What Would Happen if a Massive Solar Storm Hit the Earth?

_Tombstone_

Article about the different types of Solar Storms the Sun can send our way, Flares/Coronal Mass ejections, what they look like and the Damage they could do to our Electric Infrastructure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ceuLV_Ojs

http://gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-a-massive-solar-storm-hit-the-eart-1724650105

maquiladora

We were very lucky in 2012!

Capt'n Midnight

EM pulse wouldn't be a biggie. Just fly straight and level.



For CME, electrical power would be the biggest problem.

But that effect would be limited to higher latitudes and we'd have advance notice so uilities could drop the voltage and try to shed demand. Or just make sure there is enough power locally to reduce what's flowing over the longest grid links.

Much of our comms goes over fibre so that wouldn't be affected directly.

Your satellite TV and internet would be upset, but "Act of God" so suck it up for the duration.


Thing is we know about these things and are preparing for them so probably not as big a problem as the prophets of doom may claim.

Adding redundancy is usually a good thing and robustness by overengineering for one problem problem probably helps protect from other unknown issues.

Drumpot

Statistically speaking have scientists any idea how likely we are to get a storm from the sun that would have a major impact on our power grids?

I am not getting the impression that much resources are being invested in predicting storms quicker or preparing power grids. This would suggest either governments are being told that its statistically unlikely anytime soon (like statistics of asteroids) or that governments are just waiting for it to happen before taking it seriously! Neither would surprise me!

Iancar29

Drumpot wrote: »

Statistically speaking have scientists any idea how likely we are to get a storm from the sun that would have a major impact on our power grids?

I am not getting the impression that much resources are being invested in predicting storms quicker or preparing power grids. This would suggest either governments are being told that its statistically unlikely anytime soon (like statistics of asteroids) or that governments are just waiting for it to happen before taking it seriously! Neither would surprise me!

Well if you look at the video Maq posted , we can see that in 2012 we were lucky that the CME blasted off a week late as we would've been in blasted back to the stone age pretty much.

If that had pointed in earth's direction it would've taken less than 2 days to reach earth. And to convince all major authorities in that amount of time would be a job of itself! The only way that i know that power companies can prepare for such an event is to actually shut off their grid. Just like you would take out all the plugs in an intense thunderstorm.