> a world without power
A CME wouldn't cause a world without power. It would cause parts of the world to lose their power grids and satellites. Generators would almost certainly be hooked up to critical infrastructure and cities in rich countries.
A CME wouldn't cause a world without power. It would cause parts of the world to lose their power grids and satellites. Generators would almost certainly be hooked up to critical infrastructure and cities in rich countries.
This is true, of course, however I am pessimistic about the ability for manufacturers to resist cutesy network/cloud/status/monitoring functions in these devices.
I am sure that somewhere, right now, there is a diesel generator acting as backup for something critical that is plugged into ethernet and queries a license server every five minutes.
Small electronics would probably not be affected by a coronal mass ejection [1]. CMEs wreak havoc with the power grid by "inducing a DC-like current" through transformers, thereby melting them [2]. Most diesel generators don't contain large transformers hooked up to miles and miles of conductive cabling.
[1] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2643093/strong-solar-st...
[2] http://www.thepreparednesspodcast.com/the-difference-between...
There could still be issues in specific areas dependent on long distance power. However, nuclear subs and aircraft carriers have been used in the past to provide power for critical infrastructure ~(40+MW a pop) and local power grids would not be impacted long term. Compared to say a war this would be a minor long term impact.
PS: The $613 billion estimate over 5 years is 0.15% of the ~390,000 billion world GDP over that same 5 years.
Obviously the scale of a CME is what matters - one city is a minor disaster but a whole region or country could alter the course of a nation.
Or the summer if you live in the desert.
The questions I haven't seen answered are: how much of our capacity to manufacture power generation and transmission equipment requires a functioning power grid? I wonder if we(read FEMA) have a plan to divert the finite resources remaining after such an event to repairing the power grid?