New Scientist describes a “Carrington Event”, a large blast of plasma from the sun that, after hitting the Earth’s atmosphere, blows out the power grid and most of our electronics:
IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation’s infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event – a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.
If I recall correctly, the last Carrington event of note was connected with the TV show, “Dallas”.
It also has similar repercussions.
Pretty scary.
One thing did occur to me though: is there any way to build large arrays of wires in very northern areas and use them to generate electricity? If it can melt transformers couldn’t it be used for energy? I know it would be irregular but so are wind, solar and tidal.
Time to line my apartment with a Faraday Cage…
the electrical grid goes dead and half a year later millions are dead through chaos??
you misunderestimate hamster power, lab coat.
This is fucking terrifying.
Can transformers be built with fast protection shunt or somesuch to prevent their rapid melty death?