[Threat Alert] ONE Solar Storm = 71 American Fukushimas

Fukushima Daiichi has opened many people's eyes to the vulnerability of nuclear generation facilities to electricity loss and infrastructure failure. One risk area the the general public may not be fully aware of is infrastructure collapse due to either a High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) Blast or a Solar Storm / Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). A HEMP Blast would come from an enemy detonating a nuclear weapon a few hundred miles over head. For the time being, we can rule out a HEMP Blast because it makes no sense for an enemy to attempt that type of attack given that the Federal Reserve is attacking the nation more efficiently than any enemy could desire.

Much work has already been done to quantify the destructive potential of Solar Storms to our electrical grid and nation, but none of the publicly available research has focused on the potential of a large number of American nuclear reactors simultaneously experiencing a Fukushima type failure. The map  at the top of this post is a high altitude analysis of the nuclear generation facilities in the USA that could suffer a multiple years long electrical grid failures from a solar storm  equal in size to the one that hit the USA in 1921.

The map above correlates the data from a pre-Fukushima solar event impact study to the locations of nuclear generation facilities in the USA.  The large red circles are areas of the Nation that are likely to experience a total collapse and multiple year loss of the electrical grid from a May 13, 1921 sized solar storm. The primary failure mode is the solar induced destruction of very large electrical transformers. Moreover, these transformers are no longer manufactured in the United States, and the lead time to produce them is very long. The loss of those transformers and the long time it takes to replace them are the primary drivers that would keep the electricity off in the circled areas for potentially YEARS.


Based on the high level data, approximately 71 nuclear plants in the USA are at direct risk from such a solar storm. Not only would those nuclear generation plants be without a electricity for cooling their fuel pools, the logistics collapse from the loss of gasoline stations, transportation systems, food distribution, water distribution, and the associated societal upheavals would make the difficulties of the Fukushima recovery effort look like a walk in the park.

However, those are not the only threats from a post-Fukushima Solar Storm. Fukushima Daiichi  has resulted in the on going long term release and dumping of high atomic weight elements into the atmosphere. Those Fukushima particles, both radioactive and non-radioactive, provide the basis for large scale solar particle interactions via Solar Storms / Coronal Mass Ejections.  The associated spallation and fission reactions  will form new radioactive fallout simultaneously over the entire sun lit side of the Northern Hemisphere.  A preliminary analysis of such an even may be found here, further analysis on that eventuality is to follow.

Updated 8/10/11
The video below gives further analysis on the interaction of Fukushima high atomic weight fallout with Solar Storms