Electromagnetic Pulse And Solar Flares

[Num7]

You know what's a EMP right ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

The term electromagnetic pulse (sometimes abbreviated EMP) is a burst of electromagnetic radiation that results from an explosion (usually from the detonation of a nuclear weapon) and/or a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field. The resulting rapidly changing electric fields or magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges.

As you might know, solar activity and solar flares can possibly trigger an EMP once it reaches the Earth which, in case of a major one, may send us back to a world with no electricity. Those solar flares are created by explosions on the sun's surface. Solar activity depends of many factors and goes through specific cycles.

Some people pretend there might be a massive EMP in 2012. It makes sense and it doesn't. We're currently in a pretty quiet period when it comes to solar flares and such. It seems the solar system should enter a massive cloud of particles in the next year (2011-2012) making it so that there'd be huge quantities of energy all around the sun, the planets, etc. That might help a massive solar flare to affect the Earth much more than usual. Other theories talk about our magnetic field being weaker than usual, saying it might not block an incoming solar flare, making us an easy pray to an EMP.

Just a few days ago, the sun had it's biggest solar flare of the year, which might have created an EMP on Earth under proper conditions, by the way.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/15/sun-has-biggest-solar-flare-of-the-year/?hpt=T2

I remember watching those Jesse Ventura Conspiracy Theories videos last year and the guy did talk about the very possibility of a massive EMP and the elites preparing for the event by building underground shelters and converting old missile silos to give them a chance in case of a bad scenario.
What do you guys think about this possibility ?

 

[Num7]

This article talks about the sun coming out of his low activity period and what it means. It's a great read.
http://www.space.com/10893-major-solar-storm-earth-risks.html

Here's a glimpse of a worst case scenario:

Monday night's storm produced both a big solar flare and a CME. Wdespread satellite or communications disruption, however, is likely not in the cards.

"We don't expect this to cause any kind of lasting damage to our infrastructure," Rutledge said.

But Earth has been walloped by monster solar storms before. One of the most powerful hit us in 1859, a blast that Rutledge estimates may have been 30 times more powerful than Monday's event, though it's tough to put hard numbers on such comparisons.

The 1859 storm shorted out telegraph wires, causing fires in North America and Europe, and spawned spectacular auroras — the light shows visible near Earth's poles — bright enough to read by, according to some accounts.

If the 1859 storm occured these days, it would likely have devastating impacts, since our electrical and communications infrastructures are so much more developed. A recent report by the U.S National Academy of Sciences found that such a severe storm could cause up to $2 trillion in initial damages by crippling communications on Earth and fueling chaos around the world.

It might take up to 10 years for authorities to re-assert control and get everyting fixed, the report concluded. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina likely inflicted somewhere between $80 billion and $125 billion in damage..

At least they don't expect the recent solar flars of the last days to be an issue.