Comment by jhayward | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jhayward | Hacker News Reader

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Now you are conflating a GMD with an EMP, which isn't anything like accurate.

A GMD is a long-duration event that creates movement in the Earth's magnetic field, which induces low-frequency ground currents (literally: current flows in the earth) in the surface of Earth.

An EMP is a very short duration, high-frequency pulse of energy in a local or regional electric field. The effects are completely different, the objects that are affected are completely different, they are completely different cases to consider.

Your anecdote also conflates wind storm damage, which affects local distribution systems, with (hypothetical) GMD damage, which affects long-distance transmission systems. With wind lines, poles, and the occasional transformer, is damaged and there is a lot of labor-intensive repair. With GMD, a very small number of high-capacity transformers are potentially affected. Different deal completely.

So talking about cars that don't start, etc is just nonsense when talking about GMDs.

I don't see any way to continue this dialogue given that we aren't even talking about the same thing.

I wasn't conflating the two, I understand that the effects are different, and m recognizing that both are a serious present threats to the same system, but if you don't want to talk about EMP, ok.

Even if we have a mild-Carrington event that directly takes out "only" the tens of thousands of transmission-level transformers, there are still orders of magnitude more distribution-level transformers, and even though many of those are likely to be damaged by the disregulated power system as it goes down, let's assume those are OK.

So, we've "only" got to replace hundreds of high-voltage transformers in every metro area, and then reboot the grid. And there are no spares.

But, although cars and trucks are mostly undamaged, there is no power to pump fuel, and there is no power for refrigeration.

So, we still have to perform all of the 7 steps above (plus a BIG one I forgot 5A: Test all the new transformers).

And we still have to do it under conditions where the entire economy is based on just-in-time delivery and stocks of food are rapidly being eaten down, and rotting in unpowered refrigerators, and the entire fuel distribution network is unpowered.

What is your actual plan to design, build, test, and install these thousands of high-voltage transmission-level transformers, and do it before the society rips itself apart from lack of basic supplies?

Saying "oh we could just use old lower-tech solutions adapted for a high-tech grid. is extremely hand-wavy.

And, how is it actually even more cost-effective to design, build, install, and maintain equipment to automatically protect the transformers, when the power grid operators are so backwards half a century after automated monitoring was available but they still refuse to install it?

I'd seriously like to see a good answer, because nothing I've seen from any official or your proposals even remotely seems to solve the problem. What real technology would actually apply? What military op would scale to the entire nation's needs, that wouldn't already be allocated elsewhere?

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