Solar Storms Threaten Power Grids  A space weather scientist in
England is reporting that a “solar storm” is likely to happen
soon which could send cities into darkness as it destroys power
grids and other electronic devices.  Mike Hapgood of the
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, England has published
a piece in the science journal Nature that says the world is not
prepared for a truly damaging solar storm.  Hapgood told the Los
Angeles Times that we could have a world wide outage similar to
what happened in Quebec, Canada in 1989. A solar storm caused
the city’s power system to fail in under two minutes leaving 6
million people without power. The cost to repair the system was
close to $2.4 billion dollars.  The impact on the economy and
daily life will be extremely significant in the event of a
massive outage.  “If you don’t have power, you can’t pump fuel
into vehicles,” Hapgood said. “We require electrical power…to
pump the sewage away. What could happen if the sewage systems
are not pumping stuff