Now that global warming is getting debunked, the disaster industry is looking for a new menace. They think they found one.
Solar storms.
Sounds bad doesn't it? There is a bit a added drama in the reference to "every eleven years the sun goes ballistic" . What is the author talking about? He is referring to the sunspot cycle. The number of sunspots rises and falls on an eleven year cycle. This was discovered back in the 1600's. Sunspots do effect the earth's ionosphere, a fact well known to high frequency radio operators. Radio propagation is best at sunspot maximun, and worst at sunspot minumum. Radio amateurs have known about this for nearly 100 years. Nothing new here.
Now the disaster industry is beating the drums about a massive solar storm knocking out the electric power grid.
Highly unlikely. All those wires running thru the air get struck by lightning, every day, thousands of times. A lightning bolt can do real damage, start fires, blow out electrical equipment. Nothing keeps out a lightening bolt, the voltage is high enough to arc thru any amount of insulation, including thousands of feet of air. A bolt struck the powerline leading to my mother's house a few years ago. It destroyed her satellite receiver and burned the insides of her CD player black. Took out some light bulbs too. But the electric grid kept right on working, her lights stayed on.
Bottom line, the electric grid shrugs off lightning hits strong enough to fry consumer electronics.
No solar storm is going to be a strong as a lightening hit.
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