Galileo (European GPS) id down

[cyan]

Originally Posted by wingssail

And most of what you say: "no phones, no ATMs, no way to transfer money, no stock market, no amazon, no google, no Microsoft..." that's all good for me, for a few days anyhow. After that, we'll barter for fuel and food and go sailing. (Oh, will the wind be down?)

Sounds peaceful.
Sail.
Catch some fish.
Rinse.
Repeat.

I'm in.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Capt'n Pat, I sleep fine.

If the power grid goes down, the diesel cuts in, for several days.
If the power grid seems like it will be down, order some diesel delivery.
If no diesel is not going to be available, start to withdraw the rods and shut down the Nuke. (Hey, doesn't the nuclear power itself have power to run the pumps?)

It does not baffle me, it seems rather safe.

Anyhow, I am not within radiation range of any reactors, and I have other, more immediate issues, to worry about.

Oh, the other thing is, what about the sky falling?

You know, even if we built scaffolding to hold up the sky, what if the scaffolding failed?

We could have bamboo back-up for the scaffolding but it could rot.

And anyhow there might be bamboo beetles.

It takes weeks to cool down an operating reactor once the control rods are dropped. Even when the fuel rods are completely removed, they have to be kept in circulating cooling water for months. The worst explosions at Fukushima came from fuel rods that had been removed from the reactor and were in circulating water cooling pond storage.

Yeah, you would think the reactor could power its own cooling. It seems obvious to me, but they can't. That's why they have backup generators to run the pumps. The Chernobyl accident happened during a safety test to see if the reactor could power the cooling pumps for less than the minute it took the diesel generators to come on line. Even the Soviet design couldn't power its own pumps longer than that. Really, this seems like a problem a high school shop class could solve: take some bleed steam to run a low voltage turbine generator; but the geniuses who designed the plants didn't design around the problem.

So, all the plant operators would have to do is: call on the phone - that doesn't work, to reach a fuel depot - that can't pump fuel without power, and order fuel from people who went home because they had nothing to do without power. How plausible does that sound to you?

Anyway, I'm just giving a worst case scenario example of how GPS failure could cascade into a power grid failure and into a large portion of the US becoming a nuclear exclusion zone. There are too many interdependencies in these technologies. As an engineer myself, the configurations we have now are in may ways idiotic. Cheap, but unreliable with no good backups. I actually like nukes, if they're built correctly without major gotchas. They're a great way to reduce carbon emissions - if they don't kill us first.

I won't speculate on the likelihood. Maybe the Sun will burn out first (in a few billion years). I'm not a statistician or an actuary. Are you?

Here's a more likely scenario: cell phones fail, smartphones turn into expensive paperweights, and the Internet addicted millennials all have nervous breakdowns which leave them disabled for life because they can't learn to communicate face-to-face.

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Yeah, the millennials' phones might no longer tell them which bar their friends are congregating in tonight.

Haha! Seems like yesterday to me we had no way of knowing what others were doing unless we roamed around aimlessly looking for the action. No cell phones. No GPS. No social media. Those things were inconceivable. But I seem to recall having a good time nonetheless.



Have we really all forgotten in such a short time what life was like before the "information age"? It reminds me of the few times we have been hit by a major hurricane in this area. Without electricity people were forced to [gasp] venture outside and talk to one's neighbors. To admire the beauty of the world around oneself. To experience life through direct contact as opposed to through a screen of some sort. And, in my experience, many people were reminded of how wonderful that can be.



Don't get me wrong - I enjoy the luxuries of modern life as much as anyone else. And I'd rather have them than not. But I wouldn't be "lost" without them, either. Technology has advanced at such an exponential rate that it has surpassed human evolution. And this is not [relatively] new. There have been people on this Earth that witnessed the evolution from horse-drawn carriages to men walking on the Moon. (Apropos just now.)


I hold out hope that if [God forbid] there was a major disruption of current technology, there would be enough of us "old[er] people" around to show the younger generations how things got done before they were introduced to this world. At the time of this writing, the oldest living person seems to be a Japanese woman named Kane Tanaka, born in 1903. That's just very slightly [two years] older than my own grandfather ... but old enough that she remembers a world which would be unrecognizable to most of us.



My point is: I don't think we are yet at the point that a collapse of modern technology would necessarily spell disaster for the human race. It would certainly mean tough times ... no doubt. But we, as a species, have endured - and triumphed over - some extremely tough times in our past.



I can only deduce that we, collectively, have the will to survive much worse. At least ... I pray that that is the case.


Cheers!

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

If you don't want to sleep well, also consider that we have over 100 nuclear power plants in the US, and all of them are of the "boiling water" design.

Ironically, they are all dependent on power from the grid to keep their cooling pumps running for more than the few days of backup diesel power they have on site. Those pumps must, at all times, be running. Lose power to the pumps, and you can get 100 repeats of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Check your facts. Their contingency planning is better than you think. One of the pieces of the puzzle that you're missing is that the amount of power required to pump cooling water drops according to an exponential decay after the control rods go in. It's like a 5:1 drop after the first hour, and another 5:1 drop after the next 24 hours. The problems at Fukushima were due to their inability to run the pumps during the critical first few hours when the decay heat was the greatest.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Check your facts. Their contingency planning is better than you think. One of the pieces of the puzzle that you're missing is that the amount of power required to pump cooling water drops according to an exponential decay after the control rods go in. It's like a 5:1 drop after the first hour, and another 5:1 drop after the next 24 hours. The problems at Fukushima were due to their inability to run the pumps during the critical first few hours when the decay heat was the greatest.

Here are the facts I have; the Fukushima timeline: https://www.oecd-nea.org/news/2011/NEWS-04.html

Do you have "alternate" facts?

Things didn't start blowing up until day 2, and the explosions continued through day 4.

Fuel rods that weren't even in a reactor, but in storage in spent fuel pools and deprived of circulating water, caused some of the worst contamination problems. There is no "shutting down" fuel rods that are removed from a reactor and in storage! The water in the cooling pools boiled and the steam couldn't be contained. While the amount of cooling needed does decline after a reactor is shut down, it doesn't drop to zero. Not even when the fuel rods are depleted and removed entirely from the reactor.

The situation at Fukushima was so desperate that they tried pumping water with fire engines. By then, the pressure was so high in the reactor buildings that the fire engine pumps couldn't pump against it.

Regardless of cooling rate, you can't shut off the cooling water entirely without very bad things happening.

There are much safer reactor designs, for example those based on sodium for coolant instead of water. Sodium reactors shut themselves down. But the US Navy was the first to build nuclear power plants and the Navy usually has plenty of water available - while sodium doesn't play nice at all with water. The power industry just followed along - herd instinct - without thinking it through and considering alternatives. There are some smart people right now working on developing much safer designs that don't blow up when the water pumps stop.

[transmitterdan]

The Fukushima disaster was made catastrophic by location of their generators. Many of them flooded in the tidal wave. The power grid failed too of course. And some pumping stations failed due to flood waters. Also, their mains switchgear was damaged by tidal flood waters. After that nothing else mattered.

All nuclear reactors in the region automatically shut down because of the earthquake. Probably this was also a bad idea in hindsight. You can’t operate the nuclear reactors to produce power for cooling and shut down all the reactors at the same time. It’s either one or the other.

TEPCO made a terrible risk assessment at the design phase. They put the generators and switchgear at near sea level. That is mainly what led to the disastrous outcome.

The reactor core and spent fuel require continuous cooling even in shut down mode. Some spent fuel was exposed to air because the cooling pools leaked away the water. It would have evaporated anyway but taken much longer.

Fukushima was not a natural disaster. It was manmade and inevitable.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by SeanPatrick

Haha! Seems like yesterday to me we had no way of knowing what others were doing unless we roamed around aimlessly looking for the action. No cell phones. No GPS. No social media. Those things were inconceivable. But I seem to recall having a good time nonetheless.

Have we really all forgotten in such a short time what life was like before the "information age"? It reminds me of the few times we have been hit by a major hurricane in this area. Without electricity people were forced to [gasp] venture outside and talk to one's neighbors. To admire the beauty of the world around oneself. To experience life through direct contact as opposed to through a screen of some sort. And, in my experience, many people were reminded of how wonderful that can be.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoy the luxuries of modern life as much as anyone else. And I'd rather have them than not. But I wouldn't be "lost" without them, either. Technology has advanced at such an exponential rate that it has surpassed human evolution. And this is not [relatively] new. There have been people on this Earth that witnessed the evolution from horse-drawn carriages to men walking on the Moon. (Apropos just now.)

I hold out hope that if [God forbid] there was a major disruption of current technology, there would be enough of us "old[er] people" around to show the younger generations how things got done before they were introduced to this world. At the time of this writing, the oldest living person seems to be a Japanese woman named Kane Tanaka, born in 1903. That's just very slightly [two years] older than my own grandfather ... but old enough that she remembers a world which would be unrecognizable to most of us.

My point is: I don't think we are yet at the point that a collapse of modern technology would necessarily spell disaster for the human race. It would certainly mean tough times ... no doubt. But we, as a species, have endured - and triumphed over - some extremely tough times in our past.

I can only deduce that we, collectively, have the will to survive much worse. At least ... I pray that that is the case.
Cheers!

When we lost power when Hurricane Sandy came through, some of us were mentally prepared and some weren't. Eventually people adapted, but it was just a question of how long it toke each individual. A few took a very long time.

[a64pilot]

His point of better reactors than water cooled is correct though.
We run water cooled because Rickover picked water cooled, it works, why blow money on testing something else.
Then Nuclear became a dirty word and no new ones can be built, but time will tell.
I do hope however that when we do build more. That they won’t be water cooled.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

His point of better reactors than water cooled is correct though.
We run water cooled because Rickover picked water cooled, it works, why blow money on testing something else.
Then Nuclear became a dirty word and no new ones can be built, but time will tell.
I do hope however that when we do build more. That they won’t be water cooled.

Some of the new Gen 4 reactors are designed so that if they lose power the cool down. The require power to keep running, and to keep the reaction going so if there is a loss of power, they automatically shut down. They seem much safer.

[az_r2d1]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

For those of you who think it's safe to consider satellite navigation as being 100% reliable -- the European version of GPS is completely unusable at this time: https://www.gsc-europa.eu/sites/default/files/NOTICE_ADVISORY_TO_GALILEO_USERS_NAGU_2019026.txt

Current status is here: https://www.gsc-europa.eu/system-status/Constellation-Information

The entire system collapsed about the same time transformers started blowing up in New York City.

Coincidence? Draw your own conclusions.

There is no reason the same thing couldn't happen to the American GPS system. Galileo and GPS are essentially the same design.

I personally use both GPS and GLONASS together (which also improves accuracy under normal conditions). I figure the Russians won't disrupt their own navigation satellites.

There is now 3 different gps systems up and running or close to it. I think that risk of all 3 going out is very small. You are far more likely to have defective receivers than all 3 systems go down. The only time there will be issues is during some global conflict.
Ofcourse one should always have paper maps and keep a log.

[az_r2d1]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

I too think that some form of alternative system (alternative to sat based systems) would be nice to have. Except that it is all driven by military and large commercial use and has been deemed too expensive at early research stages.


Too expensive sounds truly terrible when you know that Galileo cost over 10 bn EUR this far.


b.

3 different gps systems completely independent from each other isn't alternative enough ? Get a life.

[az_r2d1]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

This is a well know problem and has led to a number of incidents. It is called automation dependency. GPS is a significant part of this.


People forget that there is more to this than just the possible failure of the satellites. The communist Chinese destroyed a satellite as part of a test of their anti-satellite capabilities. Equipment on one's boat can fail. Also, satellite signals are extremely weak and are easily jammed and distorted to provide incorrect locations. The end result is that one must be prepared for this to fail, just as one must be prepared for other equipment on the boat to fail.


The below video is a training film by American Airlines and it deals with the problem of an over reliance upon automation. It is quite good.

In any future global conflict with the russians or the chinese, the satellites are the first ones to get destroyed. Why do you think Trump has started a space defense ? Exactly this. He who wins the space war will win the war on land. The Chinese have developed ballistic missiles that have enough range to threaten US aircraft carriers within 1000 miles. Guess what guides these missiles? Yep, satellites. First they need sats to find the positions of the carriers, then they need sats to guide the missiles to it. Take out the sats, the missiles are useless.

[a64pilot]

There may be more to this than we know, for instance there are several extra GPS Satellites out there dark and pretty much impossible to find, spares if you will.
Will they transmit civilian signals? Probably not. Denial of GPS by region is easy. You need a secure “fill” to receive and use the military signal. Something that hopefully your enemy doesn’t have.
Many, Especially the more sophisticated weapons systems don’t use GPS, the JDAM being one that does, but the signal is verified before its dropped of course and I’d be surprised if it didn’t have rudimentary INU.
Hellfire Radar missile for example is given a transfer alignment before launch where it’s told exactly where it is, then it’s given a North, East, and Down coordinate of where the target lies and navigates to that point via an INU and autopilot, and the Radar goes active prior to arrival and the Radar is used for final guidance.
That’s a relatively old, cheap 100 lb helicopter missile, surely the new more expensive stuff is even more sophisticated.
Be easier to GPS guide it of course, but GPS is easy to jam, and can even be spoofed.

So if the weapons systems don’t rely on GPS there is less reason to “take them out” plus it would likely be a bad move politically, and now days limited wars are often run based on concerns of world opinion.
That sort of controls them of course, the danger is if or when you have a foe that you consider insane, they are liable to do anything.

I think that jamming, spoofing and denial of GPS is far more likely than shooting down satellites, but who knows, it’s certainly within many nations capabilities.

[az_r2d1]

Originally Posted by Lepke

I used Loran A & C, and several other pre-gps systems. Loran requires transmission towers wherever coverage is required. Most of the world didn't have Loran and accuracy wasn't great when far from towers. All those towers are gone now.
You can buy a receiver that uses all three of the current satellite signals. I have one.

Let's drop the chatter about Loran. It's a dinosaur and no longer needed. With 3 different independent GPS systems up and running or close to it, I think we're pretty good on redundancy.

[az_r2d1]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

If you don't want to sleep well, also consider that we have over 100 nuclear power plants in the US, and all of them are of the "boiling water" design.

Ironically, they are all dependent on power from the grid to keep their cooling pumps running for more than the few days of backup diesel power they have on site. Those pumps must, at all times, be running. Lose power to the pumps, and you can get 100 repeats of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

If the grid goes down, the clock starts ticking, and those reactors can start cooking off.

I know it's baffling that we have this vulnerability, but check it out. It's there.

Yeah, because diesel can nowhere to be found. Ever heard of the strategic reserve ? Guess what it's for ???? yeahhhhhhh......