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Posts Tagged ‘department of homeland security’

A solar disaster isn't a question of if, but when--and it looks like soon

Curious about what a CME would mean for us? Check out our feature.

Within weeks, backup generators at nuclear power plants would have run down, and the electric pumps that supply water to cooling ponds, where radioactive spent fuel rods are stored, would shut off. Multiple meltdowns would ensue. “Imagine 30 Chernobyls across the U.S.,” says electrical engineer John Kappenman, an expert on the grid’s vulnerability to space weather. A CME big enough to take out a chunk of the grid is what scientists and insurers call a high-consequence, low-frequency event. Many space-weather scientists say the Earth is due for one soon. Although CMEs can strike anytime, they are closely correlated to highs in the 11-year sunspot cycle. The current cycle will peak in July 2013.

The most powerful CME in recorded history occurred during a solar cycle with a peak similar to the one scientists are predicting in 2013. During the so-called Carrington Event in 1859, electrical discharges in the U.S. shocked telegraph operators and set their machines on fire. A CME in 1921 disrupted radio across the East Coast and telephone operations in most of Europe. In a 2008 National Academy of Sciences report, scientists estimated that a 1921-level storm could knock out 350 transformers on the American grid, leaving 130 million people without electricity. Replacing broken transformers would take a long time because most require up to two years to manufacture.

"We need to build protection against 100-year solar storms."Once outside power is lost, nuclear plants have diesel generators that can pump water to spent-fuel cooling pools for up to 30 days. The extent of the meltdown threat is well-documented. A month before the Fukushima plant in Japan went offline in March, the Foundation for Resilient Societies, a committee of engineers, filed a petition with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommending the augmentation of nuclear plants’ emergency backup systems. The petition claims that a severe solar storm would be far worse than a 9.0-magnitude quake and could leave about two thirds of the country’s nuclear plants without power for one to two years.

Preventing a surge from a CME would be costly. With enough warning (at least a few hours, probably), power companies could shut transformers off entirely, turning them back on after the storm. But shutting down the grid on such a large scale would cost billions. To confidently do so, forecasting must be accurate.

Last October, NASA scientists announced its Solar Shield program to monitor solar eruptions and predict storms. Though a good step, the system uses a satellite that was launched in 1997 and designed to run just five years. No other country has anything similar, or as advanced.

Our backup systems aren’t in place yet, either. The Department of Homeland Security is funding the development of an emergency replacement transformer, but it won’t be field-ready for several years. Kappenman has developed a $100,000 capacitor to block storm-induced surges, but these are unproven in emergency situations. “A massive solar storm is a ‘low probability’ event the same way a 100-year flood is,” Thomas Popik, the author of the NRC petition, says. “Just as we build levees to protect against 100-year floods, we need to build protection against 100-year solar storms.”

Terahertz waves exist in the part of the spectrum between infrared and microwave light, but they were largely thought to be a dead end for remote sensing tech because they are absorbed and degraded by moisture in the air, making them highly unreliable at distances beyond just a few inches.

But researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute decided that if terahertz waves themselves won’t work across distances, they would use a laser to excite terahertz radiation at faraway targets. The detector works by zeroing two lasers at different frequencies on a target. This causes the materials the laser hits to emit terahertz radiation, which in turn emits a fluorescence that is unique to that material as well as detectable from far away.

That means that in theory, as long as there is good line of sight, a terahertz detector could check your pockets at really distant ranges – perhaps even miles away – though in the lab the researchers only demonstrated the technology at 67 feet (simply because that was as much space as they had). The researchers are currently cataloging the unique signatures of various materials so the detector can tell your car keys from your makeup compact from your Glock.

But privacy advocates, you may return to your seats. Terahertz waves are actually much lower in energy than X-rays, so while they can peek inside your pockets from a distance, they are actually far less invasive than those scanners that undress you as you walk through. And since moisture kills those terahertz signals, nothing inside the body (like a medical implant) is detectable.

Besides, the sensors won’t be showing up in airports in the immediate future anyhow. Though the Department of Homeland Security did have a hand in paying for the research, the DoD will likely first deploy the tech in combat zones to help soldiers detect roadside bombs and maintain a ring of security around bases or checkpoints.

[Wired UK]

The Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance, or ISIS, is less a wholesale breakthrough and more a combination of various video surveillance technologies into a single package that can be bolted to a ceiling or mounted on a high vantage point. Rather than employing a single camera, each ISIS module packs several individual cameras, allowing it to provide high-resolution video from edge to edge of wide vistas.

To do so, it relies on state-of-the-art video stitching technology that pulls disparate video feeds into one seamless picture in real time. Total resolution capability reaches 100 megapixels -- the equivalent of 50 full-HDTV movies playing simultaneously -- offering ISIS technicians to take in huge scenes with extreme clarity. Overlap between video feeds and a unique interface allows them to focus in on a particular person or point while still maintaining a view of the larger picture.

On top of the hardware magic, a collection of software apps are being developed that will allow ISIS to perform other high-tech tasks, like create exclusion zones that ISIS monitors automatically, alerting security personnel if the area is breached. It also will allow operators to tag a target, following a person or object moving across the landscape, panning and tilting as needed to keep visual contact with the target.

ISIS is being tested at Boston's Logan airport, but DHS is already eyeing a second-gen version of the system that has more sensors, longer-range cameras, infrared capabilities, and a more discreet frame that is smaller than a basketball. Which means that, unlike Orwell's Big Brother, this one could be watching and you might not even know it.

[Science Daily]

Republican Michael McCaul and Democrat Henry Cuellar want the border patrol to use portable EMP emitters to disable cars, boats or a host of other electronic items.

A suitcase-sized EMP could thwart smugglers trying to drive illegal drugs or immigrants into the United States, the lawmakers say.

The EMP Suitcase Compact 2100 Series, developed by Austin-based Applied Physical Electronics, emits high-amplitude electronic fields powerful enough to disable various devices "without causing permanent physical damage or endangerment to individuals," as Cuellar's Web site says. Similar devices have been used by the Defense Department for the past 12 years.

McCaul notes that EMPs would allow border patrol agents to stop wayward vehicles without having to chase them. The ability to stop vehicles of smugglers from a distance without making direct contact would give our Border Patrol agents a distinct advantage," he says.

The lawmakers, who both sit on the House Homeland Security Committee, took a tour of the border this spring and saw the device remotely disable a computer. The pair has also advocated using aerial drones over the Texas-Mexico border. Drones are already being used in North Dakota and along the Rio Grande, and Cuellar's office says an unmanned vehicle will be flying over the Texas border by this fall.

The lawmakers say they both believe in using new technology for border security.

[The Hill]