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> That the Earth hasn’t recently been hit by a solar flare as powerful as the 1859 Carrington event Is anyone thinking about what to do? It's only a matter of

by dheera 5y ago

> That the Earth hasn’t recently been hit by a solar flare as powerful as the 1859 Carrington event Is anyone thinking about what to do? It's only a matter of time before we have another flare 2X or 3X the magnitude of the Carrington event.

dclowd9901 5y ago
If it really would set power lines alight, there isn’t a hell of a lot you can do aside from going off the grid and having a small warehouse full of electrical wiring. Emergency and catastrophe planning has to happen at the national level. I would like to see more leaders (especially these days) come into office with ideas about how to recover from catastrophic events quickly.
- dheera 5y ago
  By what mechanism do they set power lines on fire in a way that it wouldn't set the lines in my house on fire? Is it the power lines themselves or is it just vicious currents being induced in the lines that cause devices plugged on the other end of the power lines to go up in smoke? If the grid just shut off power for 24 hours until the CME passed would that solve the problem? I can easily go 24 hours without power, but not months.
  - 323 5y ago
    My understanding is that the flare will induce currents in the sub-station transformers, and this is the big problem. Not sure if disconnecting them helps to prevent damage.
- mistermann 5y ago
  > Emergency and catastrophe planning has to happen at the national level. I would like to see more leaders (especially these days) come into office with ideas about how to recover from catastrophic events quickly. Me too. I'm hoping we'll get lucky and a relatively small-scale catastrophic event will occur, demonstrating to us how ill prepared we are both materially and socially/culturally/cognitively/etc, and that lesson will provide the incentive for us to launch a serious project to get our act cleaned up. And in the event that no political leaders rise to the occasion, I am hoping that normal civilians realize there is a problem and begin seriously discussing the risks we are running, perhaps eventually leading to some sort of a plan that our leaders do not have the ability to formulate, or perhaps even realize we need.
  - 323 5y ago
    > I'm hoping we'll get lucky and a relatively small-scale catastrophic event will occur ... and that lesson will provide the incentive for us to launch a serious project to get our act cleaned up. The current pandemic makes me pessimistic regarding this. There is basically no wake up and preparations for a 10%+ mortality virus. And that without discussing where the virus came from...
bobsmooth 5y ago
Hopefully our satellites are there to detect it and hopefully the world reacts quick enough to shut down the power grid. Would still be horrible, but there are mitigations.

by dheera 5y ago

dclowd9901 5y ago

If it really would set power lines alight, there isn’t a hell of a lot you can do aside from going off the grid and having a small warehouse full of electrical wiring. Emergency and catastrophe planning has to happen at the national level. I would like to see more leaders (especially these days) come into office with ideas about how to recover from catastrophic events quickly.

dheera 5y ago
By what mechanism do they set power lines on fire in a way that it wouldn't set the lines in my house on fire? Is it the power lines themselves or is it just vicious currents being induced in the lines that cause devices plugged on the other end of the power lines to go up in smoke? If the grid just shut off power for 24 hours until the CME passed would that solve the problem? I can easily go 24 hours without power, but not months.
- 323 5y ago
  My understanding is that the flare will induce currents in the sub-station transformers, and this is the big problem. Not sure if disconnecting them helps to prevent damage.
mistermann 5y ago
> Emergency and catastrophe planning has to happen at the national level. I would like to see more leaders (especially these days) come into office with ideas about how to recover from catastrophic events quickly. Me too. I'm hoping we'll get lucky and a relatively small-scale catastrophic event will occur, demonstrating to us how ill prepared we are both materially and socially/culturally/cognitively/etc, and that lesson will provide the incentive for us to launch a serious project to get our act cleaned up. And in the event that no political leaders rise to the occasion, I am hoping that normal civilians realize there is a problem and begin seriously discussing the risks we are running, perhaps eventually leading to some sort of a plan that our leaders do not have the ability to formulate, or perhaps even realize we need.
- 323 5y ago
  > I'm hoping we'll get lucky and a relatively small-scale catastrophic event will occur ... and that lesson will provide the incentive for us to launch a serious project to get our act cleaned up. The current pandemic makes me pessimistic regarding this. There is basically no wake up and preparations for a 10%+ mortality virus. And that without discussing where the virus came from...

bobsmooth 5y ago

Hopefully our satellites are there to detect it and hopefully the world reacts quick enough to shut down the power grid. Would still be horrible, but there are mitigations.