Austria prepares for a total electricity blackout

[Abooga]

According to Spanish mainstream news outlet Ser, (and other not so mainstream ones) Austria is preparing for an inminent and unavoidable power blackout that could happen to the whole of Europe.

https://cadenaser.com/ser/2021/10/24/internacional/1635093407_652148.html


https://blackout-news.de/en/news/austria-the-whole-country-is-preparing-for-a-blackout/

The Austrian government is preparing its population for a major power outage in the event of a failure in the European power supply. In this way, the country is trying to make its inhabitants aware of the next crisis that, in the words of the Austrian defense minister, Klaudia Tanner, “is a real danger.”

Austria is proactive in the face of the problems that threaten Central Europe, and the country’s Armed Forces have predicted an indefinite power outage. In the words of Minister Tanner, “the question is not if there will be a big blackout, but when.”

[...]

Information campaign
The Austrian Government has launched an information campaign in which, through the media and posters in the streets, it recommends its inhabitants to get enough materials to “survive” the possible blackout: fuel, candles, batteries, food canned and drinking water.

Some Germans have created a website to warn? alarm? other Germans about the issue, seeminly worried by the German government´s inaction:

https://blackout-news.de/en/news/austria-the-whole-country-is-preparing-for-a-blackout/


Thoughts? Any Austrians would like to give some more direct info?

I have no idea how likely are blackouts in Europe in the near future, to be honest. I suppose there are safeguards in place, but I´m tempted to do some stocking of non perishable foods and stuff just in case...

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It's mostly for show.
A lot would have to happen before Austria, with its own hydropower and with access to both east and west European power plants, would face serious blackouts.
I heard that Austrian schools have a permanent supply of iodine pills for the entire staff and pupils ever since Chernobyl, which is very unlikely to be useful under any circumstances.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It's possible that they are worried about the many small alpine villages with only one way in and out.

 

[crescent]

It sounds like contingency planning. It is good for governments to do contingency planning even for events that are unlikely (although once the contingency event actually happens governments often plow ahead without any memory or reference of the plans they made). It does not mean that the planned for event is any more likely on any short term timeframe.

That said, paranoid CT people will make hay with this. They always do.

 

[Childlike Empress]

The Austrians have nothing to fear, as they are relying to a good bit on water energy up in their mountains. They are having a political meltdown at the moment though, as the oddly-eared Chancellor Kurz has just resigned over a corruption affair, and a new one, Schallenberg or whatever his name is, from the most traditional Freemason family of the country, has taken over.

Germany, on the other hand, has a lot to fear energy-wise as we are ruled by completely moronic ideologues.

 

[smartcooky]

It's mostly for show.
A lot would have to happen before Austria, with its own hydropower and with access to both east and west European power plants, would face serious blackouts.I heard that Austrian schools have a permanent supply of iodine pills for the entire staff and pupils ever since Chernobyl, which is very unlikely to be useful under any circumstances.

Or something like the Carrington event (1859) or the great geomagnetic storm of 1921

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019SW002195

 

[Checkmite]

Or something like the Carrington event (1859) or the great geomagnetic storm of 1921

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019SW002195

There will be power outages associated with these events but I am skeptical they will be as long-term as some like to propose. I think a lot of people who theorize about a Carrington-type event in modern times seem to completely forget that circuit breakers exist now and the electrical grid will protectively shut itself down in the face of an anomalous voltage spike, disconnecting vital generating and transmission equipment before it is damaged.

 

[catsmate]

There will be power outages associated with these events but I am skeptical they will be as long-term as some like to propose. I think a lot of people who theorize about a Carrington-type event in modern times seem to completely forget that circuit breakers exist now and the electrical grid will protectively shut itself down in the face of an anomalous voltage spike, disconnecting vital generating and transmission equipment before it is damaged.

Also space weather forecasting is a thing (satellite operators pay attention to it), CME's are not instantaneous and there would be pre-emptive showdowns.

 

[smartcooky]

There will be power outages associated with these events but I am skeptical they will be as long-term as some like to propose. I think a lot of people who theorize about a Carrington-type event in modern times seem to completely forget that circuit breakers exist now and the electrical grid will protectively shut itself down in the face of an anomalous voltage spike, disconnecting vital generating and transmission equipment before it is damaged.

That isn't the consensus..

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...solar-flare-could-hit-earth-within-100-years/

Circuit breakers would be useless. They are designed to trip at relativity low voltage to current ratios compared with the massive voltages and currents that would be induced in the grids and networks of cables that criss-cross the planet. The best circuit breaker protection we have on the power grids can't protect them because the damage will be done before it even gets that far.

A geomagnetic storm (GMS) creates a geoelectric field, which in turn give rise to geomagnetically induced currents, or GICs. These GICs will flow in ANY available conductor. The induced currents flow from the ground (keep this bit about the ground in mind, it will be significant later) and these are high currents (in the order of hundreds, even thousands of amps). While the effects can happen in any conductor, such as low voltage wires in houses and other building wires, wire fences, telephone wires, oil and gas pipelines, railway lines and undersea communication cables, it is in high-voltage (HV) transmission lines that the greatest danger lies. These types of lines (400KV in Europe, 765KV in the US and Canada, 1000KV in China) have a lower electrical resistance per length, and that allows higher current levels to flow. These high currents will cause a high-voltage transformer's insulation to burn, and its copper windings to melt. The transformer will either fail right there and then, or will be so badly damaged that it will be likely to fail later.

HV power grids are only designed deal with short term events such as lightning storms. They can lose part of the grid, say, a substation transformer, and deal with the loss by re-routing circuits to come back on line a short time later. However, with a geomagnetic storm, you have multiple, near-simultaneous failures. In 1989, there was quite powerful GMS, and in the first minute after its arrival at the Earth, the Quebec power grid had 15 simultaneous substation transformer failures. The result of that was a total power shutdown across the whole of the province. Compared with the Carrington event, the 1989 storm was a mere tiddler.

Finally it is a design flaw in the way the power distribution system works that is the cause for concern. Remember what I said earlier about the ground? Well, they use a 3-phase system. You have 3 lines carrying AC, each line is out of phase by 120° (⅓ of a cycle) with the other two lines. The 3-phase transformers are directly grounded through their neutral lines. In ordinary operations, the ground is assumed to be an infinite current sink, absorbing the fault current while preventing voltage spikes. The problem is that during a GMS, your sink becomes the source of the current. Circuit breakers are not going to help you in this scenario.

Also space weather forecasting is a thing (satellite operators pay attention to it), CME's are not instantaneous and there would be pre-emptive showdowns.

You mean "shutdowns"? If so, they won't help.

Its the existence of the grid/network of HV lines that is the danger. They act like a big antenna, receiving the geomagnetic flux. The geoelectric field resulting from a GMS will induce high voltages and currents in those lines whether they are active (power on) or not. Manually tripping all the circuit breakers won't help - the voltages are so high, they will either will just jump right over the contacts, or fuse them together.

 

[casebro]

That isn't the consensus..

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...solar-flare-could-hit-earth-within-100-years/

.....

the voltages are so high, they will either will just jump right over the contacts, or fuse them together.

You left out "in theory".

I suspect that a surge that big would fry our brains and the Grid won't matter.

AND, it will neutralize the flux fields that every transformer functions on, they will all stop making AC. Sorts a like circuit breakers.

But back to the OP, THIS IS A DRILL. DO NOT PANIC. Practice from a play book. Good thing? Should the discussion center on whether such practice will cause a panic?

 

[casebro]

from wiki: The March 1989 geomagnetic storm occurred as part of severe to extreme solar storms during early to mid March 1989, the most notable being a geomagnetic storm that struck Earth on March 13. This geomagnetic storm caused a nine-hour outage of Hydro-Québec's electricity transmission system.

9 hours to reset the circuit breakers.

 

[Ziggurat]

You left out "in theory".

I suspect that a surge that big would fry our brains and the Grid won't matter.

No. It won’t even fry your car’s electronics.

The problem, again, is the size of the wires in a transmission line. The voltage created is going to be proportional to the size of the object. A 20 cm brain is going to have very little induced voltage across it, but a 200 km power line is going to have a **** ton. That’s a factor of 1,000,000 difference in case you didn’t do the math.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I keep misreading the thread title as "Austria prepares for a total electric blanket". It's getting cold here and a country-sized electric blanket sounds pretty good.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I keep misreading the thread title as "Austria prepares for a total electric blanket". It's getting cold here and a country-sized electric blanket sounds pretty good.

Yes it does, but the ski resorts hate it.