(Reuters) - U.S. weather has been lousy this year, with droughts, heat and killer storms. But a solar
superstorm could be far worse.
A monster blast of geomagnetic particles from the sun could
destroy 300 or more of the 2,100 high-voltage transformers that
are the backbone of the U.S. electric grid, according to the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Even a few hundred destroyed
transformers could disable the entire interconnected system.
There is impetus for a group of federal agencies to look for
ways to prepare for such a storm this year as the sun moves into
an active period called solar maximum, expected to peak in 2013.
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