Hurricane Vulnerable Gulf area Supplies Over Half our oil, One-third of our Natural Gas

Posted on August 7, 2012 by

Energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to hurricanes in the gulf region, which:

  • Produce or imports 60% of the country’s supply of crude oil
  • Supplies a third of U.S. natural gas supplies
  • Generates half of the United States refined products
  • supplies nearly all of the  the Gulf region, the East Coast, and most of the Midwest
  • The vast majority of the petroleum and natural gas products consumed in the eastern half of the country find their origin in markets, storage, processing, and pipeline capacity concentrated in Gulf states.
  • The sheer magnitude of fossil fuel operations in the Gulf make them the centerpiece of U.S. natural gas and refined petroleum product supply and pricing
  • Processes 75% of the dry natural gas in the USA at natural gas processing plants before injection into inter- and intra-state pipelines. Most of the natural gas processing capacity is located in the Gulf region.

Pipelines

The Midwest and East Coast are heavily dependent on deliveries of natural gas, crude oil and refined products via a few major pipelines emanating in the Gulf region. Loss of these pipelines meant the nearly full disruption of pipeline supply of gas, crude oil, and refined product to the consuming regions. Shut-in supply and refining/processing capacity, combined with the loss of electric power to key pipeline operation and support systems (such as compressor stations), dramatically reduced the flow of product out of the region.

Natural Gas

The hurricanes highlight a unique and timely infrastructure challenge relating to natural gas supply. This industry is on the brink of moving from a largely continental supply resource dominated by supplies from the Gulf, to one increasingly reliant upon imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). On the one hand, this technology will provide flexibility and opportunities for diversification that do not exist with continental sources of gas. But unfortunately, existing proposals to site LNG imports are dominated by sites in the Gulf region. To some extent, this makes sense because the Gulf is a location of major natural gas processing, storage, and transportation infrastructure, as well as a region where domestic supply productivity is decreasing. The siting of LNG import capability in the Gulf can thus prolong the utilization of existing gas system infrastructure in that region. But if we end up siting most LNG regasification and storage capacity in the Gulf, we risk remaining in the kind of geographic dependency we have experienced for years.

Prices With the hurricanes coming on the heels of already tight oil and gas markets and refining capacity, prices shot up dramatically with the news of the storms in the Gulf. Prices stayed high, dropping gradually as capacity came back on line. More severe price impacts were avoided in part by lower-than-expected demand as the major gasconsuming regions experienced extraordinarily warm winter conditions.

PETROLEUM
Our dependence on the refined products of crude oil is pervasive – geographically, economically, socially, historically, culturally, and militarily. Oil goes into nearly everything we come into contact with in our daily lives – the production and distribution of food; the building, furnishing and heating of our homes; the wheels of commerce; the building and maintenance of roads and other public infrastructure and services; and work and leisure transportation. We are completely dependent on oil for work and play, health and security. The affordability of oil-based transportation fuels drives economic activity and provides the freedom of motion that is so important to Americans. This pervasive demand for oil – along with its relative inflexibility to price changes in the short run, and the lack of significant alternatives – remains our most important energy vulnerability.

Crude oil supply is only the first piece of the domestic oil infrastructure chain, which also includes critical refinery, storage, pipeline, and other transportation/delivery infrastructure. Each of these can have an important influence on delivered product supply and price conditions across U.S. regions.

Liquid Natural Gas (LNG)
While historically most of our supply of natural gas has come from domestic and Canadian sources, the productivity of this supply base is in decline, and the U.S. will become more and more dependent over time on the global market for gas to meet growing demand. But there are key differences in infrastructure vulnerabilities and challenges between oil and gas. Once gas is injected into the national or regional gas pipeline networks, it exits at the point of consumption. There is little or no opportunity for alternative transportation or delivery mechanisms in the event of major pipeline disruptions. This also means that as demand grows, pipeline infrastructure must also grow, and it must do so in a way that makes sense in the context of the sources of new demand and supply. Also, the level of reliance upon international markets for gas – through the addition of liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals in the U.S. – will be a new reality for our country. How (or where) infrastructure is developed to accommodate the needed increase in LNG to meet growing demand in the coming decades will significantly influence the vulnerability of natural gas consumers to supply disruptions and price spikes.

NATURAL GAS
In 2004 the U.S. consumed roughly 22.4 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas – 7.8 TCF (35 percent) in the residential and commercial sectors, 7.4 TCF (33 percent) in the industrial sector, and 5.4 TCF (24 percent) for electricity generation.13 U.S. production nearly matched that amount, totaling roughly 18.9 TCF – or 84% of U.S. demand – for the year. Most of the remainder needed to meet demand in 2004 was imported via pipeline from Canada.14 In recent years, the U.S. has met nearly all of its demand in this way via pipeline from continental sources of gas in the U.S. and Canada, with small (but important, particularly during winter peak seasons) contributions from existing LNG import facilities. For the future, EIA projects natural gas demand in the U.S. to grow to 26.9 TCF in 2030, with demand growth initially dominated by the electric generation sector, followed by a decline in the contribution of the electric sector towards the end of the forecast period. See Figure 14. This projected strong growth in demand for natural gas comes at a time of declining productivity for the conventional continental sources of natural gas supply. While recent drilling activity has increased substantially, the productivity of rigs drilled continues to decline on average. See Figure 15. EIA projects that in order to meet increasing demand for natural gas in the U.S., we will thus rely more and more upon non-conventional sources of gas, primarily from the Rocky Mountain region, and on imports of LNG.

 

 

Hibbard, Paul. March 2006. US Energy Infrastructure Vulnerability. Lessons From the Gulf Coast Hurricanes. Analysis Group.

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Ozone Loss from Storms Increases Skin Cancer, Crop Damage

Posted on August 7, 2012 by

James G. Anderson, et al. 26 Jul 2012. UV Dosage Levels in Summer: Increased Risk of Ozone Loss from Convectively Injected Water Vapor. Science.

Climate change is increasing the number and severity of storms, which is depleting the ozone layer over the United States, allowing more ultraviolet (UV) radiation to reach the earth.

Impacts

Skin cancer has been increasing for some time now — there are 1,000,000 new cases of skin cancer in the USA every year, and it’s clear that some are due to ozone depletion.  Continued global warming and ozone depletion will  increase the amount of skin cancer even more.

UV damages the DNA of crops we depend on, like corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and so on.

References – why and how this is happening:

26 Jul 2012. Climate Change Linked to Ozone Loss: May Result in More Skin Cancer. Science Daily.

Fountain, Henry. 26 Jul 2012.  Storms Threaten Ozone Layer Over U.S., Study Says. New York Times.

 

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How to Buy Homeowners Insurance #3 Is the Insurance Company Financially Strong?

Posted on August 3, 2012 by

After the 2008 financial crash, many insurance company ratings went down.  We’re far from the end of the financial crash, it’s been postponed by all the government spending and bank bailouts, but nothing has changed, much has grown worse.  So it’s more important than usual to see how financially sound the homeowners insurance companies sold in your state are.

www.ambest.com
A.M. Best Co.’s insurance company rating service rates 6,000 life, property/casualty and health companies according to their financial strength and ability to meet ongoing obligations to policyholders. Their opinions are derived from an evaluation of a company’s balance-sheet strength and operating performance as compared with Best’s quantitative and qualitative standards.

Weissratings.com Strongest Large Homeowner Insurers

 

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How to Buy Homeowners Insurance #1 Determine the Value of Your Home

Posted on August 3, 2012 by

The odds are that your house is grossly under-insured. According to United Policyholders surveys, two-thirds of Californians who lose homes in wildfires are under-insured an average of more than $200,000. This is because the insurance companies don’t sell the necessary amount of coverage when you buy a policy.

Here’s how you can find out:

United Policyholders:

Why this is so important

Most homeowners now purchase replacement cost policies with “extended coverage” endorsements including inflation adjustments and code upgrade coverage.  These policies are far more expensive than Actual Cash Value policies, because they provide the insured the security of knowing they will have enough insurance proceeds to replace their home after a disaster.

If you don’t rebuild your home, the insurer will only pay the actual cash value, a lot less money than the replacement cost policy you paid for.

So it is in the interest of the insurance company to sell you too little insurance.  This is why United Policy Holders broght a case against the Association of California Insurance Companies — the court case is where the material in this post comes from.

Under insurance causes delays in the claims process, and often the homeowner can’t borrow an addition $200,000 to complete building a replacement house.

Calculating the cost to rebuild a home requires a complete review of the size, style, components and materials of the welling, as well as consideration of local market conditions.  The average homeowner has no idea what that cost would be, so they rely on insurance professionals to perform this estimate.  It’s absurd to suggest that every homeowner would hire a contractor every year to have his home value calculated. That’s way too expensive.  And even if a homeowner did this, it’s highly unlikely the insurance company would use a value determined by the insured.

Insurers use detailed software programs and other underwriting guidelines to determine how much insurance to provide.  They are in a much better position to come up with an accurate estimate of the needed amount of insurance than individual homeowners,who have no idea how to calculate construction costs or what the value of their possessions are in a total loss.

Very importantly, insurers must properly estimate the replacement cost or there will be too much of a temptation to lowball the amount of coverage needed, so they can pay the much lower actual cash value amount instead of the replacement cost coverage the insured paid higher premiums to receive.

It’s important for you to know that the cost to rebuild your home could be more than what it’s worth on the real estate market.

United Policy Holders won this court case.  So if you have insurance, you should ask for one of their employees to come over to give you a proper value for your home, as well as check out a new company with a higher financial rating (step #3) and most likely to actually pay you after a disaster (step #4).    And if you suffer a loss and are way underinsured, perhaps you could cite this case to show that there was a pattern of under insurance and that if the value of your home was calculated incorrectly, that’s the insurance companies fault.  But I don’t know if that’s a good idea, I’m not a lawyer (hiring a lawyer is the first step you should take after a large loss, (s)he’ll be able to tell you if that’s a good strategy).

Sources:

July United Policyholders What’s Up California. Association of California Insurance Companies V. Jones (2012) Court of Appeal of the State of California, Second Appellate District, Division One No. B239943

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How to Buy Homeowners Insurance – Introduction

Posted on August 2, 2012 by

After the final financial crash, insurance may not be available for a while.  Most if not all insurance companies will be broke.

But meanwhile, you can’t afford to have major debt.  In a deflation, being in debt is catastrophic, you could end up homeless, hungry, or not be able to get health care at the bottom.  At this point, you can’t afford to have a major disaster that’s uninsured.  If you lose your home, you still need to pay the mortgage, property taxes, PLUS rent.

It’s always a good idea to shop around for insurance every few years, it’s saved us thousands of dollars and we’ve gotten better coverage too.  Often the best deal is to get homeowners, auto, (earthquake) and an umbrella policy with the same insurer.

Here are the steps you need to go through to

#1 Determine the value of your home

#2 Which Companies are best?

It’s time to look at your insurance coverage again to see if the insurance company is A++ rated (has enough money to pay you after a major disaster), and whether they are likely to pay you at all even if they can.  See my review of the book “Delay Deny Defend” and the post “After Future Disasters, Less Recovery” for details.

I am going to give you some ideas and resources about how to choose good homeowner’s insurance, and you can apply many of these methods or ideas to health and other kinds of insurance.

 

Then you need to go to A. M. Best to see what their financial ratings are so you can know if they have the money to pay you as the financial crisis worsens.

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$40 billion cost when levee system fails in California’s delta

Posted on August 2, 2012 by

Scientists estimate this would cost $40 billion dollars.

23 million Californians will have no drinking water.

Up to 1 million acres of some of the best, most productive farmland in the world will disappear forever as salt water permeates the soil.

The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers creates a delta system with a network of 700 miles of waterways, 1,100 miles of levees, 57 islands,  hundreds of thousands of acres of marshes, mudflats, and 1 million acres of farmland. The water is used to cool power plants and many other industries and businesses.  In addition, the Delta serves as a transportation corridor in which highways, pipelines, power lines, railroads and ships merge. These miles of levees, pipelines and roadways, lie just east of many active faults. Furthermore, continuous microbial oxidation, coupled with compaction of organic soils, causes subsidence of these levees.

The failure of the Delta levees is inevitable and can not be prevented

The levees will fail for many possible reasons:

  1. Earthquake
  2. Massive spring flooding.  This gets more and more likely as climate change melts Sierra snow early, which will also prevent California from producing 2 to 3 crops a year
  3. Prolonged rain
  4. Flooding of the central valley (especially another ARkStorm)
  5. Increasing pressure on levee walls as subsidence continues (some farmland is 30 feet below the seawater on the other side of the dam),
  6. Beavers, California ground squirrels, or muskrats tunneling into the levees (as well as pocket gophers and California voles)
  7. Internal erosion caused by embankment or foundation leakage or piping
  8. Improper maintenance including failure to remove trees, repair internal seepage problems, replace lost material from the cross section of the dam and abutments, or maintain gates, valves, and other operational components
  9. Improper design, including the use of improper construction materials and construction practices
  10. Improper operation, including the failure to remove or open gates or valves during high flow periods
  11. Failure of upstream dams on the same waterway that release water to a downstream dam.

References

Sebastian Vicuña et al. 2006. ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF DELTA LEVEE FAILURE DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE: A SCENARIO ANALYSIS Prepared For the California Energy Commission at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dirk H. Van Vuren, et al. 22 Sep 2011. Habitat Associations of Burrowing Mammals along Levees in the Sacramento Valley.  Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology University of California Davis

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What Will Trigger the Financial Crash?

Posted on August 2, 2012 by

#1 An Energy Crisis

My number one vote for when the financial system worldwide collapses is when the energy shortages begin, sometime between now and the next 5 years.  Even if the depression grows worse meanwhile, that would only slow this down by 3 weeks (Hirsch).  As the German peak oil study noted, this will cause stock markets to crash worldwide, because energy does the actual work of making stuff and above all creating growth, the only way to pay back debt.  An oil shortage is clearly the end of growth for even those most in denial with their heads buried solidly in the earth.

This has always been clear to me because some random comment in a peak oil form has always stuck with me.  In the early days when maybe a few hundred people were discussing peak oil in online forums, someone wrote that he’d told his Wall street stock broker friend about peak oil, and the reply was “then we all ought to just go home and put a bullet in our heads”.  So despite all the denial, when reality hits, wealthy people will totally get what that means and pull their money out of the stock market and crash it.

#2 The Financial System Itself

It’s so balanced on a knife edge that just about anything could tip it over:

  • Many expect the Euro to fail and take the rest of the world down with them as the ripples widen outwards.
  • Or perhaps it will be China as it slows down its unsustainable rate of growth.
  • Another flash crash that just keeps going.
  • The unprecedented amount of fraud, greed, and size of the bubble explodes.  Something to trigger the $700 to  $1,200 Trillion Derivatives Meltdown (20 times the size of the world economy).
  • Failure of Banks Too Big to Fail.
  • Another real estate downturn.
  • Currency wars — a race to the bottom as each nation strives to devalue it’s currency to make more money off of exports
  • Government unable to create jobs by funding infrastructure and other projects, especially in the USA if the balance of power lies with Republicans or the Tea Party
  • Wall Street tantrums if the rich are taxed (a sell-off of stocks to make the politicians put the tax breaks back).
  • Pension failures, municipal bond failures, a rash of cities and counties declaring bankruptcy.
  • Social unrest from the unemployed after they exhaust all federal, state, local, and their own savings and IRA/401K’s.
  • Food stamp program unable to keep feeding the 1 in 6 Americans getting aid now.

A combination of some of the above.  All of the above.  Let’s face it, we’re screwed.

I’m always amazed at people who think the system will keep trundling on if the government just keeps printing more money, or a Keynesian jobs program.  Just read economic history and it’s one economic bubble bursting after another, fiat currencies always crash and burn in the end.

#3 Natural Disasters

$50-100 billion in capital losses: 4 times hurrican Andrew or the Northridge earthquake (xxx)

  • If Hurricane Floyd in 1999 had hit central Miami
  • If a Kobe-caliber earthquake were to occur in San Francisco or Los Angeles

A) Earthquakes

B) $1 Trillion California ARkStorm

C) $40 Billion Failure of the levee system in California’s delta

D)  Volcanic Eruptions in Japan, United States, and so on

Private insurance companies were shocked by losses from Andrew and Northridge and many went bankrupt.  Most companies no longer offer disaster insurance along with a traditional homeowner policy in California, Florida, and Hawaii. Coverage is only available through state-managed disaster insurance pools with high premiums, high deductibles, and limited coverage. Fewer than 20% of California homeowners carry disaster insurance now.

Who will now pay for the repair and rebuilding of hundreds of thousands of homes, apartments, and commercial buildings in a major urban disaster is an open question. With the cost of urban disasters increasing, private insurance is not available, government agencies are caught between the public pressure to do more and a congressional unwillingness to pay more, and property owners have no incentives to take actions that would reduce losses and costs.

#4 War and international conflicts

That includes terrorism, popular unrest, civil wars — especially in oil producing countries, or China.

#5 Food crisis

There’s a famous saying we’re only 9 meals away from a revolution.  The French revolution might not have happened if there hadn’t been three bad harvest years in a row.

Economic Crash References

A long list of books at: Fraud & Greed:  Wall Street, Banks, & How to Invest book list

Addison Wiggins. 2003. Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of the 21st Century

William Bonner. 2009. Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics

Natural Disaster References

Joel Achenback. 13 May 2011. The Century of Disasters Meltdowns. Floods. Tornadoes. Oil spills. Grid crashes. Why more and more things seem to be going wrong, and what we can do about it. Slate.com

B. Rowshandel, et. al. 2003. Estimation of Future Earthquake Losses in California.  California Geological Survey

Dirk H. Van Vuren, et al. 22 Sep 2011. Habitat Associations of Burrowing Mammals along Levees in the Sacramento Valley.  Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology University of California Davis

Richard Heinberg: “While leaders make every effort to portray this [period] as a gradual return to growth, in fact the economy will remain fragile, highly vulnerable to upsetting events that could take any of a hundred forms — including international conflict, popular unrest and dissent, terrorism, the bankruptcy of a large corporation or megabank, a sovereign debt event (such as a default by one of the European countries now lined up for bailouts), a food crisis, an energy shortage, an environmental disaster, a curtailment of government intervention based on the political shift in the makeup of Congress, or a currency war”.  The End of Growth: adapting to our new economic reality, page 100.

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USA: 47th in life expectancy despite most money spent & thousands die from lack of health care

Posted on August 1, 2012 by

Preface.  In the USA, vote for democrats, Republicans are openly saying they want to end SSN and Medicare.  Health care and insurance will decline and vanish as collapse accelerates from financial depressions caused by energy decline, so if you’ve been putting off getting exercise, eating well, and getting enough sleep, that’s all you can do long term. Meanwhile vote for Democrats, who will continue to try to make health care to as many as possible, but are also more likely to ration food and gasoline not just fairly, but ration at all.  It is really outrageous that the U.S. is the wealthiest nation that has ever existed or will ever exist, by far, yet we are the only developed nation that does not have national health care.

On the other hand, if you’re a deep ecologist, Republicans are more likely to crash civilization sooner and harder, which is great for biodiversity, climate change, pollution and so on.

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Women in ecology  Podcasts: WGBH, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity,  Index of best energyskeptic posts

***

Visualcapitalist (2022) Charted: Healthcare Spending and Life Expectancy, by Country

Charted: Healthcare Spending and Life Expectancy, by Country

The United States has the largest spending of any country included in the dataset, its average life expectancy of 77 years is lower than 47 other countries! Some researchers believe a big contributor is the country’s higher infant mortality rate, along with its higher relative rate of violence among young adults.

Over the last century, life expectancy at birth has more than doubled across the globe, largely thanks to innovations and discoveries in various medical fields around sanitation, vaccines, and preventative healthcare.

Yet, while the average life expectancy for humans has increased significantly on a global scale, there’s still a noticeable gap in average life expectancies between different countries.

What’s the explanation for this divide? According to World Bank data, it may be partially related to the amount of money a country spends on its healthcare. More Spending Generally Means More Years. The latest available data from the World Bank includes both the healthcare spending per capita of 178 different countries and their average life expectancy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the analysis found that countries that spent more on healthcare tended to have higher average life expectancies up until reaching the 80-year mark.

 

David Cecere. 17 Sep 2009. 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage: Uninsured, working-age Americans have 40 percent higher death risk than privately insured counterparts. Harvard Medical school, Cambridge Health Alliance.

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health.  The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts.

“The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health,” said lead author Andrew Wilper, M.D., who currently teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.

The study, which analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), assessed death rates after taking into account education, income, and many other factors, including smoking, drinking, and obesity.

Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease. An increase in the number of uninsured and an eroding medical safety net for the disadvantaged likely explain the substantial increase in the number of deaths, as the uninsured are more likely to go without needed care. Another factor contributing to the widening gap in the risk of death between those who have insurance and those who do not is the improved quality of care for those who can get it.

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Rich nations grabbing land from poor nations

Posted on July 31, 2012 by

[ There are so many nations grabbing land from other nations that I gave up trying to summarize this excellent book and just used a few paragraphs from NewScientist.  Having to import food is a clear sign of being over carrying capacity, and it probably won’t last, because citizens will rise up as energy decline increases starvation in their country, or nearby nations invade.  One of the many reasons Rome failed was that one of their main sources of food was Carthage in North Africa.  After barbarians conquered Carthage the send less and eventually almost no food to Rome, and the population there fell from 1 million to about 10,000 people.  

Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts:  KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity]

Fred Pearce. June 29, 2012.  Stealing the Earth.  NewScientist.

From Midwest “missionaries” to Wall Street speculators, investors are grabbing massive swathes of common land, especially in Africa, where the great common lands – the swamps, savannahs and forests – are being fenced off in a rush for land, the 21st-century equivalent of Europe’s enclosure of once-common land that started in the Middle Ages.

It’s happening in Brazil, Paraguay, Mali, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and many other countries.  Oxfam estimates 850,000 square miles of mostly common land, equal to France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK combined – have been “grabbed” worldwide in the past five years. But in truth nobody knows.  Some governments allow this because they see any investment as good for development. That’s why dirt-poor South Sudan handed over a tenth of its land to foreigners.

Countries like South Korea, Saudi Arabia and China began buying foreign land to keep their peoples fed.

The biggest prize is the Guinea savannah zone, 4 million square kilometres of bush and grasslands between central Africa’s tropical rainforests and the desert to the north and south. It stretches from the Atlantic shores of Senegal east to Sudan, then south through Kenya and Tanzania to Zambia, Mozambique and Angola. The World Bank calls this arc “the world’s last large reserve of under-used land”. But it is also home to half a billion farmers and pastoralists. They are among the world’s poorest people and their numbers are increasing fast.

Fred Pearce is the author of “The Landgrabbers: The new fight over who owns the earth“.

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Magnetic Reversal could knock out power grids and communication systems

Posted on July 31, 2012 by

Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen. 1 Jul 2012. Eccentricity of the geomagnetic dipole caused by lopsided inner core growth. Nature Geoscience 5, 565–569

Lopsided growth of the Earth’s core could explain why its magnetic field reverses direction every few thousand years. If it happened now, there would be solar winds that could knock out global communications and power grids.

There are signs that the next switch may be under way: rapid movements of the field’s axis to the east in the last few hundred years may be a precursor to the north and south poles trading places, the researchers speculate.

Bruce Buffett of the University of California, Berkeley, says the authors present an intriguing proof of concept with their model.

“They are suggesting very cautiously that maybe this rapid change is somehow suggestive of us going into a reversal event,” he says. “You could imagine if the field were to collapse it would have disastrous consequences for communication systems and power grids.”

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