nuclear reactors in US are within the areas of probable power system collapse listed in the ORNL study. Few days before the Fukushim nuclear disaster of March 2011, Thomas Popik of the Resilient Societies petitioned the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to provide nuclear campuses with permanent backup power for running the safety related pumps. (Popik Thomas, 2011) The petitioner assumes that as the supply chain breaks down the campuses will be deserted. Pumps using renewable sources of energy, about 10 to 20 KWe, that does not required regular input of fuel or human presence can prevent the disasters. Each reactor may require of electricity to run its safety related pumps and equipments. Popik substantiates that setting up of alternative power sources are economically and ecologically viable. Rarely does US NRC accept a petition for rule-making from private sources. However, this petition is under its consideration and a fierce debate on this issue is happening at an NRC blog. From a recent post from this blog: “if the NRC grossly ignores its duty, as it has been doing in this case for years, and does nothing to harden plants against long term grid disruption the US will be destroyed FOREVER, any people who survive will not be able to live on the land or drink the water!”(Levi Thomas, 2011)

The Indian situation

The situation in India is slightly better off as the number of power plants, total electricity generated and the volume of spent fuel in the pools is far less than that in North America or Europe. Almost all of India's aged spent fuel, except that of Tarapur, has been reprocessed and hence the volume of wastes in the pool is much smaller. We are also blessed with an abundant supply of solar and wind energy sources. Above all, there is a National Disaster Management Authority in Delhi and its affiiates at State Capitals. We still have problems as four of our reactor campuses are dangerously close to the cities, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram. The last one houses the nation's strategic command. Kudamkulam and also the proposed plant at Jaitapur will have an additional risk as their freshwater sources are desalination plants that also require electricity from the grid. The water crisis at Kudankulam has been reported earlier.(Padmanabhan V T et al, 2012) When this generic safety issue of space weather caused grid failure on nuclear campuses in India was raised, a Government of India Expert Group brushed it aside by a saying that “this situation is totally imaginary and technically/ scientifically not correct.” (Muthunagam AE et al, 2011) The science behind the space weather and its impacts has evolved in the same laboratories and institutuions that developed our modern technological infrastructure including nuclear power plants.

Solutions

Availability of fresh water in the campus and an energy source to pump water are the only requirements for safety of the campus in a shut down mode. Most of the nuclear campuses in India are dependent on offsite water. In the offline mode, the water requirement will be between 10 to 20% of the online mode. This can be harnessed with rain water harvesting. A combintion of wind and solar generators can take care o the enegy needs of pumping. This will not be a dead investment and will only increase the self-reliance of the campus. SFP of Tarapur 1 and 2 reactors are as over-crowded as those in USA. Steps should be taken to reprocess the aged fuel, so as to reduce the water requirement and risks of contamination in case of SFP fire.

Radiological contamination from nuclear disasters is a global problem. Governments of US, Canada and UK are acting on the issue. India and other nuclear nations appear to be in a denial mode. Besides hardening her nuclear assets against the grid failure, India must also bring this issue in the United Nations and other global forums.

Conclusion

The return period for a severe space weather event is 100 years and if a CME strikes the planet during this decade there is nothing that the humanity can do to prevent the conseqences listed above. There will be problems during the initial days of the disaster, but the societies will be able to overcome them. Thomas Levi wrote on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) blog “in the event of a power outage lasting more than a month, possibly years, there will be massive causalities, this is unavoidable should this situation come to pass. But just like with any other natural disaster the people will eventually come back and they may be a little smarter than before.” We have survived several such disasters in the past and similarly we will overcome the impending one as well. However, life will be more painful and difficult in a radiocontaminated land. Surely, this is not a partisan issue concerning a certain class, political party or interest group. In a way, we are all in it. Timely action on the vulnerable sites can greatly reduce the impacst. As the saying goes disaster happens when hazrads meet vulnerability.

Based on a paper presented at a National Seminar in Kuvempu University on 10 Nov 2011.

We fondly remember the advisory support from Dr Rosalie Bertel, who left for her heavenly abode on 16 June, 2012.

Dr. V. Pugazhenthi is acclaimed for his rigorous and credible studies on health impact of radiation around Kalpakkam nuclear site. He is an activist belonging to the Doctors for Safer Environment

Dr. R. Ramesh a medical practitioner, who has written books on the geology of Kudankulam

VT Padmanabhan is a researcher in health effects of radiation. He has led epidemiological investigations among people exposed to high radiation in Kerala. He has also studied the occupational radiation hazards among workers of Indian Rare Earths, genetic effects of children exposed to MIC gases in Bhopal, health hazards to workers in a viscose rayon unit in Madhyapradesh and reduction of birth weight of babies near a beverage bottling plant in Kerala. He has visited several contaminated sites in Belarus and Japan and had extensive interactions with the survivors.His papers have been published in International Journal of Health Services, Journal of American Medical Association, International Perspectives in Public Health, the Lancet and Economic and Political Weekly. He is a member of the European Commission on Radiation Risk, an independent body of experts appointed by the Green MEPs in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected]

References

Levi Thomas, 2011 The NRC: We’re Ready to Respond,
http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2011/04/22/the-nrc-were-ready-to-respond/

Muthunayagam AE et al , 2011, Safety of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and Impact of its Operation on the Surroundings -Report by Expert Group Constituted by Govt. of India, December 2011, www.barc.ernet.in/egreport.pdf

National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences, 2008, Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts, Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html

NERC-US DOE (North American Electric Reliability Corporation and the U.S. Department of Energy) 2010 "High- Impact, Low-Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System," www.nerc.com/files/HILF.pdf

ORNL, 2010 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), “Electromagnetic Pulse: Effects on the U.S. Power Grid” www.ornl.gov/sci/ees/etsd/pes/pubs/ferc_Executive_Summary.pdf

Padmanabhan, V T, R Ramesh and V Pugazhendi, 2012, , Koodankulam's Reserve Water RequirementsEconomic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVII No. 18, May 05, 2012, http://www.epw.in/commentary/koodankulams-reserve- water-requirements.html

Popik Thomas , 2011, Petition To Nuclear Regulatory Commission To Require Installation Of New Back-Up Safety Systems, www.resilientsocieties.org