Is a 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing?

pilsner.urquell writes "A newly released NASA report warns that the world has forgotten the power of the sun, creating a technological society susceptible like never before to large infrastructure damage from solar storms. According to the report, the world has grown so dependent on modern technologies without respect of what the sun can and has done, that it's risking major communications, finance, transportation, government and even emergency services disruptions."

Comments

I know the solution

[alexj33]

Space Carbon Credits are the answer. Make the check out to me.

Re:I know the solution

[beckerist]

I have an honest question:
How many people here truly think that if there were an anomaly that they would be able to survive without
A) Electricity
B) A grocery store
C) Modern medicine -and most importantly-
D) Fresh (clean) water

I know for a fact that I'd safely have A, B and D. I live in the woods anyway, huge garden, plenty of animals to slaughter for tasty bbq and we have a very high water-table with multiple ponds around. Not the cleanest but I'd figure out a way to survive.
I'm just wondering about statistics here.

Re:I know the solution

[mulvane]

What do you do when people with guns realize this and force you off your land? I had the same thing at my last place, including 4K of windpower and 2K of solar backed by enough batteries to last me through 3 days. Everything that could be gas was gas. 800gal propane tank. What was I to do when that ran out? Someone would find out I was living comfy and then more people would decide they need what I had more than me.

Re:I know the solution

[MikeDirnt69]

E) Pr0n

Re:I know the solution

[Rob Riggs]

WRT to item C on your list: birth control pills. It would be a completely different world without that medical wonder. Suddenly having hundreds of millions more fertile women in this world would cause lots o' problems.

Re:I know the solution

[XxtraLarGe]

Just to make sure that doesn't happen, you should get yourself some guns too. Plus, back in days before electricity, they had governments that supposedly stopped this type of thing from happening in most instances.

Re:I know the solution

[wtansill]

WRT to item C on your list: birth control pills. It would be a completely different world without that medical wonder. Suddenly having hundreds of millions more fertile women in this world would cause lots o' problems.

This is Slashdot. No one here has any reason to worry about impregnating fertile women.

Re:I know the solution

[Zerth]

Suddenly having hundreds of millions more fertile women in this world would cause lots o' problems.

.

We'll still have boots and stairs, right?

Seriously, though, we'd probably go back to what we used to do: tansy & other poisons mild enough that they'll kill the baby before they kill the mother(if you're lucky).

Re:I know the solution

[afabbro]

WRT to item C on your list: birth control pills. It would be a completely different world without that medical wonder. Suddenly having hundreds of millions more fertile women in this world would cause lots o' problems.

Hardly. The vast, vast majority of women on this planet (measured in billions) do not use any form of birth control. A few percentage points' worth more would make zero difference.

Re:I know the solution

[mulvane]

If it came down to a large scale problem over an elapsed time, you really think the current government would maintain power? We live in an age where military movement and political decisions happen quickly because of technology. Any break down in that would most likely result in anarchy. If not nation wide, locally through the country. And yeah, you can get guns, but how do you stop a mob with guns? I hope you planned an underground bunker with hydroponics too, and provided yourself with at least a 1K geothermal generator.

Re:I know the solution

[Veggiesama]

How many people here truly think that if there were an anomaly that they would be able to survive...

I live in the woods anyway, huge garden, plenty of animals to slaughter for tasty bbq and we have a very high water-table with multiple ponds around. Not the cleanest but I'd figure out a way to survive.

Oh, please don't turn this into a zombie apocalypse survivalist fantasy! Yes, yes, your supply of canned goods and guns are going to ensure your survival, while all of us are going to die miserably. Whatever helps you sleep at night!

Re:I know the solution

[Reziac]

I've lived rough -- no electric, no running water, if I wanted heat I had to chop wood, if I wanted dinner I had to hie myself to the river and catch it. The problem is that now we have too many people for the land to support in that way. I'd be fine, but what the majority would do ... probably riot.

Re:I know the solution

[Lumpy]

I can. I know how to make all of the above.

A,B,D are easy.

C is easy with knowledge. I can make my own antibiotics, which is the BIGGEST thing to have. There are also many natural antibiotics out there as well. no "crisis" kit is complete without the military survival handbooks in them.

Besides, if the Crap hit the fan, looting a pharmacy is top on my list. Hard powder pills stay food for at least 5-7 years contrary to what the pharmacy and drug companys want you to know.

Back in microbiology classes I did a paper on that. got my hands on some 10 year old penicillin pills and some new ones. ground up both and measured the kill capacity of both in a medium. they were still identical.

Re:I know the solution

[tkohler]

See Connections, Episode 1: "The Trigger Effect". James Burke is relevant today as it was in 1978. Episode Summary.

Re:I know the solution

[Lumpy]

you have bigger and more guns

if it all goes to hell, human savagery will come out in spades.

Re:I know the solution

[ChienAndalu]

WRT to item C on your list: birth control pills. It would be a completely different world without that medical wonder. Suddenly having hundreds of millions more fertile women in this world would cause lots o' problems.

Not on /.

Re:I know the solution

[Have Brain Will Rent]

"Farnham's Freehold" has the answer to that question. It's been a long time so that spelling might be a little off but I don't think so.

Re:I know the solution

[beckerist]

I live in the middle of the woods and I'm a registered NRA member. I do believe that we got to a point where I could no longer trust the government with my security, and would much rather be able to survive than feel "safe." I can most certainly protect my assets.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

In a world without electricity to run our factories and machines, the extra hands might actually solve more problems than it creates. Not to mention the other benefits of children.

Re:I know the solution

[beckerist]

Politics would change, sure. Anarchy? Maybe, but at some point you take on the people you can support (and require for defense, labor, etc...)

All I'm really saying is that while I have the means, even I don't really have a plan. Who does?

Re:I know the solution

[xaositects]

if you can figure out how to make insulin, i'll come hang out at your place during this apocalyptic scenario and help you kill the chaosmen.

Re:I know the solution

[kdemetter]

And yeah, you can get guns, but how do you stop a mob with guns?

Well , you could shoot them. Or you could make your house such a fortress that they can't get in , even with weapons. Eventually they will shoot each other.

Re:I know the solution

[mikehoskins]

Where do you even get a small geothermal generator (1 KW in your example)?

So far, I find nothing on Google about said machines, except whitepapers for experimental models.

Are there companies that specialize in this, and if so, what kind of costs are involved, provided you have the land, zoning, geothermal conditions, etc.?

I, for one, am interested.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn how to build a water filter out of something like a canvas dufflebag(mobile) or empty water jugs(at home). If you have wood and a fireplace you can stay warm and boil water. If you live outside the city wild game is usually plentiful if you count birds and treerats, but obtaining clean water is the big deal for short term survival.

I'd have to start hiking/canoeing and camping to get outside of the city though. The food supply in a major city is pretty much whatever is in your larder plus whatever you can buy on day 0 minus looters. There won't be water pressure without a power grid. Survival (barring accident or violence) isn't a problem for me as the river is only a mile away and runs all the way to the gulf. Though the Chattahoochee is a filthy river south of Atlanta and I'd avoid eating the fish in it until Columbus I know how to make potable water and how to hunt/trap.

Re:I know the solution

[pitchpipe]

Suddenly having hundreds of millions more fertile women in this world would cause lots o' problems.

I, for one, would risk it.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a sustainable setup you might consider quietly volunteering it to some of the local authorities (say the sheriff or a local officer in the national guard or something) as a possible HQ in times of trouble. Be a volunteer sheriff's deputy? Maybe let your close neighbors know your door was open to them. A house full of friends, preferably armed, might cramp your style but it would be better than going it alone.

I was a volunteer deputy for a few years and it was expensive as the prerequisite was providing my own materials at personal expense. I had a 4 wheeler and got to do crowd control a couple of times.

Re:I know the solution

[JoshHeitzman]

If your home is actually a house and not an underground bunker, it isn't going to keep out an armed group. Castles and fortresses were completely negated by modern weaponry. Also that armed group may well be fully equipped and disciplined soliders coming to confiscate your supplies for the "greater good", not some random group of people. Not to mention that keeping them out of your house won't keep them from pillaging your crops, water supply, and taking your exterior generator.

Re:I know the solution

[JoshHeitzman]

More guns aren't useful if you don't have any more allies to actually shoot them.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

All of your "plenty of animals to slaughter" will be in your neighbors' freezers or turned into jerky within a couple of weeks. What do you do after that? This is the main thing overlooked by people who hunt because they think the skill will be useful when civilization ends. Given the probable number of people hunting for food, all animals will be eradicated almost immediately.

Re:I know the solution

[celtic_hackr]

I have guns and bullets. I'm an experienced hunter. I know survival skills. I know how to purify water and have the necessary equipment to do it with, none of which requires electricity or a grocery store or any store. I'll be able to survive, having done it in the past. So to answer your question, those of us with guns and the brains to use them, and of course all the bad people who know how to take from others by inflicting fear, pain and/or death will survive.
That's actually a pretty big percentage. So a great many will survive. There's always looting left for those who are less skilled. In fact, I think you'd be amazed at how resourceful even stupid people are at survival.

Re:I know the solution

[phulegart]

You did not have an honest question... you had a loaded question.

How many people live in Central Falls, RI? as of 2000, 18,928. Why is this important? Because the City is 1.29 square miles in size. That's right. Roughly one mile on a side. Almost twenty thousand people living in one square mile. How many people live in a square mile up around where you live? You think the residents of Central Falls can grow their own food there, slaughter their own cattle there, and in general survive like you intend to? Because THOSE statistics say that you are 1 in 18928 that will survive an Anomaly relatively unscathed.

So you are just wondering what the statistics are? http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/files/2000/chap07.pdf Start with this. 46% of all housing units are in Suburban areas. Another 30% are in central cities. That leaves 24% located outside of metropolitan areas... like yours. Meaning that as of 1999, 24% of the US lived in rural areas like yours that would support that independent life style. So, roughly 24% wouldn't have major issues in the event of a major Anomaly... at first... because as has already been pointed out, some percentage would then seek out to take what that 24% had for themselves... and I'm willing to bet that a Majority of that unknown percentage would be more aggressive about taking, than the majority of the 24% would be about keeping.

Re:I know the solution

[shokk]

There is only one solution. We must become zombies and feed off the brains of the ones responsible for ignoring the power of the sun.

Or building a society that is either independent of modern technologies.
Or shielding so heavily that we become mole people.

Seriously, the zombie scenario sounds more fun.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

if I wanted heat I had to chop wood, if I wanted dinner I had to hie myself to the river and catch it.

Why wouldn't you want heat and dinner?

Re:I know the solution

[shokk]

Nothing that a wall built of baby corpses couldn't solve!

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey- fat women need lovin' too.

Re:I know the solution

[infonography]

Been tried by Chief Martian scientist AlGor Until Xenu Rove stole all the credits during the G0WB-ush administration.

Re:I know the solution

[Reziac]

An AC remarks, "Why =wouldn't= you want heat and dinner?"

Well, I suppose if I'd previously frozen or starved, I'd have no further interest in either subject ;)

Re:I know the solution

[infonography]

I live in the city where there are plenty of animals to slaughter for tasty bbq. Or has Hannibal Lector is fond of referring to them as 'Free Range Rude'.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. Does "more fertile" somehow mean "good looking" here on Slashdot? You know, "before 6 beers, after 6 beers".

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people who live out of the city have guns (plural) and ammunition for the same. You did notice the comment about eating cute fuzzy critters, did you not?

Re:I know the solution

[zobier]

Or if you already had a fire and had just eaten, want has multiple meanings (syn: desire; lack).

Why are we even discussing what some anonymous retard said anyway!?

Re:I know the solution

[koona]

I for one.

Getta "medicine for mountaineers" and a few good herbal medicine books for C.

"Modern" medicine isn't even appropriate for post modern" times.

Now is later than you think.

Re:I know the solution

[ElectricTurtle]

... and I'm willing to bet that a Majority of that unknown percentage would be more aggressive about taking, than the majority of the 24% would be about keeping.

That 24% knows more about the practical use and upkeep of firearms than the other 76%. They're better shots too. During the World War 2 a German was speaking with a Swiss about how their armed forces were twice the size of the entire Swiss population. "What would you be able to do if we invaded?" he asked. The Swiss replied, "We would shoot twice and go home."

Have you ever watched a line of old gunnies shoot trap? If they can hit 25 out of 25 3" discs at random angles round after round, what short work do you think they could make of a mob of dumb punks who if they ever held a gun in their lives probably did so sideways so that they could look more 'gangsta'?

Rural people know shoot more accurately over longer ranges, they know how to hunt and stalk, they can load their own ammunition from raw materials, and they know how to clean and maintain their weapons. Hell, some urbanite who decided to arm themselves the day after disaster would be up shit creek the first time their gun jammed, and because they don't know how much less have the equipment to clean their guns that would happen with increasing frequency if a breakdown of order lasted for long.

My bet would definitely be on the rural people against anything but trained and equipped regulars of the armed forces, and even then I'm not so sure.

Re:I know the solution

[innerweb]

My thoughts as well. Maybe it is time to add production of insulin to the survivalists handbook. Look at the huge number of people who are dependent upon it. One of two things would happen. They would either loose enough weight to become not dependent, or they would die. Probably the latter. That would solve many problems, but I don't like the idea of dying that way myself.

Hmm.. Time for me to do some studying up on insulin production and to convert my tin foil hat to a camo design.

InnerWeb

Re:I know the solution

[omfglearntoplay]

I probably wouldn't last long at my current house. But first thing I'd do is pack up to move in with the folks back home.

And as far as too many people for the land to support, well that's true. If you don't eat other people. I figure the highly populated areas, the cities, will take care of thinning out the population just fine. And country folk have lots of guns... like lots... to defend themselves.

Re:I know the solution

[5KVGhost]

What problems? If our the world's infrastructure suddenly crashed we'd have a bunch of people dead, and many, many more dying every day from untreated disease and violence. Lots of new babies would be the last thing I'd consider a "problem".

Re:I know the solution

[phulegart]

Well, not to shoot holes in what you believe to be fact...

But I grew up in a rural area... had horses, farmed land... that kind of stuff. My Dad was in the Military. He had Guns. He couldn't hit the broadside of our barn... it took him two shots once to put a puppy out if it's misery when it had been hit by a car. My Grandfather (moms side) lived a 5 minute walk up the street. He was a Vet too. He couldn't shoot worth a damn. In fact, plenty of people in the surrounding area had guns, and few could shoot well. So whose facts trump whose?

Those who forget history, are doomed to repeat it.

What happens when you surround a small force with an overwhelming number of attackers? The small force, unless it has a way to destroy the attackers en masse, loses. Let me put it another way. Jim Jones and his boys want to protect his farm and the food he has. 1000 people from the city armed with torches, light arms, and makeshift weapons are there to take what they can.

You think that Farmer Jones and his sons are gonna hold off the attackers? Sure, you live in a movie.. I live on Earth.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an honest question:
How many people here truly think that if there were an anomaly that they would be able to survive without
A) Electricity
B) A grocery store
C) Modern medicine -and most importantly-
D) Fresh (clean) water

I know for a fact that I'd safely have A, B and D. I live in the woods anyway, huge garden, plenty of animals to slaughter for tasty bbq and we have a very high water-table with multiple ponds around. Not the cleanest but I'd figure out a way to survive.
I'm just wondering about statistics here.

I have an honest question:
How many people here truly think that if there were an anomaly that they would be able to survive without
A) Electricity
B) A grocery store
C) Modern medicine -and most importantly-
D) Fresh (clean) water

I know for a fact that I'd safely have A, B and D. I live in the woods anyway, huge garden, plenty of animals to slaughter for tasty bbq and we have a very high water-table with multiple ponds around. Not the cleanest but I'd figure out a way to survive.
I'm just wondering about statistics here.

I was taught to be prepared for bad times and it sounds like you are a true survivor but those that don't have the right stuff to make it.I think the world can go on without them.Now doing without internet may be too much for me.

Re:I know the solution

[ElectricTurtle]

Well, anecdotes don't trump anecdotes. I'm sure there are some less skilled rural folks and some surprisingly adept urbanites. Hell I was born and raised in a suburb of Seattle, only by pure chance did I end up in a family whose patriarch was a champion trap shooter.

Speaking of forgetting history, really, you think the small force always loses? That skill, determination, and sometimes familiarity with the terrain count for nothing? Have you ever heard of Finland's Winter War? A more experienced, better organized and more determined force held out against an onslaught that outnumbered them 4 to 1 and had metric fucktons more air and armored support. What about the seige of Bastogne? The Americans held out for month, outnumbered and surrounded, and the men of the 101st at Bastogne to this day maintain that they didn't even need the help they were sent. What about Constantinople? Seiged over and over, generation after generation it resisted numerically superior forces for centuries. Same with Gibraltar.

Re:I know the solution

[phulegart]

There is a vast difference between believing that the smaller force ALWAYS loses, and believing that the probability is that the smaller force would lose. I'd expect you to recognize that, and I'm disappointed that you did not. It is far likelier that a small family defending a farm would lose what they have to a mob of angry, hungry urbanites... than it is that a small family defending a farm would be victorious at driving away the attackers and still keep what they had (and not lose it to collateral damage). All it takes is one person to drive a car through the farmhouse... then where are the defenders?

I'm not forgetting history. You are forgetting the countless battles where a superior force (in number, or in training, or in position) crushed a much smaller force. History is carpeted with examples of such. I'm glad you could find specific examples where a well trained, well disciplined, well DEFENDED and POSITIONED force could hold out for an Extended period of time. Why not actually attempt to see this from the other side.. and do the research that shows how much of a minority those battles are, considering the majority of battles that did not work out nearly as well for the inferior force. I'm not going to do the research for you. Why? Because if you think that the majority of battles out there were won by inferior forces... this discussion is pointless.

Sure... in this hypothetical situation, Jim Jones might indeed hold off his attackers. But the family farms of Bob Bobson, Jack Johnson, Bill Hardy, Frank Poulton, Carl Roberts, Tim Mason, Phil Carter, and Steve Wilson would fall. I'll acknowledge that there ARE farmers and the like out there that could defend themselves... that does not detract from the fact that there are MORE farmers out there who could NOT defend themselves.

And let's not forget the VAST number of Trained Military Personnel out there living in METROPOLITIAN areas who are going to need food, and they know where the farms and compounds are going to be, and they have extensive training in how to seige and get to those farms and compounds... so we got Jim Johnson and his boys, up against the 101st Airborne... because the Army is no more, and Airborne has to eat. Still think the Farmers with the rifles are gonna hold off the hungry hordes? Man, I wish I could live in your fantasy.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So you'd win most of the time. But if you had to fight a battle like that every day--and you would, if civilization collapsed--eventually you would lose. You wouldn't be fine--it'd suck to be you also.

Re:I know the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, without TV there gonna be a LOT of new babies!

Re:I know the solution

[Reziac]

This is slashdot -- we have nothing better to talk about! ;)

Re:I know the solution

[rickwood]

Castles and fortresses were completely negated by modern artillery and war machines. A decent fortification would be an immense advantage against a mob armed with pistols and rifles. Just sayin'.

pilsner.urquell?

[larry bagina]

I read that quickly and had a brief fear that zombie roalnd piquepioele was still submitting stories :(

Endangered Species Act...

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Make the check out to me.

Manbearpig has a different idea.

finance

[thhamm]

"... risking major ... finance, ... disruptions."

who needs the sun for that?

Re:finance

[oldspewey]

I'm beginning to think that in general, modern society is a Perfect Storm factory.

Re:finance

[Anonymous Coward]

"... risking major ... finance, ... disruptions."

who needs the sun for that?

While I don't know exactly how he did this, its Bush's fault...

Re:finance

[ShieldW0lf]

I'm beginning to think that in general, modern society is a Perfect Storm factory.

Can you think of any intersections between A) groups who might be in a position to guide modern society that way, B) groups who might want society to end up that way, and C) groups who are positioning themselves to thrive in the aftermath?

If you were given the opportunity to shape society to prevent such a thing, how would you live? How would you govern yourself if you were trying to systematically disenfranchise people with such goals without having the capacity to point them out? What systems, what supporting technology would you need to make such a lifestyle achievable by your neighbours?

This is our world, our birthright. We shouldn't have to revert to individual survialism and live with a prejudicial fear of systems and each other. We are capable of better, and we should stand up and take responsibility for ourselves. It's our failure to do so that makes these sorts of nightmare scenarios possible.

Re:finance

[Ihmhi]

See? Manufacturing in America isn't dead at all!

Another fine mess...

[brouski]

We're all going to DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!

Re:Another fine mess...

[pitchpipe]

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Re:Another fine mess...

[Anonymous Coward]

We're all going to DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!

True. It's just that some people are in denial or entertain some kind of eternal life fantasy so they might get all worked up over a story like this.

Re:Another fine mess...

[Matheus]

Have all scientists been reading my books? I swear I pick up some paperback and next thing you know the event in the story is being broadcast to the world as the next big thing.

Read the book Sun Storm (after reading it's predecessor Time's Eye of course.. they are kind of a part 1/part 2 pair) By Arthur C. Clark. The first book is really cool in a "Let's collide a bunch of civilizations from throughout history and see what happens" kind of way. Sun Storm is about exactly that.. a sun storm. Lots of Sci Fi reality goodness and a good storyline as well. Of course in his book the storm is not random :)

Re:Another fine mess...

[MikeDirnt69]

Most important: Do the characters survive?

Re:Another fine mess...

[Oktober Sunset]

No, just the black people.

Re:Another fine mess...

[Have Brain Will Rent]

Nothing weird about dogs and cats living together... you know, as long as it's platonic and everything *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

Rather dramatic

[DeadPixels]

"Space Katrina" sounds rather dramatic, but wouldn't the atmosphere lessen the damage? Granted, it's still a valid concern that should be considered, but TFA seems like it's a bit more "doomsday" and a little less "this could happen".

Re:Rather dramatic

[Jeoh]

Space Katrina? I didn't know we had levies in space.

Re:Rather dramatic

[TheKidWho]

The damage comes about from EM radiation overloading the power grid. The atmosphere isn't going to do much to stop that.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Todd Knarr]

It wouldn't. The damage isn't from the particle cloud itself, it's from the ripples it sets up in the Earth's magnetosphere. This makes the magnetic field move relative to any conductors (like power lines and circuit traces) in it. That causes an electric current to be induced in the conductor. The atmosphere doesn't affect the magnetic field at all, so it won't provide any protection from the disturbance.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Bender0x7D1]

Lessen? Yes. Could it still be catastrophic? Yes.

First, every satellite would be "down". That means no GPS. No communication satellites. No weather satellites.

Second, a violent storm can overload the power grid. Which means days without electricity - assuming important components aren't overloaded and destroyed.

Third, cell phones, radios and other wireless devices could go down. Your home network will probably be fine. But forget using your 3G phone for anything. Your cordless phone will probably be OK to call emergency services but they won't be able to get them on the radio to tell them where to go.

So, as long as you don't depend on modern technology, you should be fine.

Re:Rather dramatic

[dtolman]

Think the report is kidding around? Go lookup what happened in Quebec on March 13th, 1989. The whole power system was knocked out in seconds. Then go read about the kind of storm they're worried about - the solar storm of 1859.

It actually caused telegraph wires to short out across Europe and the Americas - some even caught on fire. If that happened now, it would cause global power outages, fried computer equipment (including the ones that control your fancy electronic car), and everything except for milsats in orbit could be knocked out.

So will people be directly killed? No. But when the fly-by-wire planes fall out of the sky, your new car won't work, your cell phones are dead, power is dead, the internet is down, and landlines fried - I bet it won't take long for a lot of people to die anyway.

Re:Rather dramatic

[dtolman]

Did I mention cars? Forget that - I was getting over excited there...

Re:Rather dramatic

[Timothy Brownawell]

Third, cell phones, radios and other wireless devices could go down. Your home network will probably be fine. But forget using your 3G phone for anything. Your cordless phone will probably be OK to call emergency services but they won't be able to get them on the radio to tell them where to go.

No, landline phones have really long wires, so they'd have the same problems as the power grid. Wireless would probably actually be OK until the batteries ran down, I think modern schemes are fairly noise resistant.

Re:Rather dramatic

[MatthewCCNA]

your cell phones are dead, power is dead, the internet is down, and landlines fried - I bet it won't take long for a lot of people to die anyway.

The survivors will envy the dead.

Re:Rather dramatic

[TheKidWho]

This would give a good incentive for switching over to fiber optics!

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Power outages, fried computer equipment (including the ones that control your fancy electronic car), and everything except for milsats in orbit could be knocked out??? Obviously they couldn't live without these things and this led to the ultimate demise of the dinosaurs.

Re:Rather dramatic

[khallow]

We also have to keep in mind that telegraph wires back then weren't protected like power lines are now. My take is that power systems would go down in most of the world. And then the ones that aren't constructed to 1859 telegraph standards would eventually come back up when the storm ended and broken pieces were fixed.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Gordonjcp]

your new car won't work

Makes me glad I have an old and almost gratuitously non-electronic car. I might switch back to the diesel version I had before - I've driven that with no working electrics of any kind. Probably not a great idea, not having brake lights, but needs must.

Re:Rather dramatic

[freddy_dreddy]

Is it achievable to harvest this scale of induced current ?

Re:Rather dramatic

[mcgrew]

Third, cell phones, radios and other wireless devices could go down. Your home network will probably be fine. But forget using your 3G phone for anything. Your cordless phone will probably be OK to call emergency services but they won't be able to get them on the radio to tell them where to go.

It won't affect terrestrial radio, only satellite communications. If you can call 911 then they have power, if they have power their radios will work. Cell phones won't work well if at all, you'll likely not have any long distance phone service at all.

It won't bring us back to the stone age, only back to about 1960. It will be an inconvinience, not the end of the world.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Timothy Brownawell]

It actually caused telegraph wires to short out across Europe and the Americas - some even caught on fire. If that happened now, it would cause global power outages, fried computer equipment (including the ones that control your fancy electronic car), and everything except for milsats in orbit could be knocked out.

Power outages, yes.

Fried computers, only if they're plugged in. And even that's questionable, since I'm pretty sure there are surge protectors now that are good enough to protect things from lightning strikes on the power lines.

Things in orbit, might actually include military stuff (unless they use vacuum tubes or something). The problem here isn't the magnetic fields, it's the charged particles. A transistor can only take so many hits from charged particles before it breaks (depends on how big it is),so the questions are "how old are their chips" and "how many particles/cm^2/s might there be".

Re:Rather dramatic

[rhyder128k]

At least we'll be able to shoot some politicians into space so that they can show their concern.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Windows_NT]

although i didnt RTFA, i would believe they're alluding to the 'storm' damaging satellites. this just makes me think that if the sun is going to attack, we need to retaliate .. Set all phaser from stun, TO KILL! Mr. Spock, beam me down a six pack!

Re:Rather dramatic

[ultranova]

We also have to keep in mind that telegraph wires back then weren't protected like power lines are now.

Modern power lines aren't protected at all. They are naked steel cables. Of course that also means that they are unlikely to be damaged unless actually heated red-hot, but the transformers ? Each and every one of them will get the equivalent of a lightning strike simultaneously.

Oh, and of course a solar storm might continue for a while, making the magnetic field go back and forth, so make that multiple lightning strikes - a virtual thunderstorm.

Re:Rather dramatic

[profplump]

Long distance phone service is almost exclusively fiber optic. There is no reason it would be down.

Re:Rather dramatic

[HungryHobo]

Sure but the power station would never make back even a tiny fraction of it's construction costs.
It's like building a power plant to harvest the power of lightening strikes.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Thanshin]

I bet it won't take long for a lot of people to die anyway.

I suppose you replaced "everyone" with "a lot of people" to take into account vampires.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me glad I have a gratuitously non-electric bicycle! I might switch back to the horse I had before -- I've driven that with no working electrics of any kind. Probably not a great idea, not having brake lights, but needs must.

Re:Rather dramatic

[tsstahl]

1975 called for the return of it's infrastructure. :)

Re:Rather dramatic

[tha_toadman]

Yes, I heard that Quebec was pretty bad but you know, planes falling out of the sky would require pilots not paying attention and as for the on-board computers that control our vehicles, heaven forbid, we'd have to ride bicyles... So to recap, pilots will fly manually, we can ride bikes, who cares about your cell phone..that's probably a blessing to most people, there was life before the internet, and landlines...the only person probably crying in their grave would be Pa Bell. Life would really suck, but we'd get thru it.

Re:Rather dramatic

[dtolman]

For the computers - a long event could be equivelant to dozens of lightning strikes over a short period of time, as power surges unpredictably - not just once, but many many times. Can modern equipment handle that (honest question - I have no idea)? Unless everyone takes the time to unplug from the grid during the event (which I doubt most businesses and homes would do), it'll all be vulnerable.

Are the milsats just as vulnerable to that type of flux damage? Aren't they supposed to be better shielded against higher levels of EM damage and incoming high energy particles (like say, from a nuke going off nearby)?

Re:Rather dramatic

[Alioth]

It's unlikely it would affect cars and planes and personal computers. The telegraph lines had problems because they are very, very long, and a large current could be induced into such long conductors. Long telecoms lines now are fibre optic. You won't induce any current in them. The wires in your car are short, and in any case, well shielded, so large currents will not be induced in them. It may cause temporary power outages because power lines tend to be long conductors in which large currents can be induced, but protection systems should prevent permanent damage to power distribution networks in most cases.

Re:Rather dramatic

[gad_zuki!]

Once a surge protector trips, its off until its manually reset. So anything after the first surge shouldnt matter, assuming surge protectors actually do what they claim to do.

Re:Rather dramatic

[mcgrew]

Some of it, yes, but much long distance service is by satellite. You'd probably not have any trouble calling from California to texas, but Amsterdam to Texas likely would give you trouble.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

And when GPS goes down, the trains can't run because their doors are set to open automatically according to which station they are at (platforms are on different sides)... (this has happened already!) and manual override would screw up the timetables.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Timothy Brownawell]

For the computers - a long event could be equivelant to dozens of lightning strikes over a short period of time, as power surges unpredictably - not just once, but many many times. Can modern equipment handle that (honest question - I have no idea)? Unless everyone takes the time to unplug from the grid during the event (which I doubt most businesses and homes would do), it'll all be vulnerable.

Don't know, but I'd expect that a design goal would be for power protection to fail as an open circuit if overloaded so you end up with eg an inch of vaporized wire in the path to your equipment and a half or quarter inch air gap from input to ground. Not that I know if they actually do this...

Are the milsats just as vulnerable to that type of flux damage? Aren't they supposed to be better shielded against higher levels of EM damage and incoming high energy particles (like say, from a nuke going off nearby)?

They most likely are shielded against EM, but I don't think you can shield against particle radiation (I mean, you can on the ground, but lead plates are probably impractical in space). I'd expect that they would use chips with a larger process size to make them more robust, the question is just how that compares to the number of particles, and how the extra expense of custom chips compares to the cost of keeping a few extra replacements ready on the ground.

Re:Rather dramatic

[freddy_dreddy]

The lack of power in lightning is due to its short duration, does this compare to this effect of the change in the magnetic field? I'm eager to know what the frequency of the voltage would be, and how this relates to the length of the lines. Just a guess here: is the speed at which the magnetic field moves the same as the speed of the charged volume that displaces it ?

Re:Rather dramatic

[FTWinston]

Two words: Food distribution

Re:Rather dramatic

[taskiss]

So, after looking up what happened in Quebec, I'm left with the question - Why was only Quebec affected this way? I mean, what about the rest of the freaking globe... why didn't the "whole power system" of Alaska, for instance, go down? They're about the same size, about the same latitude, etc. Even so, the outage was only 8-9 hours.

You posit "if that happened now..." with totally unsupported assertions...

I bet you believe in higw, don't you.

Re:Rather dramatic

[darkstar949]

Well, you still have the issue of modern airframes being completely fly-by-wire. If the plane was using hydraulic or mechanical controls then it should be fine, but anything using fly-by-wire is going to be having issues if the electronics get knocked out.

Re:Rather dramatic

[dtolman]

Really? We're about to implement a system where we put more people than ever in the air, thanks to GPS systems and shorter distances between aircraft. When the grid and GPS go down at once, I'm sure they'll all get down safely.

As for the rest - you been to Vegas lately? Millions of people just waiting for a power outage or a water shortage to wipe them off the map. We've been stuffing millions of people into tiny areas across the globe over the past century, that are not friendly to human habitation - let alone high density habitation, that require long distance transportation of essentials - water, food, etc. Its not sustainable without modern technology (modern being, post electricity).

Re:Rather dramatic

[OolimPhon]

Confused: levies != levees

Re:Rather dramatic

[jonfr]

Please check the NOAA solar storm warning levels. They explain how far back to the stone age we will go when a big (X level solar flare) is going to hit the Earth.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/index.html#GeomagneticStorms

On the communications. It is not just satellite communications that will get disrupted. But also HF, UHF and other type of communication. Your GSM (2G or 3G really doesn't matter) might work, but then it might not work. It is any body's guess.

People might be out of power for days or weeks in the worst case.

Re:Rather dramatic

[lysergic.acid]

then i guess we just need to boost the Earth's magnetic field.

perhaps we can build a large electric pipeline coiling from one pole to the other to form a sort of solenoid around the planet. though we might need a few thousand nuclear power plants to generate a strong enough current to cause any significant change in the earth's magnetic field.

it's either that or drill into the earth's core and set of a series of perfectly synchronized nuclear explosions...

Re:Rather dramatic

[Gordonjcp]

Makes me glad I have a gratuitously non-electric bicycle! I might switch back to the horse I had before

Bikes and horses work fairly well for very short journeys, less than about 20 miles or so. Much beyond that and they take too long. Oh, and you can't really carry much stuff with you. If you need to travel fairly long distances carrying a lot of weight, you're really better off with a car.

Re:Rather dramatic

[JoeMerchant]

"Space Katrina" sounds rather dramatic, but wouldn't the atmosphere lessen the damage?

Major portions of our communication and navigation infrastructure are above the atmosphere.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand. This thing is headed right for New Orleans!

Re:Rather dramatic

[init100]

Once a surge protector trips, its off until its manually reset.

Not necessarily. Many simple surge protectors just use a couple of varistors and gas discharge tubes connected between the wires. These devices have a variable resistance that is extremely high during normal operation but decreases sharply above a certain threshold voltage, and thus provide a short-circuit path for excess current to take. After the voltage returns to the rated level, the resistance again becomes extremely high, cutting off the short-circuit.

You are probably confusing surge protectors with circuit breakers. The latter are far too slow to protect sensitive electronics from damage from a voltage surge.

Re:Rather dramatic

[khallow]

Modern power lines aren't protected at all. They are naked steel cables. Of course that also means that they are unlikely to be damaged unless actually heated red-hot, but the transformers ? Each and every one of them will get the equivalent of a lightning strike simultaneously.

Transformers and substations have a considerable number of lightning and overvoltage countermeasures. Circuit breakers, arc chutes, etc. Maybe all transformers on the planet will go boom anyway, but there is significant protection available now to the electricity infrastructure against a once in a millenia solar storm.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Reziac]

Cue that old song, "Got along without you before I met you -- gonna get along without you now..."

(Unlike most folk here, I've actually lived without electricity or running water or telephone service. It's sometimes inconvenient, but it's hardly, uh, the end of the world :)

Re:Rather dramatic

[ArsonSmith]

while you personally probably got along fine without it, the rest of the infrastructure that supports you, from maintenance, shipping to food supplies and water, were all not without it. While you may not have had a light or a phone for X time frame. Unless you were hunting wild animals with a hand sharpened rock then you were still indirectly using the infrastructure.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Lumpy]

No weather satellites.. Big whoop.

we have enough ground stations and ground radar to do everything we want. the birds in the sky are useless for anything but oceanic observation.

dumb people communication will be down(cellphone/internet). Military, police, and ham radio will not. I talked to a friend in the middle of the chaos that was New Orleans during Katrina and after. I had a better connection with him over ham radio than the feds did to the next office trailer.

  If you can only understand how a toaster is used, then you will be without communication, but not everyone will be.

Modern technology can work just fine if it all goes to hell. In fact I could talk on 6 meter state wide for at least 2 years before my batteries gave up the ghost from repeated daily charge cycles and the solar panels were damaged. On 80 meters I can communicate world wide for at least 10 years, that radio is simple and can be fixed or another one built from trash found all over the place. I can run it from a hand or bike generator for nearly forever.

So modern technology that is worth having will work just fine even after the crap hit the fan. I'd still have communication with the large number of others that are as resourceful as me.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Lumpy]

since I'm pretty sure there are surge protectors now that are good enough to protect things from lightning strikes on the power lines.

any company that claims this is bold face lying.

NOTHING can protect your computer from a direct lightning strike.

Hell your computer is dead if it's unplugged and sitting on the floor if a big strike nails the ground 200 feet away the EM pulse will pop most of the circuitry. I ahve seen laptops with burned traces on the motherboard that sat on a couch and the lightning struck the tree 50 feet away from the house.

If anyone or any thing states it can protect you from lightning, It is a complete bold faced lie.

A lightning strike is so high energy you cant begin to even understand it.

Re:Rather dramatic

[PhysicsPhil]

So, after looking up what happened in Quebec, I'm left with the question - Why was only Quebec affected this way?

Quebec is situated on the Canadian shield, which is primarily composed of insulating igneous rock. Eddy currents generated by the fluctuating magnetic fields that would normally dissipate in the ground in other parts of the world were instead directed into the power system, where they caused overloads.

The Wikipedia article on the Quebec electricity system for a slightly more detailed discussion.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Nethead]

Hmm.. time to store some GasFETs in a safe place.

73 de w7com

Re:Rather dramatic

[Reziac]

Actually, I was walking down to the river to catch fish, and digging potatoes. And chopping wood for heat. And boiling drinking water. Sometimes I didn't see the infrastructure at all for several weeks at a time.

Remember, up to a certain point ALL our ancestors survived living like this; otherwise we wouldn't be here :)

Trouble is, there are now too many people to support without that infrastructure; as I mention in another post, the most likely result of a catastrophic infrastructure failure is... riot.

Re:Rather dramatic

[TheKidWho]

The transatlantic cable would like to disagree with you.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Repossessed]

Fly by wire planes? I hate to break it to you, but outside of the occasional ultralight (which would have trouble damaging a car, let alone causing mass destruction), fly by wire doesn't exist. Oh the autopilot might shit itself, or GPS but the old instruments are all still there, and you have to learn to use them to get a pilot license (none of the new stuff is even on the tests for first tier pilots). Prop planes might lose engine power if the spark plugs fry, dead stick landings are hard, but doable at a decent rate, and if nothing else, crashes will mostly be limited to small planes in terms of destruction, few pilots are going to try and land by flying into a building or heavy traffic.

Radios and/or air traffic control shitting a brick qualifies as a major disaster though. There are procedures for no contact with the tower, but I sure as hell don't remember them. And for a major airport they might not be enough.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Todd Knarr]

The problem is that the effect here is of fairly short duration (typically a few minutes, 15 or so at most) and happens infrequently (once every decade, if that often). You can build something to absorb the induced currents, but it'll be used so rarely it'll never pay back it's construction costs.

Re:Rather dramatic

[bogjobber]

Vegas isn't any more vulnerable than other cities. If you really think New York or LA or any other place are less dependent on modern transport of electricity/water/food/etc. from distances very far away you're delusional. Unless you live in Alaska or somewhere else hundreds of miles away from a metropolis, we'll all be equally fucked if modern infrastructure were to fail. How many people do you think New York City or London can support naturally? Ten thousand, a hundred thousand? Either way there would be 20 million and ten million very desperate people respectively without food or fuel.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Power outages, yes.

Fried computers, only if they're plugged in.

Damage wouldn't come simply from the outside powerline like a lightning bolt.

Re:Rather dramatic

[jstott]

It actually caused telegraph wires to short out across Europe and the Americas - some even caught on fire. If that happened now, it would cause global power outages, fried computer equipment (including the ones that control your fancy electronic car), and everything except for milsats in orbit could be knocked out.

Inductance is proportional to the length of the wire in the magnetic field.

Telegraph wires had problems in the 1800's because those big long wires can produce some impressive voltage surges. Modern electrical transmission lines have the same problem (although, being a well-known problem, there are circuit breakers and the like already installed to limit the potential damage).

Your car, on the other hand, will come through just fine — the wires are too short for the voltage surges to amount to anything. Same goes for any other [terrestrial] electronics not actually connected to the power grid or other similar long wires.

-JS

Re:Rather dramatic

[freddy_dreddy]

Regarding the capture of the energy, I don't doubt for a second you're right. But the frequency of the voltage would be nice to know - just to fiddle with number on standing waves and reflections on power lines :)

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. But those hungry people without fuel wouldn't be able to drive anywhere and wouldn't have the energy to walk far enough to cause problems.

Re:Rather dramatic

[johnsonav]

Actually, I was walking down to the river to catch fish, and digging potatoes. And chopping wood for heat. And boiling drinking water. Sometimes I didn't see the infrastructure at all for several weeks at a time.

You saw infrastructure all the time. Unless you were catching fish with a hand-made spear, walking to the river in shoes and clothes made from self-tanned leather, chopping wood with a flint ax, and boiling water in a clay pot, you were benefiting from the industrial society which made those products.

Remember, up to a certain point ALL our ancestors survived living like this; otherwise we wouldn't be here :)

And they had their own, more primitive, infrastructure which they all depended upon. Instead of factories, farms, superhighways, medicine, and electricity; they had blacksmiths, hunters, horses, and subsistence farming. Its an infrastructure which doesn't exist any more. If our modern infrastructure disappeared, we would be a lot worse off than those in the 15th century.

Re:Rather dramatic

[dtolman]

Did you even read my comment fully? Vegas is just one example - a favorite of mine since its a dry season away from being out of water - it won't even take anything dramatic to make life unpleasant there.

The rest of the major cities in the US and Europe are screwed without power and long long distance transport.

NY is actually better off than most in one regard - the potable water is gravity fed from upstate. Lots of potable untapped well water under Brooklyn and Queens as well. That means in a real crunch, it has more time than other areas - since the water is already drinkable without filtering and will flow with or without electricity.

Re:Rather dramatic

[taskiss]

reading that, it becomes clear that the problem is that the Quebec system uses DC power transmission instead of the AC usually used. Reading even more in to the source material for that wiki entry, you find this:

"the currents are never very powerful; the one that raced through Hydro-Quebec's lines added only a few hundred kilowatts to a 21,000-megawatt grid"

That's just a piffle, really.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n8_v16/ai_17253896/pg_1

Re:Rather dramatic

[Reziac]

Picky, picky... They did -- but that infrastructure can be recreated without benefit of electronic technology. And that was my point.

The main problem would be sufficient people who still know HOW to recreate it, should electronic tech be killed off for the long term (unlikely as that is).

Re:Rather dramatic

[HiThere]

Yeah. And I've done it too. But it's a bit different when one person does it and when a city attempts to do the same thing. Much less a metropolitan area.

E.g. During the last power outage it turned out that the fire trucks couldn't get out of the fire stations. The doors were electrically operated with no mechanical override. If this has been fixed, I didn't hear about it.

Well, that was a short problem, and if they'd had to the trucks could have just run through the doors. But how many such "fool killer" errors are just lying around waiting to be discovered? I suspect that if the power were off for long, water would stop flowing, and then having fire trucks available wouldn't help very much.

It's not the end of the world, but it could be a period of many many deaths and massive property destruction. And massive suffering. Fires are hard to stop when there's no water. And there are certain to be other problems that I haven't thought of.

Re:Rather dramatic

[pilsner.urquell]

I personally believe that the end of the world will be with a whimper. However, it is such a good story I couldn't pass it up.

Re:Rather dramatic

[HiThere]

I thought they used a different material that was significantly more resistant to radiation. Just how much "significantly" is, however, I haven't a clue. Something about gallium arsenide something or other. This may be only antique models, though.

Still, I thought some of the milSats were supposed to be hardened against close strikes by nuclear weapons, which ought to be hardened enough to resist this.

Not that that will help anyone very much. Those things aren't for public observation or use. And the ground stations probably wouldn't be able to either send to or receive signals from them. Just hope there's no "dead man switch".

Re:Rather dramatic

[PhysicsPhil]

reading that, it becomes clear that the problem is that the Quebec system uses DC power transmission instead of the AC usually used.

I thought the same when I first read the article, but this is not the case. The transmission system is 735 kV AC. It was the eddy currents themselves that were DC. The Wikipedia article uses some funny comma placement, but you'll see further up that the system is definitely AC, except for a single high-voltage DC link that was completed much later.

Re:Rather dramatic

[roystgnr]

Fly by wire planes? I hate to break it to you, but outside of the occasional ultralight (which would have trouble damaging a car, let alone causing mass destruction), fly by wire doesn't exist.

"One of the A300-600 and A310's notable innovations had been the introduction of electrical signalling on secondary flight controls, replacing the web of cables and pulleys tradionally used. Béteille wanted to take this evolution further with the next Airbus aircraft - to computer-driven digital "fly-by-wire", in which the deflections of the flying control surfaces on the wing and tail are no longer driven directly by the pilots' controls, but by a computer which calculates exactly which control surface deflections are needed to make the aircraft respond as the pilot wishes ... The A320's fly-by-wire technology was not only a way of improving flight controls and reducing weight..."

"The flight-control system for the 777 airplane is different from those on other Boeing airplane designs. Rather than have the airplane rely on cables to move the ailerons, elevator, and rudder, Boeing designed the 777 with fly-by-wire technology. As a result, the 777 uses wires to carry electrical signals from the pilot control wheel, column, and pedals to a primary flight computer."

Re:Rather dramatic

[Reziac]

IMO no emergency access, or access likely to be used in an emergency, should EVER lack a mechanical override -- especially since "emergency" frequently entails no power. (And I gather most modern municipal water systems are pump-driven rather than gravity-fed. Ooops...) But as you say, we've become so accustomed to these high-tech modern systems, and so unaccustomed to thinking in terms of low-tech backup systems, that there are likely *many* such potential failures waiting to bite us.

And as to those fire trucks... newer vehicles have electronic ignition. What's the chance that it would get fried along with whatever else??

You and I will do okay in the wake of such a disaster, but I'd hate to be city folk. :(

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell your computer is dead if it's unplugged and sitting on the floor if a big strike nails the ground 200 feet away the EM pulse will pop most of the circuitry. I ahve seen laptops with burned traces on the motherboard that sat on a couch and the lightning struck the tree 50 feet away from the house.

Emphasis mine. For those who have witnessed lightning strikes, still had their laptops work afterwards, and are wondering what Lumpy might be smoking - lightning strikes can vary considerably in strength. To use an analogy, a Volkswagen Beetle and a Bugatti Veyron are both cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Types_of_lightning

If anyone or any thing states it can protect you from lightning, It is a complete bold faced lie.

Never suggest something is impossible to a scientist. It just encourages them. :)

But while a deep underground bunker and/or sufficiently engineered faraday cage would probably do the job just fine, I have to admit that for my computers it'd be a lot cheaper to stick with the offsite backups and storm insurance. :)

Re:Rather dramatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? Where you gonna get the tin cans for that? And even if you can find the tin cans, good luck pulling a few thousand miles of cable tight enough to be able to say anything.

Sheesh. Kids these days.

Re:Rather dramatic

[idego]

Not true my wireless antenna received a direct strike, obviously the wireless kit (21m aluminum pole) was all fried but the UPS took the hit for the rest of (laptop, LCD screen etc...) the kit US$200 for a new wireless kit and we were back up and running. That being said we are fairly certain the copper earthing strip took the brunt of the voltage since it was reduced to a thin smear down the side of the house. I worked through the last big solar storm about 12 years ago and we had some power outages (tripping the breaker from the mains) satellite comms just about dropped out completely and POTS was severely derogated, but just not that bad.

Re:Rather dramatic

[garwain]

Well, here in quebec, we had the big Ice Storm of 98 which left a good portion of the province without power for a week or more (some places for more than a month). If was an inconvienience, but not a complete disaster. We recovers, and resumed buisness as usual in a short period of time. I had several neighbours move in while the power was out to take advantage of my water supply (well dug in basement, accessible by bucket), working plumbing (just pour bucket of water into toilet tank and it'll flush again), heat (wood stove) and occasional power (generator fired for 2 hours at a time 3x per day). For me the biggest annoyance was dragging desiel from our storage tanks to the generator 3x/day. I was set for food with 2 LARGE freezers full or pork, beef, and frozen vegetables

Re:Rather dramatic

[Alioth]

No, nearly every transatlantic and transpacific phone call goes via undersea fibreoptic cable, and has for some time. Satellite communication is far too expensive for phone calls. In the days when phone calls were routed that way, a transatlantic phone call was tens of dollars a minute in today's money. However, these days a transatlantic call may be cheaper than a call from Texas to California, perhaps 1 or 2 cents a minute.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Alioth]

I have been personally around 50 feet from a strong cloud-to-ground strike. It was very, very loud, and quite frightening. We found out exactly where it struck the next morning because there was a burn mark where it hit.

But none of the nearby electronics were harmed, including the VHF aviation band radio with a big antenna on the roof.

Re:Rather dramatic

[stephanruby]

Vegas is just one example - a favorite of mine since its a dry season away from being out of water - it won't even take anything dramatic to make life unpleasant there.

You mean the same Las Vegas that's just 15 minutes from Hoover dam? No, those guys would have water. They'd probably be the only ones who would actually.

Re:Rather dramatic

[dtolman]

Have you actually been out to Lake Mead in the past year? Its drying up - at the present rate (and there is no reason to think this will change, since its been steady for almost the whole decade), the water intakes will be above the waterline by 2010. But thats OK, they have a backup water system coming online in 2011. Oops.

Its tougher to project these out even further, but I've read that at present rates, Lake Mead will no longer be able to support power production at Hoover Dam (aka - all of Vegas's juice) by 2017, and the lake will be essentially dry by the early 2020's.

Re:Rather dramatic

[insignis]

It's a "bald-faced lie", as in here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_correct_term_'bold_face_lie'_or_'bald_faced_lie'_or_another_variation

Re:Rather dramatic

[HiThere]

Unnnh... these days *I* am city folk. I have sleep apnea, and without electricity for a few days I'm barely conscious.

Re:Rather dramatic

[Reziac]

That's sad to hear... we'll miss you out here in the future wilderness :/

Re:Rather dramatic

[Bryan K. Feir]

Yes; basically the issue is that Quebec uses a higher transmission voltage than most of the rest of Canada or the U.S. Under normal circumstances, this is actually a good thing; higher voltage means lower current to carry the same power, and lower current means lower transmission losses, since those are proportional to the square of the current.

However, this has the problems in that whenever there's serious ionization in the air, the power grid is less stable because you get corona effects around the wires.

Only thing to do

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess there's only one thing to do - Destroy the sun!

Re:Only thing to do

[kalirion]

Hmm, I wonder how that could be done..... I mean shooting nukes at the sun is like tossing matches into an erupting volcano, so we will require something new. Oh where is the Sun Crusher when you need one?

Re:Only thing to do

[TheKidWho]

I think I know what we could do... Fires need oxygen to breathe right?? So how about we just use a giant space blanket to put out the fire?

Now, where to find the blanket??

Maybe one of these Giant Space Blankets

Re:Only thing to do

[TheKidWho]

The link went bad...
For more giant space blanets exhibit A:
Giant Space Blankets

Re:Only thing to do

[mapsjanhere]

All you need is a 12,000 km diameter sunshade. Preferably made from something light, say aluminum foil. Ups, that's 2 billion tons, maybe something lighter, aluminized mylar at 2 millon tons - we better get that space elevator build fast.

Re:Only thing to do

[tadheckaman]

a few Enchanach Drives would work.

Re:Only thing to do

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Sorry, dude, you're almost 30 years too late.

When I was WUSTL.edu in 1981, the no-nukes movement was in full swing. Their slogan was "Any Amount of Radiation is Dangerous".

So a bunch of friends and I started a movement called "Stamp Out The Sun", to point out how silly that slogan was.

Re:Only thing to do

[martinQblank]

I did that about 7.5 minutes ago as a preemptive strike -- you should notice in about 3...2...

Re:Only thing to do

[CFBMoo1]

Your making this too difficult. Just pull the plug at the bottom under the sun stand.

Re:Only thing to do

[cparker15]

LHC Mobile?

Re:Only thing to do

[AKAImBatman]

All you need is a 12,000 km diameter sunshade.

You know, shadows cover a much larger volume the farther away the object is from the object it's darkening. Place the shield closer to the sun, and you wouldn't need anywhere near 12,000km to provide protection for the earth. Orbital calculations might be a bit tricky, but that's NASA's job.

Re:Only thing to do

[GuruBuckaroo]

You've got it backwards, but your heart was in the right place. Due to the fact that the sun is MUCH larger than this 12,000km shield, the shadow will actually get smaller as it gets closer to the sun.

Re:Only thing to do

[AKAImBatman]

Due to the fact that the sun is MUCH larger than this 12,000km shield, the shadow will actually get smaller as it gets closer to the sun.

Not quite. We're talking about perspectives here. The moon is significantly smaller than the earth, but it can cast a shadow large enough to block out the majority of the Sun's radiation. (i.e. A solar eclipse.) That means that 3500 km in diameter is sufficient at ~0.0025 AUs from the earth. The quantity necessary will decrease with distance as long as the shield appears to be larger than the sun in the sky. Eventually, we reach a point of diminishing returns where the sun appears larger in the sky than the shield. At that point the shield becomes useless.

If that doesn't seem right, consider how easy it would be to orbit a small satellite to blot out your favorite star from the sky. Many of those stars are many times larger than our sun, but their extreme distance means that a much smaller object can easily blot out dozens or even hundreds of those stars by occupying a very small space.

Re:Only thing to do

[bdeclerc]

Uhm, during a solar eclipse, the moon only blocks the sun in a spot a few tens to a few hundreds of km in size. So he's right, you're wrong...

And for your satellite example, if your satellite is a couple of meters in diameter, all you need to do to "unblock" the star is to move a few meters to the side.

And now for something completely different

[jerep]

A study funded by NASA has flagged up yet another terrible hazard for those no longer able to get excited about nuclear war, global pandemics, terrorism, climate change, economic meltdown and asteroid strike.

I for one welcome our weekly disaster overlords.

Re:And now for something completely different

[velcroman270]

do i detect a hint of Monty Python?...that will be the only thing constant if this were to happen...humor...i hope John Cleese survives all of this so he can sit at a desk in the middle of a burning city to say "And not for something completely different!"

Life on Earth

[Black Rabbit]

With any luck a major space storm will wipe out any and all technology on earth. Maybe this would be the kick in the pants our species needs.

Re:Life on Earth

[DeadPixels]

Nothing says "you screwed up" like a nice plague!

Re:Life on Earth

[Yvan256]

Screw cyberpunk, we're switching to steampunk!

Re:Life on Earth

[MightyYar]

You could always go Amish.

Re:Life on Earth

[geekmux]

With any luck a major space storm will wipe out any and all technology on earth. Maybe this would be the kick in the pants our species needs.

Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine on this cloudy Monday topic...

Better hope you're not wearing your bluetooth-enabled, wifi-hooked, Pacemaker-3000 by the time your epiphany rings true...

Re:Life on Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

With any luck a major space storm will wipe out any and all misanthropes so we never have to hear such platitudes again.

Re:Life on Earth

[timelorde]

Or Druid. Don't know if I've got the room for one of their clocks, though.

Re:Life on Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

why does our species need that?

Re:Life on Earth

[vertinox]

Maybe this would be the kick in the pants our species needs.

Not really. The dinosaurs didn't die out because their blackberries didn't work anymore. They died out because they didn't have a working space program.

Without sufficient technology to detect and deflect large incoming space objects, any long term chance of survival is 0%.

It might be 10, 100, or 100,000 or even a 1,000,000 years from now, but a species without sufficient technology will go extinct even if they simply live harmoniously with the Earth without figuring out the real problem of getting off Earth.

This place is a deceiving death trap if you don't look at the big picture.

The irony is that if we got hit say in 2012 by a sunstorm that knocks out most of our satellites and communications system, only to take finally recover in 2030 to realize that Apophis has only a few days to hit earth.

No we need all the time we can get.

Re:Life on Earth

[the plant doctor]

Modded insightful?

While posted on /. using a computer? Funny is more like it.

Re:Life on Earth

[camperdave]

The dinosaurs ... died out because they didn't have a working space program.

Says who? Maybe they just took off for the Delta Quadrant.

Re:Life on Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, we have a working space program. It is not at all conventional and will never be accepted by those under the sway of scientism, but it exists nonetheless.

Signed,
Comte de Saint-Germain

Re:Life on Earth

[koona]

Well we do know that overpopulation, Starvation, and disease are self limiting feedback mechanisms, often proven positive to the overall system. . Should we now start examining truncated web access, excessive foot travel requirements, and inadequate gardening skills in the same light? Human beings are like cockroaches, no matter what you do, you'll never get that last ten percent.

Re:Life on Earth

[Thumper_SVX]

Realistically, if this were to happen it wouldn't take THAT long to rebuild our technology. Sure, it'd take time, and it'd take money... but don't doubt that we are SO dependent on our technology today that we would definitely rebuild.

On the bright side, employment for technology people with a creative bent (creating solutions with minimal technology) will find great and very lucrative careers. Short term pain, long term gain.

Me, I welcome the coming apocalypse ;)

Re:Life on Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Human beings are like cockroaches, no matter what you do, you'll never get that last ten percent.

Somewhere out there in the Oort Cloud there is a 5+ mile wide asteriod that is chuckling insanely at that comment...

(posting anon cuz I modded)

Re:Life on Earth

[koona]

Yes, well we had better just get our asses in gear and send some breeding stock elsewhere for a while. eh?

After all is there another evolutionary driver that could justify all this very odd brain activity?

  Specialization is for insects. -- Robert A. Heinlein

confirmed

[IceCreamGuy]

spacecraftconfirmsit

Cold War & EMP

[gpronger]

At the height of the cold war, this was one of the concerns. As I recall the detonation of a nuclear device in space would cause a massive EMF pulse (Electro-Magnetic force Pulse) that could trash electronics. (Yes, one on the ground is obviously much worse, but this would allow a government to "blind" an enemy without collateral damage.)

It seems that with the end of the cold war, and the fact that an EMP can occur naturally, has been forgotten.

Greg P

Re:Cold War & EMP

[blueg3]

It's sufficient to just call it an electromagnetic pulse. But, to be pedantic, your choices for terms are "electromagnetic field" and "electromotive force"; the term "EMF" generally refers to the latter.

Re:Cold War & EMP

[gpronger]

Yep. Proofe reading has never been my longesuite and I was probably a bit loose with terns.

Greg

Re:Cold War & EMP

[nevdullc]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/emp-for-navy.html It hasn't been forgotten, just by the public.

Re:Cold War & EMP

[witherstaff]

I saw that Bond movie.

Re:Cold War & EMP

[gpronger]

I appreciate the comforting words; in other words, not forgotten by everyone, just most everyone.

Greg

Re:Cold War & EMP

[gpronger]

I don't think this makes me feel any better; we're both uninformed and massively forgetful (given the viewing the Bond film would have).

Greg

Re:Cold War & EMP

[wsanders]

They are not quite the same effects. The EMP from a Bomb is more or less like a lightning strike, it's a brief pulse of high voltage that fries components that can't tolerate high voltages. You mitigate it pretty much the same way you mitigate lightning.

The terrestrial damage from a solar storm is harder to mitigate. It is not so much a pulse as as chaotic voltages randomly induced in the miles and miles of powerlines hanging around everywhere. Think of the Earth hurtling through the loops of an Earth-size transformer primary.

Now if you know what to expect if you, say, bought a generator and plugged it in, unsynchronized, to the live mains, you can imagine that writ on a large scale. There will be lots of circuit breakers to reset, to put it mildly.

Re:Cold War & EMP

[Aqua_boy17]

...and I was probably a bit loose with terns.

Careful with that. You could get some form of sea-bird STD.

On the other hand, you know what they say...one good tern deserves another.

Re:Cold War & EMP

[gpronger]

I often am a bit loose with my terns, or maybe its that I want my terns set loose.

Re:Cold War & EMP

[Alioth]

I'd disagree. A solar storm may contain a fair bit of energy, but it is released over a very wide area over a relatively long period of time. Therefore, the effects aren't nearly as extreme. It won't hurt a computer, it won't break your car's ECU, it won't make fly-by-wire aircraft fall from the sky.

The EMP from a nuclear explosion, on the other hand, occurs over an incredibly short period of time and is highly concentrated, so it is far more damaging to anything within range.

As an analogy, compare a thunderstorm: a typical afternoon thunderstorm in Texas releases about the same amount of energy as a small thermonuclear weapon. So how come Houston isn't flattened three times a week? The thunderstorm takes an hour or so to release this energy and does so over a wide area. By contrast, a nuke would release that energy in a few tens of nanoseconds and releases it in an incredibly small area.

So comparisons to nuclear explosions may be valid in terms of energy, but it's really comparing apples with orangutangs for the purposes of the damage it would cause.

There's no Canada like French Canada

[i_ate_god]

Quebec knows what they're talking about.

Re:There's no Canada like French Canada

[Yvan256]

Dude, I live in Québec and I've never had any such prob{#`AX%$G{%5&`+'2h${`%&NO CARRIER

Re:There's no Canada like French Canada

[i_ate_god]

I think you meant to say

CRISSE LA SOLEIL TABARN+++NO CARRIER

I don't really have much else to say, but I'm saying something anyways to bypass caps filter since somehow, capitals make you read louder.

Re:There's no Canada like French Canada

[petitclv]

Report concerning geomagnetic storms from Public Safety Canada :
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/em/ccirc/2002/ta02-001-eng.aspx

An extract : "Consequences of geomagnetic storm activity can include widespread power failures, pipeline corrosion, the shutdown of cable systems, an increased drag on satellites, inaccurate navigational sensors and the loss of millions of dollars in revenue."

Re:There's no Canada like French Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Quebec knows what they're talking about.

Wow! I'm glad that didn't happen to Canada! :D /ducks

the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[converter]

It really, really bugs me. A lot. I know they are only using it to give the impression of a powerful and disastrous storm. It just seems that likening a coronal mass ejection to a "katrina-like" event is as realistic as likening a tornado to that little swirl in your bathtub drain.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[mcatrage]

How about them using the term Katrina at all. Just because a bad thing happened to Americans doesn't mean it's the worst natural disaster ever.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[plasmacutter]

It just seems that likening a coronal mass ejection to a "katrina-like" event is as realistic as likening a tornado to that little swirl in your bathtub drain.

I know what you mean.

However, this dissimilarity can be resolved by placing a toy trailer and a talking action figure saying "it was like a freight train" near said bathtub drain.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[MalHavoc]

No kidding. As bad as Katrina was, it's hard to equate that particular disaster with the Tsunami that occurred on December 26, 2004 during which hundreds of thousands died.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[Kozz]

It was the best the author could do, under the circumstances. It was exceedingly difficult to draw comparisons with Libraries of Congress, Volkswagen Beetles or football fields.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[dtolman]

Why is the term inapropriate here? Just like Katrina, the authors are describing a serious, but forseeable weather event, that could be almost completely mitigated with better planning.

Plus Katrina was one of the bigger hurricanes you could expect to see, while the event they describe is one of the bigger CME's you could expect to see... seems like a good analogy all around (except one effects a small area and dunks a small city, and the other the entire world and will destroy civilization as we know it).

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[Anonymous Coward]

It works in this case. Aside from being a powerful storm, the affected infrastructure was built knowing previous example that trouble like this was abound (kinda like building a city below sea level in a storm area yeah?), and the government doesn't have an effective plan to deal with the repercussions.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[Rogerborg]

I agree. People that use hyperbole are worse than Hitler.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[drerwk]

FTA - "a space Katrina, a storm that we should have been prepared for but were not"
It says nothing about he relative energy.
As it turns out, I am prepared for my bathtub swirl.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[ShadowBlasko]

I would not say that.
For the most part, there was no way to save most of the victims of the tsunami.
Many of the victims of Katrina could well have been saved had their been ample planning and communication in regards to a disaster that they knew was coming sometime.
Most of the deaths of Katrina were caused by failure to plan, failure to listen, or failure to implement disaster plans.

I can see where the author is coming from.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Look, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times, not to exaggerate!

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[argStyopa]

I don't think the analogy to Katrina was particularly in terms of POWER of the event.

I think it was a specific reference to the general ignorance and unpreparedness of people in the face of terrible events.

Now, it COULD be a strong implication that "the government (specifically) should do something" or "people should prepare since the government won't save you" (depending on your political agenda and your understanding of the unfurling of events around Katrina).

What the daily doomsayers don't apparently understand is that the constant forecasts of doom were THEMSELVES to blame for some of the problems of Katrina, at least the lack of human preparation/respect for the storm. When every 1" snowfall is a "BLIZZARD" and every rain shower is "A SEVERE STORM EMERGENCY" humans begin to set their own filters about what's worth paying attention to. cf. The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[Lumpy]

Oh stop.

Many of the people that stayed behind KNEW it was coming knew there was an evacuation order and made the decision to stay.

Those people chose to risk death, don't mourn stupidity.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[ShadowBlasko]

What part of "Most of the deaths of Katrina were caused by failure to plan, failure to listen, or failure to implement disaster plans. " do you see as my not blaming the people who stayed. If there had not been a piss poor evac plan for the prior storm (badly botched in execution) most people probably WOULD have left. The botched evac was fresh in many minds, so they did nothing.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[bogjobber]

For the most part, there was no way to save most of the victims of the tsunami.

Yes there is. Early warning systems and communication networks could have given people enough time to escape inland. It still would have been a very deadly natural disaster, particularly near the epicenter, but people would have been able to make it at least a couple miles away, and wouldn't have been dragged off the beach like they were. Sri Lanka and India were hundreds of miles away and they lost almost 50,000 people. They certainly could've evacuated the low-lying areas if there was an early warning system in place. Add a proper government/aid response that could've brought food and clean water immediately and the death count almost certainly would've been orders of magnitude less.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[ShadowBlasko]

"Most" deaths from Katrina were preventable with in-place systems, had they been properly utilized. Not even expertly, just properly.

We do a significant amount of business in Indonesia. Language barriers aside, you are talking about "What could have been, had this been installed (or even created" because some of those places are no where NEAR networked even for basic phones to work!)

I do not disagree that there SHOULD have been an early warning system, and that it would have saved lives. Problem is, there was not. So hard to compare the two.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[Ziggy2k8]

What I gathered was that the author was suggesting that our infrastructure is ill equipped to deal with a large scale solar storm. The same way they were ill prepared to deal with the Katrina disaster.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[Johnny00]

Don't think about the weather or the storm, think about the AFTERMATH, the state of decay and lawlessness that immediately followed the weather event. That is what is 'Katrina-like'.

Re:the term "katrina-like" makes me angry...

[couchslug]

"Many of the people that stayed behind KNEW it was coming knew there was an evacuation order and made the decision to stay.

Those people chose to risk death, don't mourn stupidity."

The culture in the NOLA area had a lot to do with how people responded. A smart person would know they could WALK out and still clear the area of destruction. NOLA was and is infamously backward and crime infested. It's unfortunate that it was left in rebuildable condition. Any city that needs levees to protect it should be relocated when nature demolishes it. The US has more than enough space.

Bread

[Ender_Stonebender]

Given that (a) the average journey for food items from production to plate is supposedly over 1000 miles in my country, (b) I live in area with few farms, and (c) Space Katrina is going to knock out transportation and probably the electical grid (I have an electric stove and oven), I have to wonder: Can the smoker I got for Christmas be used to bake bread? And what other essentials should I stock up on?

Re:Bread

[eln]

I think the standard protocol for these sorts of things is to sell everything you own, stockpile as many guns as possible, and move into a cabin somewhere deep in the mountains. Disconnect from all power sources, and discontinue use of any electronic devices. Grow or hunt all your own food, and try to avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible. Also, if you could learn to enjoy drinking your own urine, that would be a big help.

Re:Bread

[cabjf]

Don't forget to build up your gold supply as well. Because once chaos rules, everyone will accept shiny metal for trade, right?

Re:Bread

[plasmacutter]

You can stock up on "wait for the national guard".

Military equipment is supposed to be EMP hardened.

They did it for east berlin, they'll do it for us.

Re:Bread

[chill]

They did it for east berlin, they'll do it for us.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Please....stop! You're making my sides hurt!

The "Katrina-like" reference in the summary wasn't to the size of the storm, but rather to the effectiveness of government assistance afterward. If anything is to be learned from Katrina (other than don't build below-sealevel cities on the sea shore) it is no matter what the gov't tells you, you need to be prepared to take care of yourself and possibly some neighbors for at least a couple of days. "Be Prepared".

Re:Bread

[plasmacutter]

you won't starve in a couple days, nor will you die of thirst.

Most people I know have stuff in their freezer, pantry, or fridge which are perfectly edible/drinkable but which have fallen out of their culinary favor. By the end of the second day they'll reach for that and be fine.

Re:Bread

[mmkkbb]

Yes, it can.

Re:Bread

[lazlo]

Can the smoker I got for Christmas be used to bake bread?

Well, yes it can. You can bake bread in just about anything that you can keep sufficiently hot for sufficiently long. But I'm curious why you believe flour would be more easily obtainable than other foodstuffs? I know that in my area, there are a few farms that I believe have wheat in their crop rotation. I have no idea where the closest mill is, but any non-electrical mills are likely to be historical sites that are probably non-functional.

And then there's the big question: between you and all of your neighbors, what do you have that's so much more valuable to that farmer and miller that he will choose to trade the portion of his wheat in excess of his own needs to you for instead of them?

Here's something to chew on: From a little bit of research, it appears that in the US, there are approximately 4 acres of farmland per capita. Given a long-term transportation failure, look around you (if you live anywhere near a city), and think about how many people would have to die (through starvation, violence, plague, whatever) before you could devote 16 acres to feeding a family of four. Granted, those 4 acres include farms for things like timber and cotton, which you might not need immediately, but it's also 4 acres of land being farmed by a professional farmer using modern farming techniques and machinery. If civilization does falter, an incomprehensibly huge number of people will die, and those that are left will learn a whole lot about how to make food.

And what other essentials should I stock up on?

I remember my old boss would, whenever a temporary disaster seemed likely (hurricanes or elections, mostly), stock up on three basics: ammunition, whiskey, and cigarettes. The ammo makes some sense, as it can be used both for defense and, at least in theory, hunting. Alcohol has at least some use recreationally, medically, and as a trade good. Given that he didn't smoke, the cigarettes were purely for trade. Not saying that's a good plan, but it is an interesting one.

Re:Bread

[shentino]

Drinking your own urine doesn't actually help you all that much. Since the saline concentration of your pee matches pretty well what's already in your blood, all you're doing is retaining the same salt that your body is trying to get rid of.

Recently, urine drinkage was disadvised by survival experts.

Re:Bread

[Synn]

I live in Florida. We've had several storms hit us that would knock out power for people for months at a time. I lived in Fort Lauderdale a couple years back and we had a category 3 take out all but 1 traffic light in the entire county.

I'd say the state is probably one of the better prepared one for disasters. When the cat 3 took out Fort Lauderdale, the local Publix was open the next day selling groceries.

For myself, I very much make sure to keep around enough food and water for myself for at least a week. You can buy freeze dried food in large cans that will last 30 years or more. I buy Mountain House food and it's useful for camping too: http://beprepared.com/

Buy a radio of some sort you can wind up. Having a reliable radio around in a disaster is 100% needed. It'll be your source of information and it'll keep you from getting bored. Some of these radios also have lights on them, which again is nice to have. A light that doesn't use batteries.

When I think a storm is going to hit, I stock up on snacks. Candies and other goodies are a big comfort. Have around non electric means of staying entertained, like books, etc.

I also have a water purifier, but I bought that mostly for camping/kayaking and not for survival since hurricanes aren't sudden and you can stock up on water before they hit.

But basically, figure out your basics, and keep stocked up on those. Canned foods. Dry foods. Sterno or a camp stove to boil water. Stored water or a way to purify water.

Then don't ignore the comforts. Just surviving is really boring. Snacks, books, a radio that isn't tied to batteries, etc etc are all really important.

If you're thinking really long term survival... learn to hunt and fish. You can buy a 22 rifle and a milk jug full of ammo for dirt cheap. You won't be taking down any deer with it, but squirrels are everywhere and they taste just fine.

Re:Bread

[oneiros27]

I remember my old boss would, whenever a temporary disaster seemed likely (hurricanes or elections, mostly), stock up on three basics: ammunition, whiskey, and cigarettes. The ammo makes some sense, as it can be used both for defense and, at least in theory, hunting. Alcohol has at least some use recreationally, medically, and as a trade good. Given that he didn't smoke, the cigarettes were purely for trade. Not saying that's a good plan, but it is an interesting one.

And salt -- if you're planning for anything long-term (ie, months to years), it's necessary for survival and a useful trade good.

As for food preparations, look for books published in Utah -- the Mormons have their disaster preparedness down. Important thing to consider if you're trying to do it right -- eat from your stored food, so it gets rotated -- it shouldn't just be something that you store for 4 years, then have to replace. It also makes sure you're storing food that you know how to prepare, and are sure you don't have intolerance/allergies to.

Re:Bread

[Ender_Stonebender]

But I'm curious why you believe flour would be more easily obtainable than other foodstuffs?

I don't. I believe that, immediately before a disaster, everyone else will be stocking up on canned goods. Which will leave the store's stock of flour, sugar, and other baking basics for me to buy, along with a whole bunch of charcoal to actually run the smoker. (I'll also be letting my 300-gallon hot tub, that I never use, drain so that I can refill it and skip the chlorine so I can use it as a stock of drinking water.)

Your boss's plan wasn't that bad, actually - nicotine addiction is horrible to try to overcome, and I bet he would have found a few people to trade with in the event of a disaster on a scale that would return the US to a barter system. But given that that hasn't happened, did he end up throwing the cigarettes away, or giving them away, or what?

Re:Bread

[lazlo]

I believe that, immediately before a disaster, everyone else will be stocking up on canned goods. Which will leave the store's stock of flour, sugar, and other baking basics for me to buy, along with a whole bunch of charcoal to actually run the smoker.

Sounds like a good plan, assuming there's any warning of imminent disaster. Flour becomes less good over the course of a month or two, but doesn't usually actually become indedible for a really long time. Add some water and heat, and you can make hard tack, which I believe will last even longer. I guess part of it depends on what kind of smoker you have, and how easy it is to make it produce less smoke and more heat.

(I'll also be letting my 300-gallon hot tub, that I never use, drain so that I can refill it and skip the chlorine so I can use it as a stock of drinking water.)

Word to the wise: drinking water whithout chlorine won't be drinking water for long.

Your boss's plan wasn't that bad, actually - nicotine addiction is horrible to try to overcome, and I bet he would have found a few people to trade with in the event of a disaster on a scale that would return the US to a barter system. But given that that hasn't happened, did he end up throwing the cigarettes away, or giving them away, or what?

Nicotine addiction is probably even harder to overcome in the middle of a disaster. Reference the movie Airplane for an example. I'm not sure what he did with them after the storms passed. My guess would be either thrown them away or returned them to the store. Could be he kept them in preparation for the next emergency. Year-old cigarettes are pretty awful, but probably still tradeable.

Anyhow, now I can say that quitting smoking wasn't just a matter of health and cost, it was part of my disaster preparedness plan.

Re:Bread

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous for obvious reasons.

If you're serious about making preparations try starting at these sites

http://www.survivalistboards.com/
http://www.survivalblog.com/

Sure you have to sift through the paranoia, gun nuttery, religious zealotry and other assorted neuroses on these or any other "survivalist" sites, but there is plenty of really good, free information available about gardening, food preservation and pioneer style cooking, along with many other subjects of interest to someone trying to keep their family alive when the SHTF.

For example, as suggested by another poster, the Mormons have their act together when it comes to preparedness. If you never look at anything else, reading and implementing the practical portions the LDS Preparedness Manual will go a long way towards keeping you and yours alive when "someday" actually comes.

Re:Bread

[HiThere]

Whiskey would be a better post-apocalypse trade good than gold. Just be careful that when you practice distilling and aging it you don't get caught.

Re:Bread

[evilviper]

You can buy freeze dried food in large cans that will last 30 years or more.

What's the obsession with freeze dried foods? That's just pushing uphill, for no good reason...

Want to stock up for a disaster? Buy a 25lbs (~11kg) bag of rice. There, you've got enough calories to survive for a month and a half, and all for under $15USD. The same applies to pasta, ramen, etc. Items that are naturally "dehydrated" are vastly less expensive than those that need to be actively dehydrated. Freeze drying is only necessary for "luxury" foods... It makes sense when you're sending items into space, but not so much for disaster preparedness, unless you've got more money than you know what to do with...

Ditto for the MREs many people think they need to buy... unless you desperately need the ability to eat on the run, you're just wasting tons of money and getting worse tasting foods.

Of course "luxury" items are fine as "treats," but that should only be a tiny percentage of your stockpile.

Re:Bread

[koona]

NOPE Cookin grease (lard), bullets, beans, barley (Rye or rice) IN THAT ORDER.

Thats a list built from long experience.

Strangely enough, just this fall I put $3500 into just that.

You might wonder why. eh?

Now is later.

Re:Bread

[5KVGhost]

And don't forget to hide a bunch of science books in your septic tank.

Re:Coming from the top space brainboxes...

[IceCreamGuy]

Hahah, yeah, somewhere on a distant world there's an alien Heinlein writing a novel about capturing the meatbags' top space brainboxes

Mr. Faraday reporting

[assemblerex]

Seriously guys, I figured this out ages ago... -Faraday

Re:Mr. Faraday reporting

[Yvan256]

Hey you, how did you get out?! Get back in your cage!!!

Re:Mr. Faraday reporting

[DeadPixels]

Our first course of action is to build a gigantic Faraday cage around the sun.

Re:Mr. Faraday reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of Stokes' theorem? The Faraday cage could go around the Earth, but would not stop any solar flux from reaching us if placed around the Sun.

Barjavel novel: Ravage

[heatseeker_around]

Does it sound like Ravage (fr) from Barjavel ? It has been written in 1943 and the story takes place in a future so far from now... 2052. I recommend this novel, not as a prediction model, but as a tremendous sci-fi story.

Parrots a Sci American article a couple years ago?

[smchris]

If I remember they said there was a storm in the mid-19th century that interfered with _telegraph_ traffic. Which is to say, think about what it would do to microprocessors.

Katrina

[DoofusOfDeath]

Is a 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing?

Man, New Orleans can't catch a freaking break!

Forget finance, transportation, etc. disruptions..

[jeffshoaf]

What about my digital satellite TV? Hey, if I'm stuck at home w/o the internet access, I'll need something to keep my mind occupied while I starve to death and fend off the ravaging hordes!

Arthur C Clarke anyone?

[thebheffect]

At least he didn't forget. One of the events he mentioned in his writings was the massive corruption of magnetically stored data. I believe it was his 2001 series (2001, 2010, etc...) where he mentioned a devastating solar storm that wiped out a vast majority of Earth's digital records.

Re:Arthur C Clarke anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably a dumb question, but are optical media like CDs and DVDs safe? Yes, I know they aren't magnetic, but microwaves, for example, can do them in.

Re:Arthur C Clarke anyone?

[Technopolymath]

See the next story down on the front page, "Obama wants all medical records digitized"... frakkin funny stuff, anit it?

Re:Arthur C Clarke anyone?

[Remus Shepherd]

Are they safe from solar storms? Yes. If a solar storm strong enough to fry your CDs hits, your main concerns will be finding oxygen to breathe, keeping your DNA in one piece, and should you tell your doctor about the annoying way you glow in the dark.

Note, however, that CDs naturally degrade over a period of from 3-20 years depending on the brand. So there's a good chance they won't survive until the next solar maximum anyway. But don't blame the sun.

Re:Arthur C Clarke anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

On this note. Sunstorm. Exactly this sort of scenario, only created by the first race, but basically the planet gets rather screwed over.

Re:Arthur C Clarke anyone?

[FTWinston]

IMO, they're safe. They don't conduct (afaik). This is an issue for long wires and satellites, so your CDs are fine.

Re:Arthur C Clarke anyone?

[John Hasler]

If Clarke wrote that he blew it. The fields in question are many orders of magnitude too weak to affect devices as small as tapes and disk drives. The problem is not a huge increase in magnetic field strength. The problem is that the Earth's magnetic field wriggles around as it interacts with solar storms. If it wriggles vigourously enough it can induce destructive currents in very long electrical transmission lines.

I hope it happens.

[plasmacutter]

Private and semi-private energy companies, like all lnstitutions promoted by competition to cut costs, suffer the malady of products and infrastructure "built by the lowest bidder".

Because of the nature of pure capitalism and even mixed economies, it is against the interests of any individual actor to create a more robust electronic infrastructure.

This is a role for the dreaded "R" word..ok i'll say it.. RRRegulation.

This is why i hope a solar storm like the one this article fear-mongers about happens.

When it does, various electronic infrastructure companies (power, telecom, etc) will happily welcome a law which sets a minimum level of EMP hardening and other standards.

It's important to note that, despite raising their costs a bit, it won't matter to them so long as their competition suffers the same way.

The cost will likely be passed on to the consumer, but "main street" will also be happy to pay an extra 3 bucks on a few bills knowing region-wide blackouts of power, phone, and internet will no longer be common, especially with a catastrophic failure fresh in their minds.

Re:I hope it happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this is a problem of capitalism at all. The nature of capitalism is such that a company will produce the best product for the lowest price, aiming for the largest market with the largest profit margin. Nothing wrong with this.

The problem is that most power and utility services are not even remotely capitalist on a local level. (I have exactly two options for power - local electric utility or no power).

Also, planning for a disaster must include cost-benefit analysis. The northwest was just hit with a fairly major winter storm recently (ok, major for the northwest) and now folks are bitching about the government response to the storm. But it really doesn't make a lot of sense to pay for massive amounts of preparedness when these kinds of storms only hit once every 10-15 years or so. If we did, we'd have tons of expensive equipment sitting around being useless 90+% of the time.

Same can be said for a storm of this nature. How likely is to happen? What are the costs to society when it does happen? What are the costs of being prepared or not and are we willing to paying for it if it rarely/never gets used?

I'm not saying don't be prepared, just that you cannot be prepared for every possible eventuality. It's important to prepare intelligently.

Re:I hope it happens.

[5KVGhost]

You're overlooking the opportunity costs. If the telecom structure were first built as you suggest then it would never have become as widespread or as useful as it is today. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

It's important to note that, despite raising their costs a bit, it won't matter to them so long as their competition suffers the same way.

Of course it won't matter to them. Big businesses absolutely adore strict regulations, the more complex and expensive the better. It raises the cost of entry into the market and kills off those annoying upstarts and their inconvenient new ideas. But if we want to fix these vulnerabilities then I think we need a more dynamic and decentralized infrastructure, not just the same old players consolidating their positions.

Kanye West says:

[G-Man]

"George Bush doesn't care about BlackBerries."

Re:Kanye West says:

[mcgrew]

Kanye West was wrong. George Bush cares about Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Condoleesa Rice, Barack Obama, and their ilk. It's poor people George Bush don't like, and their skin color is unimportant.

Racism is a tool of the rich, meant to take your eye of the real problem, classism, and meant to keep poor and middle class whites and blacks at each others' throats so they won't see the REAL enemy, the rich bastards who are keeping the poor and middle class of all races down.

Bernie Madoff stole fifty billion dollars and got out on ten million bail, if I get caught stealing fifty thousand dollars will I get out on ten dollars bail? And why am I the only one asking that question?

Re:Kanye West says:

[johnsonav]

Bernie Madoff stole fifty billion dollars and got out on ten million bail, if I get caught stealing fifty thousand dollars will I get out on ten dollars bail? And why am I the only one asking that question?

Bail is not intended to be punitive. It is only to assure that the defendant appears at trial. The only reason it usually scales upward with the severity of the crime, is because the incentive for not appearing at trial increases with the severity of the potential punishment. In this case, the judge decided that $10 million was enough to assure Madoff's appearance.

If you stole fifty thousand dollars, in a non-violent crime, you may be released on a signature bond (depending on the state and circumstances of the case). You may not have to put up any money at all. It all depends whether or not you can convince the judge that you will show up for the trial.

Its not a punishment. Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.

Re:Kanye West says:

[mcgrew]

It's bail, if I steal fifty thousand dollars and am given ten dollars bail, that ten bucks is a cost of doing dirty business. Ten bucks on fifty thousand is exactly how much Madoff had to pay. His bail was nowhere near high enough, ten million dolars to Madoff is chump change.

No way ten million would keep him from skipping out. And it's bail, show up in court and you get it back. His bail should have been far higher than the amount he stole.

But in America, no rich powerful man goes to jail unless a richer, more powerful man puts him there. "Rule of law" is meaningless when laws can be bought.

Re:Kanye West says:

[johnsonav]

No way ten million would keep him from skipping out.

We will be able to test your hypothesis. I, for one, think that he won't skip bail. Obviously, the judge in the case agrees with me. You think he will skip.

His bail should have been far higher than the amount he stole.

Why? Excessive bail is unjust; unless, of course, you just want to see the man in jail without a trial. I hope you are never falsely accused of a crime, can't afford the excessive bail, and have to spend months in county jail awaiting trial.

If you want to talk about the injustice of the American bail system, look to the poor--not the rich--who are the most hurt by the current system. Innocent men rot away in jails all across the country because they cannot make bail. Their lives are ruined. Their jobs are lost. Their houses are foreclosed upon. Their roomates become rapists and murderers. They become the victim of the systemic violence of the corrections system. All without a trial or conviction.

Madoff is the least of my concerns with the bail system. Higher bail for him, and other high-profile rich defendants, will eventually trickle down, meaning higher bail for all defendants.

But in America, no rich powerful man goes to jail unless a richer, more powerful man puts him there. "Rule of law" is meaningless when laws can be bought.

I whole-heartedly agree. But, in this case, Madoff made a lot of rich people very, very angry. I don't think even OJ's dream team could get him off on this one.

Re:Kanye West says:

[mcgrew]

I, for one, think that he won't skip bail.

I don't think he will either, but I think he COULD. Someone who has to put his house up for bail because he got a DUI can't. That's unfair. If bail doesn't hurt the rich it shouldn't hurt the poor.

Excessive bail is unjust

He is accused of stealing fifty billion dollars; a bail of that amount is just. Ten dollars on every five thousand is not. If you shoplift a ten dollar CD your bail will be in the hundreds, even if you work minimum wage. THAT'S excessive.

If you want to talk about the injustice of the American bail system, look to the poor--not the rich--who are the most hurt by the current system.

That's my point exactly. If innocent poor men are being ruined by bail, guilty rich men should be as well (yeah, I know, he's innocent until trial. Tell that to someone who got his car taken away because they found a joint in the back seat).

Higher bail for him, and other high-profile rich defendants, will eventually trickle down, meaning higher bail for all defendants

Possibly, but I think unlikely. Poor people already pay far too much bail.

Madoff made a lot of rich people very, very angry. I don't think even OJ's dream team could get him off on this one.

I agree completely. If he's ripped off poor people instead they'd have thrown a banquet in his honor.

My bogus hypothesis

[Thelasko]

The world has become so covered by interconnecting copper wire, it has become a massive Faraday cage and is impervious to such threat.

Re:My bogus hypothesis

[evanbd]

Oddly enough, that is precisely the problem. A Faraday cage works because the conductive shield allows eddy currents to flow, which create fields in opposition to the original event. This prevents things inside the cage from seeing what happened outside. Unfortunately, the cage in this case is our power grid -- and the eddy currents in it are precisely the things causing concern.

Re:My bogus hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were depending on the faraday cage to do anything else but be a faraday cage, you'd be in trouble. Everything inside the cage is fine, but the cage itself has to deal with a lot of inductance. If your power grid is the faraday cage, you're screwed.

Re:My bogus hypothesis

[Thelasko]

Oddly enough, that is precisely the problem.

What part of "bogus hypothesis" didn't you get?

Re:My bogus hypothesis

[fbjon]

The hypothesis wasn't bogus, just the conclusion drawn.

Re:Just a thought

[Waffle Iron]

Right. If people had lower taxes, the first thing they'd think of to spend the money on would be EMP-resistant electronics.

They would forgo extra vacations, faster cars, Jacuzzis, expensive Champagne and plastic surgery, so that they could upgrade to a rad-hardened TV set. They would show off their Faraday-enclosed gear at parties to impress their friends.

I'm 100% confident that's what everyone would do, and solar storms would be no longer be a risk to anyone.

Communication?

[spectrokid]

Would communication still be so vulnerable? Most of the long distance shit uses fiberoptics, and a lot of the short distance stuff is underground... Your ADSL is obviously not going to do you much good if you have no power on the modem, but the backbone ought to cope reasonably...

Re:Communication?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would communication still be so vulnerable? Most of the long distance shit uses fiberoptics

Long-distance fiberoptics won't do you any good at all without repeaters every 100 km or so. Those repeaters need power, and this power is transmitted inside the (very long, in this case) fiberoptics cable, which makes it susceptible to magnetic storms. On the other hand:

and a lot of the short distance stuff is underground...

Most of the long-distance stuff is underground (or rather: underwater) as well.

Re:Communication?

[John Hasler]

> Most of the long distance shit uses fiberoptics...

Aren't the repeaters powered by wire run in the cable? If so, and if the runs are long enough, the magnetic storms will zap them.

> ...and a lot of the short distance stuff is underground...

Makes no difference. The problem is currents induced in long cables when the Earth's magnetic field wiggles around as it interacts with solar storms.

Forgot?

[SeNtM]

I often attribute unexplained disk failures and network outages to solar activity, even if none existed at the time. On Earth we are somewhat protected by the earths magnetosphere...but why worry about things that we have no control over. If a large flare or increased solar activity were to wipe out satellites or a large scale EMF was to destroy all electronics on Earth, what could we really do? Turn off the power grids for the entire planet...not going to happen. Someone please tag this as FUD, it is an obvious attempt to generate funding for events that we know will eventual happen and that we will have no control over.

Our storm.

[mauldus]

And when it arrives, it will shake the universe!

The sun wants..

[Anonymous Coward]

BLOOD! More human sacrifices or the big ball of gas burns 6000 baby seals.

Answer the summary

[colmore]

In answer to the ridiculous summary:

No, a "Katrina-like" space storm is not brewing, because for a storm to remotely resemble an Atlantic Hurricane, it would need to occur inside of a frikkin' atmosphere.

Bad journalism should be painful to the perpetrator.

Re:Answer the summary

[nedlohs]

Analogy 101.

Katrina was an expected to occur natural event which was not prepared for appropriately. This is an expected to occur natural event which has not been prepared for appropriately.

If you try reading the article this is more obvious, since they are contrasting it with a "space Pearl Harbour".

I realise this is hard for you, but just to short-circuit the confusion when they say "space Pearl Harbour" they don't mean Japanese planes attacking Hawaii in space (because yes Hawaii isn't in space, and yes WW2 planes can't fly in space) they mean a surprise military attack.

Re:Answer the summary

[colmore]

I know. I just get angry at politically-charged metaphors being used in the wrong place.

There have been plenty of destructive weather events and Katrina is the most famous recent one. But Katrina has all kinds of extra political baggage.

Is this space storm going to be inadequately recovered from? Is it going to signal the downfall of a corrupt administration? Will it disproportionately affect poor minorities?

It's pretty lazy writing to go for the closest shocking phrase available and it distracts from the point being made.

Re:Answer the summary

[OneSmartFellow]

OK, but it's still a crap analogy. and very confusing to read.

Re:Answer the summary

[John Hasler]

> Bad journalism should be painful to the perpetrator.

That would condemn 99.9% of the reporters in the world to eternal agony.

Too much optimization

[marcosdumay]

Too much optimization and too much interdependency do lead to a Perfect Storm factory.

...and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

[Anonymous Coward]

And in other news Katrina like radiation turns converter into Hulk.

Obligatory Airplane II quote

[cloudwilliam]

A newly released NASA report warns that the world has forgotten the power of the sun....

Simon: My God, the sun!

Elaine: The sun? Simon, what is it?

Simon: A large, fiery ball at the center of our solar system.

Re:Obligatory Airplane II quote

[oodaloop]

But that's not important right now.

NASA Wants Bailout Funds...

[littlewink]

to save itself from being replaced by Obama's proposed NASA-military merge. This is fear-mongering to keep their bureaucratic pants pockets full.

Never under estimate the power of a gun

[east coast]

According the report, the world has grown so dependent on modern technologies without respect of what the sun can and has done, that it's risking major communications, finance, transportation, government and even emergency services disruptions

That's why I keep a loaded AK by my home servers and my passport is right beside my 45.

Re:Never under estimate the power of a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm... joking? cuz I really do have my passport under my sidearm when I'm not carrying it.

Re:Never under estimate the power of a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, in the USA you need to show a passport every time you fire with your 45? Crazy talk, I tell you...

katrina like 911 tsunami

[Anonymous Coward]

my katrina like breakfast had me in the can most of the morning so far. That or the katrina like sex i had last night.

Re:katrina like 911 tsunami

[Anonymous Coward]

katrina like sex

You fucked a lot of black people?

Re:Parrots a Sci American article a couple years a

[ChrisMaple]

Because home computers create a lot of EMI, they're enclosed in metal boxes. Those same metal boxes help protect them from EMP strikes. The vulnerable components are those connected to the world outside the box: keyboard ports, monitor ports, printer ports, external USB, firewire, SCSI, modem, etc.. The parts likely to blow are those interface components, not the microprocessor, which is protected for a variety of reasons including its price. However, if the interface parts are gone, the computer is useless, so it's not much of a consolation that the micro won't be fried.

The most likely way to kill the micro is a surge on the AC causing a severe overvoltage to the micro.

Telegraph wires were exposed and extended over long distances, so it's no surprise that any sort of electrical storm could interfere with telegraphy. Modern telephone and electrical systems are designed to withstand most lightning strikes, so they stand a fair chance of holding up under a sunstorm. Time will tell.

I can imagine the uproar...

[mindwanderer]

...in the World of Warcraft forums when this happens. I predict threats of cancellation for inadequate solar-storm protection and demands for a punch-card character-backup system.

On holiday

[CarpetShark]

We must confirm it at once with our brightest astro boffins!!

Unfortunately Kodos and Kang were unavailable for comment.

Easy.

[RulerOf]

Dyson Sphere time.

We could surely modify one to extinguish the sun in no time!

Katrina-Like

[sexconker]

Big.
Doesn't care about black holes.

Black is the New Green

[RobotRunAmok]

wouldn't the atmosphere lessen the damage?

I like the notion that pollutants in the air might dampen the effects of the "space storm." Then we could all say that we were doing our part for humanity by generating the largest carbon footprints possible. The general idea of pitting two different camps of Doomsday Cultists against each other in some kind of Texas Cage Match also holds appeal...

Buy Camping Gear!

[nevdullc]

But seriously folkes.. if all the lights went out tomorrow, what shape would you be in..?

Re:Buy Camping Gear!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll go out on a limb here and say that we'll still all be out of shape.

Re:Buy Camping Gear!

[cjjjer]

I'd still be morbidly obese you insensitive clod.

Re:Just a thought

[nevdullc]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, who's making their gear ready for this sort of thing besides the U.S. Navy?

Re:Parrots a Sci American article a couple years a

[Alioth]

...the answer is "not much". It affected telegraph traffic because telegraph lines were extremely long conductors, in which large currents could be induced by the electromagnetic interference. But the conductors in your computer are very short (engineers go to lots of trouble to make them as short as possible). Modern equipment is also rather better shielded from electromagnetic interference than antique telegraph systems.

Re:Parrots a Sci American article a couple years a

[Anonymous Coward]

If I remember they said there was a storm in the mid-19th century that interfered with _telegraph_ traffic. Which is to say, think about what it would do to microprocessors.

Not much. Magnetic storms do their damage by (roughly speaking) moving the earth's magnetic field around, which will induce currents in electric conductors. The longer the conductor, the stronger the current. And since microprocessors are quite small (especially when compared to the above-ground transcontinental telegraph wires which have been fried by the 1859 sunstorm), the direct effect is minimal.

On the other hand, a magnetic storm could cause surges on your power line, which in turn may fry your electronics. But then, every lightning can do the same, which is why we have surge protectors nowadays...

The Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I herd it also rises.

Flare, by Zelazny & Thomas

[gazz]

My current reading, Flare ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/067172133X ), contains a scenario remarkably similar to that dipped into in the article.

Re:Parrots a Sci American article a couple years a

[AKAImBatman]

Because good electrical insulation and overload protection circuitry was so common back then, right? I can definitely see a magnetically charged atmosphere being a big problem for electronic devices. I'm not sure if it's as big of a problem as it seems, though. Someone mentioned airplanes. Well, they're shielded against lightening strikes and stray electromagnetic fields.

Modern computers have heavy rubberizing on the wires going into the system, with protection circuitry on most powered ports. (e.g. USB) In addition, the heavy metal frame of the computer acts as a ground for excess electrical energy. Which should provide some protection against a charged atmosphere.

Cell phones and other wireless devices may become useless due to interference, but I doubt they'd be damaged en masse by the event. Going by the effects of EMPs, you usually you need a long stretch of metal (e.g. an antenna of 30 inches or longer) to provide sufficient conductance to burn out the device.

Cars are another area that would be less of a problem than you might think. My understanding is that recent government tests have shown that the protection of the car body means that far fewer modern cars and trucks are susceptible to EMP effects than originally thought. (Which actually makes an EMP weapon far less useful than originally thought.)

So when all is said and done, a solar storm would likely be a major PITA, but it's not the end of civilization as we know it. Satellites are almost certainly the greatest concern as they have very little protection from the elements of space. Of course, the electronics are also hardened for the environment, so the situation may not be as dire as one might think.
 

Nothing to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

I have it on the best authority, and you know that they cannot possibly be wrong, that the sun does not affect the Earth at all!

Just look up any global warming site, and find out the truth. The sun has absolutely no effect on the Earth. The only thing that affects the Earth is SUV's! (Global Warming proponents wives SUV's are specifically excluded)

The Shuttle...

[Anonymous Coward]

The day to day navigation in the shuttle was supposedly done with HP calculators. The back-up in case of just such a solar storm was/is a mini-refrigerator sized discreet transistor computer, circa-1965 technology, little cans about the size of the end of your pinkie, with a lot of area for the charges generated by ionizing radiation to dissipate over. Nearly all mil-spec integrated circuits use more transistors per logic element than consumer stuff for the same reason. Down on the ground, it is the power surges that are dangerous.

Me, I have a tinfoil hat made from Reynolds HEAVY DUTY foil.

Will there be pictures

[f0rtytw0]

of Obama looking out the window of his space plane when he flies past earth?

Re:Parrots a Sci American article a couple years a

[Remus Shepherd]

Yes, this kind of hype comes up approximately every eleven years. Because the sun is on an eleven-year cycle. The last maximum was around 2003. We are now in a minimum. The next maximum should be 2014-2015, although there is some wiggle room, and this last cycle seems to have been exceptionally long.

So you can expect this hype about solar damage to come up in 2009 and last until 2012, by which time everyone will have forgotten it. Then there will be actual damage in 2014-2015 that very few people will notice. Then the media cycle of foretelling doom will repeat around 2020.

Is a 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing?

[jav1231]

It better hurry! Only 8 more days to blame it on Bush! :p

I know, I know...troll / flaimbait but not funny. *sigh*

Re:Is a 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing?

[evilviper]

Only 8 more days to blame it on Bush! :p

Says who? Bush has been blaming Clinton, non-stop, for the past 8 years...

Re:Is a 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing?

[jav1231]

Wow! Source? Haven't seen anything like that. Not that it matters. Both are ex-presidents, essentially.

Re:Is a 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing?

[evilviper]

Wow! Source? Haven't seen anything like that.

That's a bit like asking for a source that the sky is blue, because you've never noticed... Of course, you couldn't be bothered to do the simplest search for yourself.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/08/30/bush-blames/
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/200601012_bush_blames_clinton_again/
http://www.davidcogswell.com/Political/BushBlamesClinton.html
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/07/28/bush-administration-blames-bill-clinton-for-deficit/
http://www.truthout.org/article/keith-olbermann-a-textbook-definition-cowardice
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0006/23/se.02.html
http://zzpat.tripod.com/cvb/impeach44.html#Bush_Blames_Clinton_For_N_Korea_Debacle
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-13-attacks-panel_x.htm

And, of course:
http://homepage.mac.com/garyligi/iblog/C1957607809/E20080429161904/index.html

Solar activity currently at record low

[Anonymous Coward]

With Solar Cycle 24 almost 2 years behind schedule and the Solar Geomagnetic "Ap" Index at it's lowest point on record, the possibility of a "Space Storm" in the near future seems increasingly unlikely.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/04/solar-geomagnetic-ap-index-now-at-lowest-point-in-its-history/

http://www.solarcycle24.com/

Alternative solutions

[dimethylxanthine]

Time to develop neutrino based communication links. We might finally even make contact with ET civilizations in the process. Although taking care of Energy Shield technology first might be a good idea to avoid getting pwned.

Alternatively ubiquitous fiberoptics could be an alternative solution - just need to define clear goals like "why".

------
Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.

Re:Just a thought

[Johnny Mnemonic]

That would be funny, 'cause the grid would still go down. So your stuff may work, but you wouldn't be able to power it. And the cable TV system would not deliver content, so you could turn on your EMP protected TV, but only be able to get static.

basically...

[quickpick]

Green Peace can stop protesting because even if we DO manage to 'save the earth from the evil companies' the fucking sun will nuke the whole fucking planet. Oh yea, and PeTA can stop their bitching too since all the animals will be turned into instant BBQ.
It's monday. I'm allowed to use the word 'fuck' liberally.

Actually Kind of Nice to Hear

[Snowdog]

It's nice to hear about a dire environmental threat that for a change we can't make any worse by ignoring Global Warming.

The poor, the sinners, the superdome

[Anonymous Coward]

" 'Katrina-Like' "

.

I didn't know there was a FEMA team handling SPACE. Nor did I know state and local gov't existed in space. Katrina was a CAT5 storm that was poorly managed by all levels of gov't. CAT 5 storms from a energy/activity standpoint (what the OP was not really referring to) happens normally: here's a list on Atlantic CAT 5 storms in the last few years:

• Isabel 2003
• Ivan 2004
• Emily 2005 +
• Katrina
• Rita
• Wilma(high recorded winds)
• Dean 2007
• Felix
• (pacific) Elida 2002
• (pacific)Hernan 2002
• (pacific)Kenna 2002
• (pacific)Ioke 2006

So why isn't the title: like a 2005 season, or like the more devastating SE Asia tsunami? I'm a bit tried of the "Katrina" issue, that is has become a '-card' issue in politics (e.g. the katrina-card) and the OP is just trying to promote a story by politicizing it in the title to grab your attention (and /. took the bait). Modding down.

Oceans rise, Cities fall but hope lives own..-

[vorlich]

Don't panic.
With Obama in the Whitehouse everything will be fine. They'll be rebuilding the Whitehouse dome within a few days of the disaster and as I have already mentioned in a previous post on a similar Pollyanna-ish topic, the Germans will of course rebuild civilisation in less time and with greater efficiency and to a much higher quality specification than the last couple of times they had to do it (Collapse of Rome, Black Death).

Skynet already exists

[Anonymous Coward]

From here: http://www.solarstorms.org/Scommun.html

A snippet from the Jan 9, 1997 event: This outage affected a $712 million sale of AT&Ts Skynet telecommunications resources to Loral Space and Communications Ltd.

Somebody should really let Sarah Connor know about Loral Space and Comm.....

Mayan calendar

[MikeMo]

Did anyone notice the predicted year of the storm is also the year that the Mayan calendar runs out?

Re:Mayan calendar

[Anonymous Coward]

a cute bit of numerology:

take the year/age christ died: 33,
and double it: 66. double it again: 132, and double six times for a total of 7 numbers including the original 33. that's 33 * 2^6 = 2112. the year of the famous rush album, the end of the mayan calendar, and apparently the ragnarok of all solar storms.
to confirm that the shit hits the fan in 2112, take 2112 and divide it by 777.
the answer is 2.71814... which is e, the natural log, to about three decimal places: 2.71828..
that is, 33 * 2^6 / 777 / e = 0.99995..

of course the cool thing about this numerology is that you can run it in reverse to get the exact instant of christ's death to arbitrary precision.

it's also a convenient way to remember e, if you're into that sort of thing.

NASA = Publicity

[jastus]

I've been in the business of what's become known as "space weather" since 1972 (yeah, an Old Guy). One thing I've learned in this time is to ignore NASA when it comes to space weather issues. We in the community have been aware of this issue for decades, and it has been brought to the attention of The Decision Makers on many occasions at many levels with both government and commercial organizations. The lack of "leaping into action" has been stultifying, mainly because this disaster has never happened and so the bureaucratic take is that it can be safely ignored (same thinking that won't put a stoplight at an intersection until 10 people have died there). Recall that NASA is also the source of the lowest of the predictions for the upcoming solar cycle. So, on one hand they say "hey, the sky is going to fall" and on the other "hey, rainshowers at worst". All NASA cares about is publicity. The official organization for making these kinds of predictions is the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (I don't work there, or for them).

Destroy the sun

[OrangeTide]

We must destroy the sun immediately to avoid these disasters (it will also correct global warming).

The Amish manage to live without electricity, perhaps we should learn how to live without it ourselves for a few weeks. That skill might come in useful in the future.

Re:Destroy the sun

[evilviper]

The Amish manage to live without electricity,

That will come as quite a shock to the Amish.

I imagine they'll be particularly interested to know what all those generators are generating, if not electricity...

I would point out that just because SOMEBODY is in a situation where they can live without SOMETHING, doesn't mean everyone can do the same... Those with diabetes will have a particularly difficult time learning how to live without insulin, even though others manage just fine.

The modern world can't function without "electricity". What it can do, is build-out distributed power generation, so that those modern systems that keep us alive (almost all of us) will continue to function. It's just a matter that many systems don't seem critical, until a widespread and greatly extended power outage.

Re:Destroy the sun

[OrangeTide]

The Amish do not ordinarily have electricity in their homes. They do use electricity if it is necessary for their job. Of course there are many different Amish communities and some are more traditional than others. There are of course Mennonites who have lights in their home (but no TV sets).

Those of us not on life support can exist without electricity. Your diabetes analogy is bollocks.

Only a spoiled and wealthy society thinks that they need electricity and running water every day of the week for the average person to thrive.

Re:Destroy the sun

[evilviper]

Those of us not on life support can exist without electricity.

You can exist without electricity only for a short period of time, and even that, only assuming you have stockpiled the spoils of rampant electricity usage before it ceased.

Sewage treatment, water filtration, and distribution for example. Even if you live near a river, you'll quickly find your water supply contaminated with raw sewage.

Food production, processing, and distribution will also cease, and unless you've got SEVERAL acres of land, and easy access to large quantities of water, you'll quickly find yourself developing scurvy.

The world is much too crowded for all of us to survive without power of some sort, and no other forms of power are remotely ready to replace electricity.

Hurricane Katrina/Ike

[agpc]

I lived through Hurricane Ike and have several relatives who lived through Hurricane Katrina. We went 14 days without electricity and I came really close to losing my mind. Two things I learned: 1. the worst part of not having electricity is not the lack of air condition (although that did very much suck). The worst part was the darkness at night. Basic tasks become impossible in the dark. Once the sun sets you go to sleep because there isn't much else to do. Flashlights are great until you forget where you put the flashlight and its pitch black. Cell phones are very useful for illumination until they lose their charge. 2. Ice is the most valuable commodity when you don't have electricity. Stores will eventually restock bottled water, canned food, ect... Ice was the one product that I saw people literally fighting over and huge pallets of it would disappear within minutes of being placed. Another thing - if you are involved in a massive disruption you are pretty much on your own in that you cannot rely on police or ambulance to come to your aid - they are overwhelmed. One good aspect of the whole ordeal was that I met and *gasp* actually talked to many of my neighbors. It was interesting to see that human beings are actually quite good at banding together during times of extreme duress. Of course, once the power was restored we went back to our indifferent ways but at least I know my neighbors now! Finally, contrary to popular belief, there was no mass hysteria, no large group of roving bandits breaking into stores or looting homes. I have a feeling that potential criminals knew they would have been shot on site because people were on edge. This is Texas after all.

The important question would be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is this Eddy, and what is he flowing around in my power grid for ?

Re:Parrots a Sci American article a couple years a

[kenp2002]

"... they're shielded against lightening strikes and stray electromagnetic fields..."

Then why do we have to turn off all our shit when they want to land or take off?

Re:long distance transportation of essentials

[Anonymous Coward]

i understand most cities have ~2 day supply of food...we've certainly bought into the just-in-time concept:-{

Re:Parrots a Sci American article a couple years a

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, besides the fact that you're inside the Faraday cage with the electronics?

Love

[cmbondi]

Love is the answer, just embrace love man

Re:Love

[Anonymous Coward]

not into men sorry

Why no shielded cars?

[smeseema]

I can understand the complexity of shielding every electronics piece in the telecom / power industry, but is there a reason in this day and age that cars are not shielded? You're insulated from the ground by the tires, just strap on some chicken wire and you've got a rolling faraday cage.

Re:Why no shielded cars?

[Alioth]

Cars are shielded, at least if they have steel body work. The electronics, such as the ECU, are shielded.

What idiot came up with "katrina like"

[Orig_Club_Soda]

There is no government corruption and failure in space. No inadequate levees. No "below sea level" development. What the hell does Katrina-like mean?

Space Katrina?

[new death barbie]

Just when you thought it was safe to move back to New Orleans...

Katrina: Not because it will be a powerful storm

[AMSmith42]

Rather the solar storm will inexplicably only target poor planets. The Mercury, Venus, Mars will blame Earth for knowing about it all along yet doing nothing to prevent it. Saturn will blame her for actually perpetrating the entire thing. It will be a great cosmic conspiracy.

biosphere distruction

[Anonymous Coward]

really .. you think so ..

what would you speculate is the most common and universal way for planets with habitable biospheres like earth's .. through out the uiverse .. to come to an end ..

but by have it's atmosphere striped off by a solar storm .. have not actually tried to come up with possible time period .. but ALL breathable oxygen gone in what could be minutes to at most probably a day or two ..

and you think " space katrina" " rather dramatic"

the winter of 2012 is set to be on of the most active solar cycles ever ..

maybe those mayan's knew something ..

on any average given day there is a 3 to 4 day supply of food on the shelve in a major north american city ..

and people in the modern capitalistic societies have been programed to be competitive and selfish .. me and mine first .. and possible most major cities in north american with out ANY food ..

warning signs

[Anonymous Coward]

You throw out a lot of dead dogs and goats and stuff around the property, let them bloat out, and hang a lot of "Plague" signs with skull and crossbones on it, etc.. After that IED landmines and claymore like devices. The mob will move to softer targets.

BAD IDEA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you start quartering the troops, one day they will decide you're no longer needed. You really think the authority will bow to your wishes.

Cool.

[Velocir]

We in NZ get to watch Space Katrina tear apart Space Louisiana from a safe distance.

Re:Just a thought

[Culture20]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, who's making their gear ready for this sort of thing besides the U.S. Navy?

The Chinese Navy?

Another Panicky Prediction of Doom

[kenwd0elq]

Just another panic-of-the-day. Yes, it could happen. Yes, it HAS happened - in 1850-something, when telegraph offices caught fire from the induced current in the telegraph wires. Yes, it WILL happen again - someday. But not in the next 3 years, not with an extended Solar Minimum that still hasn't bounced up yet.

Re:Another Panicky Prediction of Doom

[cathector]

wow, three years. way to take the long view.

fwiw, all signs point to the solar minimum being over:
there have been several sunspots in the past couple weeks.
we can very reasonably expect solar maximum in about five to six years,
so this seems like an excellent time to be raising the issue of infrastructure fragilities. the timing is a little late, if anything.

Boy Scouts' Motto...

[protodevilin]

"Be prepared for life." It's foolish to place all your trust in any one system, because it won't last forever (least of all this technological house of cards we're living in). Mind you, I've always been rather biased on this subject, believing people in general have become a bit too complacent about the comfortable lives they lead in this modern age. So, the Cosmic Katrina happens, and we all get sent back to the proverbial Stone Age. Dark outside? Light a fire. Hungry? Learn to hunt/gather/cultivate crops (not as hard as it seems). Got somewhere to go? Start walking. Need to send a message? Send a courier, or go there yourself. Men with guns trying to take your stuff? Learn to shoot/fight better than them. Injured? A military field survival guide will help with that. The point is, if you're at least somewhat prepared for a disaster or other adverse contingency, the idea of it actually happening becomes less dreadful, and your odds of surviving it increase dramatically.

Um... analogies

[Arancaytar]

Calling this Katrina-like seems to be like calling the Holocaust "9/11-like".

(*And now I wait for survivors of each of these three to tear me to shreds.)

No, No, DO!!!

[dsmall]

"Oh, please don't turn this into a zombie apocalypse survivalist fantasy! "

No! No! DO turn it into a Zombie Apocalypse Survivalist Fantasy!!! It'll be a heck of a lot more fun to read!

If I may put a vote in ... go find the movie "Fido". Easily the funniest Zombie movie I've ever seen. Stars Carrie-Ann Moss. Yep, that girl from the Matrix ... and she can actually smile! Set in 1950's America after a Zombie Apocalypse ... with a Zombie and a boy named Timmy ...

  -- David

This may look like a signature, but it's only yet another buffer overrun.

Faraday cages *are* the answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a properly grounded Faraday cage, equipment inside of it should survive. The hardest part of a Faraday cage is decoupling the power supply from outside to inside (something like a laser based power transformer works well) so that you don't have to allow any actual electricity conducting material (that will also propogate the EMR) through the wall.

In the case of the Canadian power grid, it is completely exposed - and it has to be. A better question to ask, about the impact of such an event on modern equipment, would be to look at how that event impacted fridges, etc. Did they all short circuit, etc, or was it just the power lines?

Furthermore, it is unlikely that the entire world will be subject to the event. The Coronial Mass Ejections have peak intensities that will impact only the side of the Earth facing the Sun.
 

Been there, done that . . .

[dsmall]

The high altitude nuclear shots the U.S. did to study the effects (and try for an effective ABM) did indeed kill some early commercial satellites.

This was most embarrassing, even if it was an "effect" to study.

There was an informal understanding between the Soviet and U.S. space program that no one would fire off a megaton at high altitude when there was a spacecraft and crew up there.

I wasn't around for most of the 1950's, but I believe we also managed to EMP Hawaii dark, or at least kill a whole bunch of fuses. But in the 1950's we didn't use much transistor technology; we were busy learning about it and developing it. (Please, I know that some transistorized machines came out in this era; I'm saying we didn't use them to control main power switches.)

Thanks,

Dave