[darken]

It's common to conflate the effects of a solar storm with an EMP; when in reality they're opposite extremes of the same mechanism (i.e. voltage varying over distance).

An EMP is a short-duration high voltage spike; i.e. short-wavelength/high-frequency.

A solar storm acts on a large scale and causes a long-duration high voltage spike; i.e. long wavelength/low-frequency.

So an EMP (i.e. a high altitude nuke) will tend to induce high voltage in small "antennas"; i.e. circuits in an SSD or other transistor electronics like your concern.

Whereas a solar storm will induce high voltage in large antennas; think power lines or long cables. However these days there's enough warning and contingencies to mitigate the worst of these effects; i.e. preemptively shut down vulnerable power systems. The grid "crashing" and needing to do a cold start is still very bad, but far better than also getting damaged.

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Edit: I also want to point out that the above is specific to "on the ground" effects as we're shielded by earth's magnetic field. Satellites still get bombarded directly with heavy radiation/particles, which is much closer to an EMP in terms of acute impact.

[sjducb]

Do you have a reference for that difference in EMP and solar storm? I tried to research this once and couldn’t find anything

[ianburrell]

My understanding is that solar storms and high-altitude EMPs have similar effects. Both energize the upper atmosphere which induces currents in long conductors. High-altitude EMP does not harm electronics.

It is close-by EMP from nuclear blast that harms electronics.

[_3u10]

Hopefully one day we'll have a grid designed to carry high voltages over long distances instead of using inefficient low voltage transmission which exposes the grid to these dangers.

[shiroiuma]

Is this supposed to be sarcastic? The grid does carry high voltages over long distances. The standard voltage in North America is 765kV, and for HVDC lines it can be 2MV. But that's for long-distance transmission lines, not more local distribution lines, which are necessarily lower voltage (36kV I think) for practical and safety reasons.