> A Carrington-level, extreme geomagnetic storm is almost inevitable in the future. While the probability of an extreme storm occurring is relatively low at any given time, it is almost inevitable that one will occur eventually. Historical auroral records suggest a return period of 50 years for Quebec-level storms and 150 years for very extreme storms, such as the Carrington Event that occurred 154 years ago.
If anything I think the solar flare risk is understated.
The document posted gives a range from 100 to 250 years, but I'd like to see some more scientific estimates.
I'm more worried about electrical lines shorting out transformers than I am about the world's data being erased all in one go. The Carrington event showed large amounts of current generated on long telegraph lines. Data is protected by error checking and surge protectors. Electrical lines are protected by old transformers that like to catch on fire when they short out.
We have a lot more wires lying around than they did in 1859, so that's a lot more induced current than they had to deal with. They probably had all of the fires out within a day or two--I'm not sure we'd be so lucky.
I wonder if we have enough replacement parts on hand to recover after an event like that. Given our labyrinthine supply chains, if it becomes a manufacturing bottleneck it could take years to retool.
In a morbid way though, I'm also looking forward to the holiday. I'm really curious to see what changes we make while the lights and cameras and payment systems are offline.
The first episode of Connections—"The Trigger Effect"—plus times I've read here and other places that the destruction of a lot of critical power infrastructure in a big chunk of just the US could leave power off for weeks before replacements can be procured, even with the whole rest of the world functioning fine, make me... pessimistic that we'll do very well, in such a situation.
No clue what sort of plans major governments have for it. Hopefully they have some. We're incredibly dependent on electricity—the point of that Connections episode was largely that human history is a series of events in which we take on some critical new technology, it permits a huge boom in productivity/population/whatever, and from then on, we're flat-out dependent on it to avoid disaster—and that, now (for 1978 values of "now"), electricity has become one of those things that we have to have or most of us will die.
If the power was out in large swaths of urban areas, then a lot more people would suddenly be able to see the night sky. A similar thing happened in parts of the LA area after the '91 Northridge earthquake.
I knew I should have confirmed that year before posting =) I couldn't remember the epicenter, I just knew it was up in the Valley, so I did look that up on a map. I only knew of it from stories, as I was nowhere near California at the time. I had a co-worker that had just moved to that area the day before the quake. He said he debated about putting off the unpacking and checking out the new area or busting ass to unpack and just be "moved in" and done with it. He chose the unpacking, and then that night the quake where he lost a lot of stuff. Had he left everything in the boxes, things would have been just fine. I bet he's now a firm believer in procrastinating!
Well it's a very hypothetical black swan type situation. I don't think it's a sensible use of resources to prepare for a badly understood phenomenon with uncertain probability. If and when it happens things will get fixed, and we will learn from the experience.
That document is a very interesting read though, thank you. I don't fully trust insurers though - it's in their interest to create a feeling of risk.
Yes, but the timing of those fixes could be an enormous problem
From what I've read, a large part of the problem will be burnt-out transformers all over the grid, from the major stations down to the street-level. Replacing any one of those is only a job of a few hours, when you have one available. The problem is that fabricating them takes a long time, and there is nowhere near enough inventory to replace the numbers that would fry in a Carrington-like event (or an EMP attack). It could take YEARS to replace them, during which time the economy is pretty much back to the 1800s, but with 2000s-level population to feed.
The estimates to create a stockpile of transformers so that they could be replaced in weeks-to months range around $500 million. It would give the nation a huge strategic economic advantage to be able to fully recover on a timescale of double-digit weeks instead of years. But, since the problem is so un-sexy that it is never brought up (the last infrastructure bill would have been a good time to do so).
Even if we could individually have power with rooftop solar+battery (also sufficiently protected), it'd be hard to thrive with the entire transport web broken (no grid electricity to pump gasoline/diesel, etc.).
Still, I want to know how vulnerable is rooftop solar, and what it would take to protect it (and prevent an event from burning down the house). Any experts have some pointers?
Geomagnetic effects happen on scales measured in tens or hundreds of miles/km. There is no particular threat to rooftop solar unless the event is on a scale comparable to a nearby EMP burst from a nuke attack. In which case you probably aren't too concerned about your solar installation as a first order priority.
It also isn't correct to assume that the grid is wholly unprotected. Substations have extensive protection in the form of interrupters. We will lose power in a Carrington scenario, potentially for days, but there won't be an apocalypse of exploding transformers. If that happens, nobody is going to care too much about charging their Teslas. They will be too busy fending off hordes of radioactive zombies.
Well, I hope you are wrong :) I imagine that most transformers etc are somewhat over-engineered. I mean, they get destroyed by things like lightening strikes, but are we talking about the same energy levels? I really have no idea.
You make a good point about rooftop solar+battery. Perhaps an event like this would make us more open to decentralised energy production.
Regarding how vulnerable solar panels are - in my limited understanding the problem comes from things that will induct electrical currents from EM, so basically anything with long wires (transmission lines and transformers etc.) So I would guess that semiconductors like solar panels would not be damaged directly. I'd also like to hear from any experts though.
> it's a very hypothetical black swan type situation. I don't think it's a sensible use of resources to prepare for a badly understood phenomenon with uncertain probability.
That really depends on how much you'd need to spend I think to prep.
There was a US commission evaluating the threat of an EMP attack (http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf) which seems to suggest that radiation-hardening transformers for such an event would also seem likely to protect them from failing due to geomagnetic storms.
The additional cost for radiation hardening:
> New units can be EMP-hardened for a very small fraction of the cost of the non-hardened item, e.g., 1% to 3% of cost, if hardening is done at the time the unit is designed and manufactured. In contrast, retrofitting existing functional components is potentially an order of magnitude more expensive and shouldbe done only for critical system units.
For that sort of overhead I think that it's justifiable to require it of new transformers at least.
It's important to pilots or frequent flyers. There is substantial evidence of increased probability of getting tumors as pilots. One of the most well understood mechanisms for this phenomenon is the time at high altitude (although there are of course a few others similar to still using leaded fuel for small planes, etc - but these aren't as clear for DNA damage specifically).
So it certainly does matter, but there are different risks that each demographic takes.
With EMP, it is important to distinguish between short-range and long-range. Short-range EMP can damage electronics but is primarily caused by nearby nuclear blast which tends to be bigger problem than the EMP. It can also be caused by conventional explosive devices but those cover small area.
Long-range EMP is caused by nuclear blast at high altitude. It induces currents is long conductors but doesn't touch electronics. The main effect is knocking out power over large areas. It has very similar effects to large solar flare.
Solar flare risk is underestimated since it's not something we've previously experienced in full force. Based on conversations I've had with electrical engineers that work for a national power company, they don't have any measures in place to protect us from solar flares bringing down the full power grid.
A sufficiently powerful solar flare event would probably lead to millions of deaths, as I understand it.
TL;DW shit gets very, very dicey in a matter of days if the power goes out—and most of our ways of recovering with any speed rely on power so if it goes out for most or all of the world at once, that's extremely bad.
If it hit the wrong time of year, I could easily see a global power outage killing millions in the very first day. Loss of air conditioning and heating could push it into the millions all on their own.
Yeah I think that's a stretch. Likely there would be deaths from hospitals not having power etc. but I can't imagine it being at that scale. Secondary effects from the economic fallout might be worse. This kind of reminds me of the y2k non-event though.
Well, I'm not a mathematician, but I will hazard that since we have a global population of somewhere around 8 billion we can ask ChatGPT (the cheap one to draw up an estimate for us). Sadly it doesn't wanna be more specific, however I am willing to entertain the number could reach millions. Just the impact on air traffic would be catastrophic, nevermind whatever happens to all the satellites that didn't exist for the last one.
```It's difficult to give an accurate estimate of the number of lives that could be lost in the event of a global-scale transformer destruction due to a Carrington-level solar storm, as there are many variables that could affect the outcome. However, I can provide some information that may be helpful in making an estimate.
A report by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) suggests that a large-scale transformer failure due to a geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) could result in widespread and prolonged power outages, affecting multiple states or even the entire country. The report estimates that the total economic impact of such an event in the United States could range from $1 trillion to $2 trillion, and that recovery could take years.
If we assume that the impact of a GMD-induced transformer failure would be proportionate to the global population, then it's reasonable to assume that the number of lives lost could be in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. This is because prolonged power outages could lead to a wide range of consequences, including shortages of food and water, breakdowns in transportation systems, and disruptions to medical care.
However, it's important to note that the actual number of lives lost would depend on many factors, including the severity and duration of the power outages, the availability of resources and emergency services, and the ability of individuals and governments to respond effectively to the crisis.```
That's an interesting response from it, but I would not trust gpt at all to make this kind of estimation - it will only regurgitate permutations of the information that's already out there, and I don't think anyone really knows.
But yes you are probably right that I've underestimated.
What you'll find on the insurance side of thing is this sort of claim from Lloyds of London (https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-the...):
> A Carrington-level, extreme geomagnetic storm is almost inevitable in the future. While the probability of an extreme storm occurring is relatively low at any given time, it is almost inevitable that one will occur eventually. Historical auroral records suggest a return period of 50 years for Quebec-level storms and 150 years for very extreme storms, such as the Carrington Event that occurred 154 years ago.
If anything I think the solar flare risk is understated.