Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse (2021) [pdf]
ics.uci.edu
ics.uci.edu
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/sun_darkness.html
The biggest recorded (X 28-45; Nov 4 2003) took out 12 transformers in South Africa. (It's been compared to 1859 Carrington.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_storms
Lloyd's did a 2013 report for North America, looks like that's kept updated.
https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-the...
There are solar storm events which can induce faster timescale geomagnetic distances. Primarily the x-ray and EUV light from the solar flares themselves ionizing the upper atmosphere and the currents resulting from that. But to have a bright enough flare to do that in a damaging way would require an exceptionally large active region. So large you'd be seeing it with the naked eye on Earth before things went down.
Another fast timescale solar caused geomagnetic disturbance can happen from relativistic "sudden energetic particles" sometimes directed at Earth. But generally the amount of energy in these particles is minor compared to the component in the flare light (~2/3 on average) versus the CME if one happens (~1/3).
So, no. It wouldn't immediately knock out society. Especially with solar panels everywhere. But it would knock out the power grid for at least 2 months before new transformers could be built and installed. That might take down society.
Given how reliant we are on electricity and the internet I don't think it's actually a stretch to say it would be a society ending event.
A more realistic scenario is that GIC would result in grid instability by causing protective relays to "trip" offline. Enough grid infrastructure tripping in succession could produce a cascading failure and widespread blackouts on a large grid. As seen in the 2003 Northeast blackout[2], it can take days to recover from such an event.
[1] https://library.e.abb.com/public/cbd31097f5bd26bfc1257b16002...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
There is two things that puts my mind at ease.
1. Our electrical infrastructure, while flimsy in some ways is a lot more resilient than we take for granted. It is said the power grid fails in theory but works in practice. But given forward warning, it is possible to shut off or limit the energy flow prior to the event - it will mean voluntary blackouts for a few hours but it is better than a forced blackout for a few months.
2. The forward warning is actually really good now even being up to 2-3 days in advance, just look to any Aurora prediction site, we are all over tracking this stuff. For all the fear of a repeat Carrington event, we would know it is coming and deal with it.
The last few years have shown that leadership in certain areas has Cluster B personality traits, and will do the opposite of good advice just because it feels good to be contrarian.
There's been many a time when some large sequence of strong CME come and everyone expects intense geomagnetic activity but there's no -Bz so it just buffets things for a bit and causes auroral oval effects. Whereas other times some small lone barely CME will arrive with 7 hours of -20nT Bz and causes 45N aurora.
What I'm saying is that the people in charge of chosing to shut down parts of the grid are not ever going to get a confident assertion that damage will happen if they don't. There will be enough uncertainty that this kind of pre-emptive action days in advance will not happen.
At best we'll get a few hours of time to mitigate when the events arrive at L1 and the solar monitoring spacecraft there like ACE give actual warning.
Contactless payments and other card payments at shops stopped working. Also, most of the ATMs were down.
Luckily I found one ATM that still worked. I think it had some kind of dial up backup mechanism.
Anyone have a sense of what "damage to transformers" means? Like, it frazzles out in its own housing, or takes half my street out?
Of course if one gets hits by a meteorite and catches fire then keep a safe distance. Definitely more than 15 feet. In normal operation they are extremely safe though.
A hazmat crew in full bunny suits showed up to clean up the mess. The story I remember (this was a long time ago) is that PCBs were present -- I think they stopped using PCBs in these things since then -- and that was why the hazmat team was needed.
It was quite exciting, though, and remains a vivid memory.
It is possible that smaller control equipment might fail as those are usually more fragile electromagnetically speaking, but once again that would be a problem for getting power back online, not in the "transformer explodes" kind of way.
I was trying to buy the outrageously overpriced popcorn at my nearby movie theater with a $20.00 and the youngster told me that he can accept cash. I told them that that is not legal . He directed me to the box office to purchase a "rewards card" worth $20.00 so I can use it to buy popcorn.
Turns out in my state there is no requirement for business to accept cash and there is no Federal law requiring business to accept cash.
Other than that a nice bunker with canned food would be nice but that's approaching tinfoil hat territory.
In general, Solid state drives as long term storage is probably OK on the time frame of a single decade but they degrade with time. Some of the more dense ones even show noticeable degradation in less than a year as the error correction slows transfer speeds.
I have had some USB sticks that have held information from 2006 but it hard to tell what state they were in.
It isn't about the survivalist fantasy of society crumbling into pieces over night, it is the idea of being prepared for those outlier systemic failures. A power failure for a few days, a flood, short term shipping delays etc.
As an aside, one thing they like to stress the most is, the single best thing you can do to be prepped is to be in as good of health as you can manage. If something goes down and you drop dead from a stress induced heart attack, all the other stuff is pointless.
And be on good terms with your neighbours. I'm no prepper/survivalist, but groups are more resilient than individuals in most circumstances.
Usually the point of sale system doesn't allow any offline credit.
Similarly for the making change, most point of sale systems track exact change very closely, and trying to do something outside of what eas entered into the PoS causes issues with logging/audits. (Yes, including the "I just found a $coin, can you give me different change" situations) That's before you get to the people who try to fast talk you into giving extra change.
PoS Performance is also usually horribly slow and requires manager overide for anything off the happy path.
Source for the above: worked as a cashier in the late 2010's.
Don't most theater still work this way? The ability to buy specific seats at a theater isn't an Internet thing.
You arrive and ask them to move, they apologize and say “oh but my friend is here, I see some empty seats up there you could take instead!”
So you go sit in those empty seats, hesitantly. Then someone comes in and tells you that you’re in their seat. You try to explain the situation but…
Etc etc etc.
This has happened to me multiple times on long-distance transit before (bus/train), it ends up being chaos if just a few people don’t perfectly follow the assignments.
I also am quite late in many situations, but in a theather you just go, if you can manage to be seated, before it gets dark. Everything else is just rude.
For live plays, with assigned seats and no captive marketing, people do come on time generally.
The time I saw it, it wasn't at the seats like the other comments are suggesting. It was at the ticket line, an old couple who didn't understand why they had to pick a seat, or what the screen in front of them represented, or something like that. I don't remember how that was resolved but they did end up getting a ticket and going in. After seeing that I'm assuming there were people who didn't bother and went somewhere else.
I have a charcoal grill and a gas grill and probably should stock up on propane and briquettes. I have enough ammo to last a while. Chickens in the backyard, some vegetables growing in the garden. Solar panels but no battery, so, not off grid yet.
But realistically, if such a solar apocalypse happened, the panels and many other electronics will fail, communications will break down, marauding gangs will take over in many places, until the military can impose order. And there’s the issue of potable water.
There’s not much chance of surviving past the first week or so, at this level of prepping. Let’s just hope this flare never happens.
Only if you're in the US also consider getting a tank, a flamethrower, grenades.
I also think the idea of "there's not much chance of surviving past the first week or so" is probably a bit more pessimistic than I'd offer, but what do I know.
Water is a major issue. We have some bottled water in the garage, maybe enough for a couple of weeks or a month if used carefully.
We also have an underground stream that a pump drains about 5 gallons every 10 minutes to keep from flooding the basement. Unfortunately, it relies on the grid electricity. I'm not sure what would happen if it stopped for very long. If I could figure out a way to keep the pump going even during a prolonged outage, it would be an unlimited source of H20.
But for most people, water is going to be a show stopper, if the municipal pumps and filtration systems fail.
That certainly hurt, but civilization didn't just go down the drain instantly. Most people have enough food and water to survive a couple weeks. You might be uncomfortable, not showering, but it takes a while to get to the point of shooting your neighbors. Unless a formal announcement comes out saying the government has dissolved and laws no longer apply, you better be damn sure services aren't coming back, because it's not like you just get amnesty for murder and theft because you had no running water for a few weeks.
The Amish in Pennsylvania and thereabouts, with their horse-drawn buggies and 18th Century lifestyles, might actually do okay, but from what I've read, they do use electricity for lighting, pumps, clotheswashers etc. So even they would have to adjust.
I truly think it would take longer than a week for society to realize and accept that civil authority is actually gone, and running water would likely be among the last things to go.