Solar Cycle 24 Mini Max

Strong Flares typically occur in the declining phase of a solar cycle.

In 2012 Stereo A got slammed with what NASA calls "of Carrington Magnitude"

If this Coronal Mass Ejection would have been "earth effective", i.e. a direct hit on earth....we would have been knocked back to the stone age, with 400 nuclear plants melting down.

The pimps of nuke would say....don't worry, we have defense in depth, we have backup gensets.     Ya right, when a minor snow storm took Pilgrim off line over a week ago, and it is still down!

And at another Nuke plant, a supervisor shows up drunk on Monday morning, and gets caught. He is sent home, but not otherwise punished.

Early Monday morning, a supervisor at the Saint Lucie nuclear power plant in Florida confirmed positive for alcohol after a random fitness for duty test. The licensee revoked the employee’s access to the plant and notified the resident NRC inspector.