On March 13th, 1989 a surge of energy from the sun, from a "coronal mass ejection", had a startling impact on Canada. Within 92 seconds, the resulting geomagnetic storm took down Quebec's electricity grid for nine hours. It could have been worse. On July 23rd 2012 particles from a much larger solar ejection blew across the orbital path of Earth, missing it by days. Had it hit America, the resulting geomagnetic storm would have destroyed perhaps a quarter of high-voltage transformers, according to Storm Analysis Consultants in Duluth, Minnesota. Future geomagnetic storms are inevitable.
And that is not the only threat to the grid. A transformer-wrecking electromagnetic pulse (EMP) would be produced by a nuclear bomb, designed to maximise its yield of gamma rays, if detonated high up, be it tethered to a big cluster of weather balloons or carried on a satellite or missile.
[...] After the surge, telecom switches and internet routers are dead. Air-traffic control is down. Within a day, some shoppers in supermarkets turn to looting (many, unable to use credit and debit cards, cannot pay even if they wanted to). After two days, market shelves are bare. On the third day, backup diesel generators begin to sputter out. Though fuel cannot be pumped, siphoning from vehicles, authorised by martial law, keeps most prisons, police stations and hospitals running for another week.
[...] Yet not much is being done. Barack Obama ordered EMP protection for White House systems, but FERC, the utilities regulator, has not required EMP-proofing. Nor has the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pushed for a solution or even included EMP in official planning scenarios. (The Pentagon should handle that, DHS officials say; the Pentagon notes that civilian infrastructure is the DHS's responsibility.) As for exactly what safeguards are or are not needed, the utilities themselves are best equipped to decide, says Brandon Wales, the DHS's head of infrastructure analysis.
But the utilities' industry group, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), argues that, because EMP is a matter of national security, it is the government's job. NERC may anyway be in no rush. It took a decade to devise a vegetation-management plan after, in 2003, an Ohio power line sagged into branches and cut power to 50m north-easterners at a cost of roughly $6bn. NERC has repeatedly and successfully lobbied Congress to prevent legislation that would require EMP-proofing. That is something America, and the world, could one day regret.
Is a widespread blackout the end of the world?
Related Stories
In what could potentially be one of the most, or least, significant actions of his term in office, President Trump Tuesday signed an Executive Order requiring federal agencies to strengthen critical infrastructure against ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) attacks.
EMPs occur for a variety of natural and man-made reasons including, most notably, Nuclear Explosions and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), either of which could potentially take out entire sections of the country's electrical grid and other infrastructure and capabilities, requiring require years or decades to recover from.
Members and supporters of the decommissioned US Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse have long warned of the possibility of an EMP attack, with some individuals, such as Peter Pry, who previously led the congressional EMP commission, asserting that an EMP attack on America could kill off 90% of the US population.
This is because a man-made EMP has the advantage of being highly asymmetrical. A small country able to pull one off would cause potentially massive disruption to a large tech dependent country such as the United States.
Past EMP related coverage here, here and here
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:48AM (31 children)
How do you EMP-proof a nationwide electrical grid?
I think it would cost more than the grid itself. A power line on a branch cost you $6bn, how much do you think revamping every piece of equipment that deals with provider grid-power, around the entire country, to protect against a nuclear-level EMP attack would cost?
The reason EMP is so devastating is that though it's a small local effect, you would need to guard against it EVERYWHERE. You'd pay more to defend against it than your enemy could ever cause in disruption.
You EMP-proof critical systems, sure, but in this case not every single power-station, substation, etc. is a critical system. The grid as a whole might be but that's far too expensive to EMP, and couldn't be taken down by just one EMP attack (inverse square law) that didn't just destroy the entire country anyway.
To be honest, I think the attitude is: If you attacked someone like that, it's war. And all the instruments of war to retaliate would be protected. Your local shop having power is then the least of your worries for a LONG time after that.
If it occurs by natural disaster... sure... that's bad. And there's almost nothing you can do to defend against that scale of incident anyway. And you would hope that others would come to help if it came to it.
The utilities are right here: They can't afford to defend against it and it's not their problem. The military are right here: It's not their problem, and their systems are probably EMP-proof where necessary. The article, though, is very wrong in thinking that you should just spend billions in case it happens, so that you don't have to go a few days without power. We spent longer without power in the 1970's voluntarily.
All the air-traffic control nonsense? That can run on manual for a long time, because that's what happens when it goes down today, whether that's Windows Update or an EMP attack. A bit of disruption, some emergency radio kit, and you're back in business.
Internet routers? Private commercial gear. You gonna EMP every datacentre it passes through when everybody's home kit is totalled anyway?
Telecoms? Mostly based on those same Internet routers nowadays.
Looting, fuel pumps, etc... just what happens when there's a hurricane, let alone a nationwide-EMP attack. It rarely turns into anything serious in any country with an operational military.
Let's spend hundreds of billions to give ourselves a national tin-foil hat so we can get on the net in case someone detonates a nuclear bomb above the US. That's not really a sensible priority.
And EMP from natural events are not limited to any one country, are pretty much undefendable for the same reasons, fleeting, and low-level.
The president being able to order a counter-strike in the case of an EMP - as the line about EMP protection for the White House implies - is a very different case to "nobody should be without power for a day anywhere in the country if it happens".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:56AM (4 children)
P.S. I just thought: Air traffic control: I'd be more worried about the planes themselves. Pretty sure they'd come down hard and fast in the case of an EMP attack and then taking off again won't really be an issue even if you did land properly. Pretty sure it'd just be an immediate grounding of all aircraft until they've been checked.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:29PM
They'll be as fine as the ability of their pilots to navigate without radio links - the wavelength of geomagnetic storms are much too large to affect their electronics. But radio transmission will be noisy as hell and their electronics (even if functional) won't be able to "see" the GPS system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:46PM (1 child)
Best way to protect hardware from EMP is to have short conductors (shorter than 1 KM) and/or be really well shielded (like inside nearly a tin can) and/or be really well grounded such that the protection gear can do its thing and none of the voltages get high.
There's a type of disaster / prepper pr0n where all the stuff most likely to fail keeps working like AM radio stations and sometimes telephones, but the stuff most likely to survive like trains, planes and automobiles all stop magic wand style. Oh another good one is pacemakers stopping LOL. Oh they'll stop alright when the battery runs down, but till then...
Can you think of a better possible way to shield a sensitive electronic ckt than to put it in a "small" tin can up in the air where there's miles of air between it and the sparkable ground and for weight reasons everything inside is being replaced by fiber at a feverish pace?
The real killer is going to be looter bands roving around so nobody going to go to work which means more looter bands if they want to eat which means ... etc etc.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday September 15 2017, @02:22AM
Eat the looter bands. Problem solved!!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:58PM
Planes get hit my lightning all the time. That one hell of a EM pulse from a 20,000,000+V spark, yet, they fly. If an EM pulse kills planes, radiation would probably vaporize it anyway, so the problem is moot.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:14AM (6 children)
That terrorist Sun has WMD!: We need to take it out NOW!
You either with us or again' us.
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:02PM (5 children)
The Sun itself is a big nuke. A hydrogen one, no less.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:31PM (4 children)
Does it also have oil? If so, we could liberate it and bring democracy to the good people of the sun.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:36PM (3 children)
Harvesting energy from the sun is discouraged, as it could cause it to collapse, as would our donors' profits.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday September 15 2017, @03:21AM (2 children)
Thas it, Bobby-joeJobby-boe, he's again' us... Get out yer broom and yer anti-global warming lube and we'll show him "What happened".
Hyuk!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 15 2017, @06:58PM (1 child)
Some days, I regret the absence of a "What?" mod.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday September 15 2017, @09:30PM
Sorry, just continuing with my
"You either with us or again' us."
theme from above.
It all kinda got lost.
Like me
Where am i? (Looking for the 'vodka' mod)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:23AM
That's true only if you are measuring the costs of repairing/replacing parts of the grid. The economic disruption to the areas affected by an EMP would dwarf the infrastructure costs.
(Score: 1) by Demena on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:34AM (11 children)
Nope, nope, nope. No radio, no electricity... You are talking a very local EMP burst. Yes, air traffic control worries would not be a worry but only because there would be nothing flying. (lol. DO you really expect someone to land a 747 from a signaller using paddles in the runway?)
Nope, nope, nope. There'll not be a functioning or operational police force let alone military.
I am not suggesting a solution but you don't realise the magnitude of the problem. People will have a problem even telling what the time is? How many still have mechanical watches? Endless amounts on money wiped out. How many companies could survive just losing the receivables ledger? Have a very good and adequately shielded bug out bag. You will need it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:04PM (5 children)
So I get there were ILS infrastructure on Hudson river?
(Score: 1) by Demena on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:09PM (4 children)
Stop being silly. Would you get on a plane if it were going to crash land in the Hudson as a regular practice? Could you afford the fare if an aeroplane were a use only once item?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:16PM (3 children)
A total continent-wide loss of electricity due to geomagnetic storm hopefully won't be a regular event.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by Demena on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:36PM (2 children)
The point is not the loss but the ability to recover. You don't think stuff will work again, just like that, after the event do you? After the event where are you going to get your next watt from when all the generators are burnt out and you have lost the capability to build more. How do you rebuild with no manufacturing capacity remaining?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday September 15 2017, @06:40AM (1 child)
My post was about the claim that the planes already in the air would not be able to land.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Friday September 15 2017, @07:35AM
Was not my claim. I claim there wouldn't be a functioning system left. I am not sure of the percentage of fly-by-wire aircraft but those would just be totalled. I am pretty sure almost any aircraft except some Chinese and Russian military aircraft would drop out of the sky. Aircraft without much electronics would still work.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:37PM (4 children)
Yup...more or less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider [wikipedia.org]
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 1) by Demena on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:42PM (3 children)
No comparison. It still had its electronics I assume. Isn't a 767 a fly-by-wire aircraft? Without power it would be dead in the air.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:39PM (2 children)
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:25AM (1 child)
Point of this? It is irrelevant to what I said. If ypu consider that n economic model then you are just crazy. You are waffling irrelevantly to yourself only.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Friday October 06 2017, @05:04PM
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:35PM (2 children)
Install a "fuse"/circuit breaker every 20km or so of the grid.
Use underground cables.
Make every consumer generate its own power (PV, LPG fuel cells).
Use optical fiber communication.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
Management at hydro-Quebec was warned about this in the 70s'-80s.
Management laughed at the idea and the grid went down.
To my knowledge, NOTHING has been done to prevent a repeat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:05PM
You can't fix everything, but you can mitigate some problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm#Quebec_blackout [wikipedia.org]
Another Carrington even is going to hit Earth sooner or later. Just missed us few years ago ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859#Other_evidence_and_similar_events [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:48PM
The question is not if it will happen but when. Yes, eventually, we will have another Carrington Event. [wikipedia.org] It is inevitable. The real question is what we should do to prepare for that eventuality. While rewiring the entire national grid is just not practical, there are steps that can be taken to mitigate the damage. Deciding what are our priorities in protecting the power grid is for policy makers to decide. Better to have that discussion now, rather than wait until after disaster and chaos to make hasty decisions on the fly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:07PM (1 child)
An EMP blast generated by a nuke is not a small local effect by any measure of the word. Tests have knocked out power for thousands of square miles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse#Soviet_Test_184 [wikipedia.org]
It matters to me a lot more than whether one country beats another.
Anyway, war these days is more economic than military. It would take years to recover from economic collapse caused by a strong EMP.
They aren't "low-level". It's just a matter of time until we get unlucky and get hit with a big solar flare, and I really don't care if it's limited to one country or not. The internet is global, and the internet is a core component of the modern economy, and the internet is probably going to be in disarray for months if there's a big solar flare or an EMP attack.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:25PM
Zomg, thousands of square miles? Like, the size of a fairly normal-sized city?
It seems like it would be far more effective to just hit the city with the nuke.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:08AM (4 children)
The world will continue anyway unabated. So will humanity, even if a lot of us die. Humanity has survived without electricity before and will do so again. It won't be comfortable or easy for the majority, but then, it never has been.
You can't prevent every possible black swan event. That's kind of the power of it. To quote William Burroughs, "we are all in danger at all times, since our death exists". Perhaps we simply have to accept that cataclysm is possible, even if it isn't probable.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:36AM (3 children)
But all those who bet on Bitcoin as a post-apocalyptic currency will get problems.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:31PM (1 child)
As will the banks. They may even lose memory of my mortgage (along with anyone else's).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:40PM
Banks will only ever forget your assets, never your debts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:47PM
That's why I keep my keys in a paper wallet!!! Ha! Take that EMP!!! Oh.... wait.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Virindi on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:36AM (3 children)
There are a few scenarios like this that would devastate our ability to feed the population. A supervolcano eruption is another one.
The US government already has a large strategic petroleum reserve. Why do we not have a strategic food reserve? Some type of cheap high calorie material with a long shelf life. The government already buys tons of agricultural products just to manipulate prices, and yet there is no emergency stockpile designed to keep the population fed in the event of disaster. Instead a lot of those products are wasted or subsidies are paid to not produce the product in the first place. It is a huge wasted opportunity.
Of course, other governments should have this too. Nearly all western style countries play games with propping up agriculture, so they are all wasting the same opportunity.
For minimal additional cost over existing subsidies, civilization could have a food stockpile to survive what would otherwise kill billions.
(Score: 1) by Demena on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:46AM (2 children)
If you had a duster such that you need to distribute that reserve you would lack the transportation to deliver it to where it was needed. The nearest town might do well but anyone else?
(Score: 2) by fnj on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:50PM (1 child)
Poor trusting deceived soul. Do you know how much is in this "large reserve"? About 38 days' worth. But it can't be withdrawn that fast! It would take 158 days to get it all back out, pumping at capacity. And the reserve is raided all the time. Millions of barrels were sold off after Katrina, and during Arab Spring, and during Desert Storm. Millions of barrels have been wasted on debt reduction; not for any emergency!
The reserve is simple crude oil. It still has to be refined into product before it can be used for anything.
Pssst. It's a sick joke.
(Score: 1) by Demena on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:55PM
I think you replied to the wrong person. I'm with you. Significant EMP and everything stops working. You are back to making the tools to make the tools to....
(Score: 4, Informative) by pTamok on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:37AM (1 child)
The canonical 'big one' in recorded history is the 1859 'Carrington Event' [wikipedia.org], and a large CME in the same class missed the Earth in 2012 - the possibility is well known to disaster planners. The problem is like an asteroid strike: low probability, large effect, and humans are not very good at planning rationally for such events - human risk perception is flawed.
It is certainly possible to set up power grids to be able to survive such events, but the capital cost is high, so a power supplier that doesn't do this and risks being taken out completely by a CME can, in the short term, outcompete more conservative suppliers - so unless there is a government-enforced regulation to ensure all grid competing in a market are built to survive a CME event, it isn't going to happen. (This is an example of why I think there are markets where regulated capitalism is a better overall solution than unrestricted free-market capitalism.)
(Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:42AM
By the way, a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection [wikipedia.org]) event (Geo-magnetic storm [wikipedia.org]) and EMP ((Nuclear) Electro-Magnetic Pulse [wikipedia.org]) are two different things, and can have different effects on infrastructure. It is not helpful to conflate the two.
EMP effects include an initial brief high-voltage spikes induced in conductors (including electricity grid lines, copper/aluminum telecommunications lines, house wiring, and electronic PCB paths and components) which is hard and expensive to mitigate against - an ordinary surge protector won't work. The Wikipedia article links to a very good pdf prepared by Metatech for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory describing the possible effect Nuclear-bomb generated EMPs. [ferc.gov]
The document has some very good examples of electronics exposed to EMPs, and the arcing and other damage generated. It's good reading.
CMEs induce high DC currents in long conductors (like electricity grids and copper/aluminium telecommunications lines), and it is 'relatively' easy to build detectors and cut-out relays that protect against this - so you have no service while the CME occurs, but the relay can be re-set afterwards and you have a working system again. Short conductors don't get the high currents. Of course, if you don't disconnect the line, you get high DC currents going through things not designed for it, which tends to let out the magic smoke and require replacement, which takes longer than resetting a relay.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:22PM
The risks from geomagnetical storms on infrastructure [wikipedia.org] will mainly affect long length transmission lines, especially the aerial ones. This is very unlike atmospheric nuclear EMP [wikipedia.org], the latter will have fast varying components able to fry even small sized electronics.
In short, this is because the wavelength of such EM phenomena are long - the geomagnetic induced currents "are often described as being quasi direct current (DC), although the variation frequency of GIC is governed by the time variation of the electric field.".
As such, we'll probably see the main HV transformers blowing out, anything with lengths in the order of 10s of km showing some effects, but I'd be less worried about:
The effects will be more devastating for higher latitudes - Canada and the Scandinavian will feel such an event much stronger than Texas and Mexico.
Probably the transmission lines themselves will be OK once the transformers will blow up and the circuits open; remember? one of the results of using a transformer is the galvanic isolation of the two segments the transformer connects - overall voltage increase in one segment won;t be felt in the other. This also implies: as long as the current variation in one segment is slow enough (quasi-DC), the other segment won't feel it.
But... anything radio will go crazy - the long and medium RF wavelengths swallowed by geomagnetic induces currents, the short and microwaves by the increased activity in the ionosphere. GPS signals will be gone, but I reckon the GPS satellites may still be functional (if radiation hardened enough - the alpha particle flux will be yuuuge).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:01PM (4 children)
The answer to how the world would survive losing its electronics might be to ask Cro-Magnon man how he made do when his Twitter feed went down.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:20PM (3 children)
I don't think there were millions of Cro-Magnon men who had to be fed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:05PM (2 children)
There were a lot of them. But they were raised from day one in areas and lifestyles that matched the tech of the day.
An EMP near Vegas in summer would cause 99.9% of the population to die.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:53PM (1 child)
Only if there were no one in California or Utah who could hop in a car and go get them out. For everyone else, there's long pig [urbandictionary.com].
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @05:16PM
Sir, I have obtained for myself a quantity of long pig, and I am writing to you to request a copy of your plans for turning said long pig into a functioning air conditioning unit. Please reply ASAP.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:39PM (1 child)
There's a lot of misinformation in the comments and the original article is pretty breathless in the scenario it paints.
EMP "proof" isn't warranted and may not even really be possible. When Mother Nature gets into a real hissy fit, the energy involved is so great that humans just have to get out of the way. That said, there are a lot of things that can be done to make any reasonably expected event much less of an impact.
If you put resistances connected to ground in the high voltage transformers for long distance transmission lines, it greatly improves the size of storm they can survive without even shutting down. It shorts out common mode currents induced on the long distance lines that would overload the transformer at some part of the 60 Hz waveform (or 50 Hz for Europe) causing them to fail even though the average induced voltage is within their limits. Some of the modern transformers already have this. I'm not enough of a power transmission guru to know how difficult a retrofit this is on existing transformers. Even in that case, the cost is far less than the cost of the grid as some have posted. Many of our systems are already fairly EMP resistant since we design them to take lightning strikes which, though localized are of higher intensity than a geomagnetic storm or a Nuclear EMP. Airplanes, for example, will mostly be fine as pilots are trained in what to do when communications and navigation are out and the metal fuselage of most aircraft is effectively a Faraday cage. The plane will keep on flying. We have lightning strikes on airplanes pretty commonly and it doesn't take them down. Can you have problems? Sure. With little communications and navigation you can have ground collisions, poor approaches that lead to a crash, etc. etc. But most aircraft will be fine. Most automobiles will also be fine. They occasionally get struck by lightning and often keep running even with such a massive jolt and localized EMP. Again, the key is that the chassis and body is a Faraday cage and the internal systems are made to deal with a lot of electrical noise from the ignition system which means they are more resistant to even a big signal.
Secondly, we have sun observing satellites that gives us a warning before even the strongest events can reach earth. They're monitored by the network controllers and even with a fairly short warning, there is a lot that can be done to minimize damage. In the case of passenger aircraft, general calls by the various air traffic centers that tell the pilots to expect loss of communications and navigation will help greatly even with just a few minutes notice. EMP from a nuke is harder to warn about, but is also not a worldwide effect or as long lived as a Carrington event.
Much of the danger is policy rather than directly physics, because the minor fixes that would help aren't mandated (as mentioned in the original article), and because power providers are loath to shed load (shut down the systems). In some cases emergency shutdowns of a complex grid take a very long time to bring back up. The disruptions will be large, but not catastrophic
If there is a national policy that in the event of a Carrington class event, there's someone in authority to order a shutdown the power grid before the CME can arrive and keep it down until the worst of the storm subsides you can get through with pretty minor damage to the grid. But, you have to plan for it, and planning ahead is one thing H. Sapiens tends to put off too long.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:10PM
So to prevent civilization-level catastrophe, all we need to do in advance is see to it that there is an adequate supply of spare transformers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:56PM
It's okay, the US will just blame another country, craterize them, pat themselves on the back and feel better.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:54PM (4 children)
Internet routers and data centers are not what to worry about.
If the US were to lose electricity for even two weeks, society would completely break down into anarchy and riots. And nothing would stop it.
Consider.
First is the hardship of not having power. But you still have your car. Until it runs out of fuel. But there is the filling station. But it may not have electricity to pump fuel. And if it does, it will soon run out. And don't expect more deliveries anytime soon. Refineries are not all going to be running, if any. Fuel shortages will disrupt shipping of everything, including fuel.
And groceries.
When your local grocery store is picked clean, within a week or so, how do you think it is going to get re-stocked?
Nobody has food. That's a more immediate and primal problem than whether your internet works.
And water. Your local water tower will probably run out of water in three days or less. And no power to pump more water into the tower. And will your municipal water supply even provide clean water without power?
What about keeping warm in colder climates? Will people eventually turn to burning artwork?
Without utility power that we take for granted, thing will fall apart surprisingly quickly. No reassuring platitudes from politicians will stop it.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:17PM (3 children)
People get by during long power outages all the time. Hell, there are places where people get by with no power whatsoever(India comes to mind)
people are a lot more resilient than you might think. If the people in power make the right logistical decisions -- which I am very doubtful of -- things would turn out okay, and if they didn't they'd be removed shortly enough.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
Those people who get by without power are probably not in a dense population center. They are probably somewhat self sufficient as far as food and water supply.
In a city, not so much.
Even a small city.
Also, you're saying people get by during long power outages -- probably because food, water, drugs and other necessities can be shipped in -- supported by working infrastructure elsewhere.
What I described was if the entire US (or perhaps a very large part of the US) were to lose utility power for weeks.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:02PM (1 child)
I experienced the 2003 blackout in New York City. A giant triangle of outage covered the Northeast. It was summer. It took them days to restore power. Millions of people had to walk home at once. There were no riots or looting. People didn't panic. They handled it. Ice cream shops gave their ice cream away. People checked on their elderly neighbors. Everyone helped out strangers.
So it was possible for people to enjoy the unexpected benefits of having no electricity. BBQs on the roof and being able to see the Milky Way over Manhattan.
Life, even modern life, can continue without electricity if it has to.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 18 2017, @07:07PM
That is encouraging to hear. I suspect that there was a universal expectation that the power would be restored in a short time. That the power loss condition was not permanent, or at least not long term (eg, months)
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by insanumingenium on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:39PM (1 child)
So you are telling me that this CME (mass, so it should be sublight speed) traveled faster than the speed of light (we are ~8 light minutes from the sun)?
Looks like the CME took 3 1/2 days to reach us, which is conveniently inside the textbook range of 40-80 hours.
The James Bay Network wend down in "under 90 seconds" according to wikipedia. Perhaps this is what you had in mind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:11PM
The damage was done within 92 seconds of the CME's arrival.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @12:27AM (2 children)
American author William R. Forstchen has written (now) three novels detailing what could happen after America loses it's electronics to EMP. Although fictional, the series of consequences have been thoughtfully extrapolated. Things get bad pretty quick, and truly savage before long.
One Second After (2009), One Year After (2015), and The Final Day (2017).
Recommend reading the first one to understand what hell on earth awaits. It starts, as the title suggests, one second after "the EMP event" and follows a few months thereafter. The second book is more speculative, yet believable, and picks up the story one year after the EMP. Haven't read the third one yet.
Forstchen's website for the trilogy: http://www.onesecondafter.com/ [onesecondafter.com]
More about the author at Wikipedia https://wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Forstchen [wikipedia.org]. He didn't just blindly make stuff up, rather "Forstchen based his research for One Second After on the 2004 bipartisan Congressional study of the potential threat to the continental United States from an EMP attack: Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. A second report to Congress was released in 2008 with a similar conclusion that such an attack could inflict massive damage on the nation's infrastructure and result in a nationwide casaulty rate as high as 90%."
(Score: 1) by ground on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:26PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @05:50PM
Had not heard of those before... will have to add them to my reading list. Thanks!