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National Academy of Science predicted a Carrington-level storm would inflict $1 to $2 trillion in damages to infrastructure and take four to ten years to recove
by eli 12y ago
National Academy of Science predicted a Carrington-level storm would inflict $1 to $2 trillion in damages to infrastructure and take four to ten years to recover from.
I don't know what "life as we know it" means, but it would be a significant disaster.
- codezero 12y agoI imagine that would be an extreme upper bound. But yes, it would cause damage, economically and possibly damage communications. We'd recover and I don't think it will take 10 years. We're continually reducing the costs of launches which is a huge factor in the monetary damages (potentially relaunch all communication satellites). We'd be out billions of dollars in spy satellites too so maybe we'd triage on what we decide is important to launch after such an event.
- pyre 12y agoOne significant detail that has been mentioned in these discussions has been the provisioning of new transformers. Apparently power companies don't keep a huge backup supply of them, and they take a lot to build. If every transformer in a metropolitan area exploded all at once, then we'd be in quite the pickle. Add that up with every transformer on a single hemisphere exploding at once, and it becomes a little more grim.
- eli 12y agoHere's the report: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12507 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12507 (it was funded by NASA)