Could the proposed supergrid make us vulnerable to the effects of a coronal mass ejection?
In the article Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe (New Scientist, 2009-03-23), Michael Brooks describes how transmission grids may be vulnerable to catastrophic failure caused by plasma from the sun (a ‘coronal mass ejection’). Since the development of large-scale supergrids is an important part of the Desertec concept, it is reasonable to ask whether the development of the Desertec concept might be storing up trouble for the future. With or without the Desertec concept, the world already depends heavily on transmission grids, so this problem clearly deserves attention. It is reasonable to ask what may be done to guard against the disruptive effects of a worst-case scenario in which one or more national or international transmission grids were knocked out completely. Here are some tentative answers: • Identify the critical things that need to keep working (eg power for hospitals, power for water pumping) and then provide alternative sources of power that don’t depend on the
