that to easy,you have not been to the mountains for a long stay.

wrong.........

 

Sorry about that your post put you near water.

 

Just found this, thought it was interesting (and applied to this thread).

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-manipulating-light-at-will.html

 

Hello fellow forumers. I'm sorry to post in a thread that's dead for years now but i honestly have an immense interest on that subject. I will explain myself imediately. I strongly believe - even if it seems sci fi to some of you - what a scientist has told me once that one day a big "flash" from the sun will render useless everything that uses electricity on this planet. and every attempt to use electricity will be lethal. so please whatever information you have on the subject of substituting electricity completely, share it with me cause i want to dedicate myself to this study. this specific thread reffers to my exact question that's why i revived it after all these years. don't worry i have some basic background in science since i'm currently at my physics major. thanks in advance. i hope that thread revives once again because it's infinately more important issue than you currently imagine.

 

I think you scientist was referring to a solar flare...

A solar flare would disrupt, and if strong/close enough to earth, destroy, electronic equipment. This, however does not render the use of electricity lethal, or otherwise,more dangerous than before.

Electricity would still exist for use to use and harness (provided we don't take a direct solar flare - we'd all be dead at that point), we would just need to rebuild from early 20th century technology.

 

CME is much more dangerous for electronics than solar flare,the stuff you hear in most cases is crap.If earth gets hit by a massive el. wave only power grids and high power transformers would fail,90% of your consumer electronics would work fine but wouldn't have any power because power grid failed. Power grids that aren't working on their full capacity would most likely be undamaged.

 

not all of the power grid would fail, there are such things as fuses and breakers, as well as lightning arrestors. also, since in a lot of the country, only half of the equipment is on line at a time, and the other half is on standby, would all be destroyed? also, how much power in qatts per squar meter would a cme or flare be?
how much does it take to destroy a couple tons of copper and iron?

 

Solar geophysical events happen a lot. Disruptions to various services occur. I can remember on in 1979 that caused the phase of a VLF signal to advance in time, with the extremes happening at the opposite ends of the baseline. We live in a world where nothing is perfect.

 

replace electricity doing what? if mechanical energy is needed, water wheels, windmills, and steam provided torque for industry long before electricity. candles, gas and oil lamps provided light. computers might be a little hard to power, though, along with radio, tv, and such.

 

Smart phones will become paperweights ... if there is paper.

 

Thanks dear gentlemen for your responses. From the things the scientist said the "flash" will be like a huge EMP and not only that, whoever is not behind a thick wall or deep in the ground will be blinded at the moment it bursts on earth. even if you are behind a door when it happens, he said the flash will be strong wnough that will blind you! he also said every attempt to ignite sparkls of electricity will attracted thunders from the heavily ionized earth's atmosphere. i'm terribly sorry i can't translate accurate the terms in english, but in my language he made quite the complete lecture with many arguments and believable predictions. i hope for your understanding, patience and open mindness, cause i think there are things in this life that only a few predict and the many must experience them and then believe. i don't exclude the possibility he is mistaken but even then, as a concept by itself, non-electric advanced technology intrigues me.

 

If over 99% of the population will be blind, maybe badly burned as well, then probably electricity will not be of major concern. Best not to worry about it.

 

You won't be blinded since light can't go trough solid objects.Unless you are staring at the sun like an idiot.Only danger is radiation which can cause cancer.Radio based equipment wont work and power grids would get overloaded and would shut down.Home appliances will most likely be unharmed.

 

Surprisingly, "fluid power" is a growing concept for engineering. Granted, it is more of a power transfer process over relatively short distances rather than a power generation process (but, in the end, all power sources are that way).

Anyhow, fluid power allows you to transfer through hydraulics or pneumatics. It is great for robotics because you can have a centralize pump on an autonomous bot and pneumatic lines to move joints with all design options of speed or leverage we learned in physics class. High speed micro-valves are getting cheaper and cheaper. Also, some of the stored pressure in one side (extension) can be transferred to the tension side of a joint to add efficiency.

Eaton Corporation even has a wind turbine technology to put a hydraulic pump directly in the nacelle. Hoses transfer fluid to the hydraulic motor driving the generator at ground level. This allows the tower to be lighter, assembly faster and greatly simplifies maintenance.

A similar concept has been used for years on hydrostatic drives for tractors and other heavy equipment. I think Eaton and Parker have managed to renew interest in the concept by pushing the term "fluid power" in recent years.

 

You won't be blinded since light can't go trough solid objects.Unless you are staring at the sun like an idiot.Only danger is radiation which can cause cancer.Radio based equipment wont work and power grids would get overloaded and would shut down.Home appliances will most likely be unharmed.

Absolutely right that visible light cannot penetrate solid objects. Interestingly, shorter waves (x-rays, gamma rays and cosmic rays) and longer waves (cell phone signals, TV, am radio, ...) can. Don't down play the longer waves, microwaves can cook you to perfection.

 

Absolutely right that visible light cannot penetrate solid objects. Interestingly, shorter waves (x-rays, gamma rays and cosmic rays) and longer waves (cell phone signals, TV, am radio, ...) can. Don't down play the longer waves, microwaves can cook you to perfection.

Yes but earth's atmosphere blocks them, in case they managed to go trough and if it was a huge solar flare then this planet would been dead like Mars and we wouldn't be worried about not having electricity since nobody on this planet would be alive to use it.

 

Visible light cannot penetrate solid objects?

While we know that glass is a liquid, for all intents and purposes we can treat it as solid. What about plastics and acrylics?

Light also penetrates various crystals which are certainly solids.

 

Not to mention shining a laser on your hand and watching your hand light up.

There are ovens that use halogens nowdays.

 

If over 99% of the population will be blind, maybe badly burned as well, then probably electricity will not be of major concern. Best not to worry about it.

If that occurs, the carnivores will have a feeding frenzy ... as man's dominance of the planet will END.

 

If that occurs, the carnivores will have a feeding frenzy ... as man's dominance of the planet will END.

Yeah good sir, but humans are persistent and adaptive species. the few thousands that will survive would try to rebuilt our civilization from scratch. so if electricity is indeed rendered useless shouldnt we have some technological alternatives or even better develop some countermeasures as a precaution for such a flash?