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Feds Have a Plan For Catastrophic Solar Flares (digitaljournal.com)
New submitter Steve Sacco, referencing the newly released National Space Weather Strategy and the National Space Weather Action Plan, written in anticipation of large-scale disruptions from a solar flare or similar event, writes: Released on October 28, 2015, the White House plan involves the coordination of agencies from the federal level, state level, and including emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, nonprofit organizations and the private sector, all in preparation for the worst-case scenario possible, such as the Carrington Event that took place in 1859.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/scien... - twice in the last thousand years or so, there has been an event around ten to twenty times larger, with a _much_ more energetic and destructive (to orbital things) spectrum.
No, there is a better preparation, ground resistors for transformers so the grid doesn't even need to be shut down. Solved problem, just need to spend the money and do it; estimated cost by Michio Kaku and other members of the American Physical Society was less than $200 million. chump change, cheap insurance.
This.
The electrical grids consist of cables that are strewn over long distances. They act like giant antennas that pick up the EM radiation from the flare and its interaction with the Earth's magnetic field. To protect the grid, you disconnect portions of it from each other, so that instead of a few giant "antennas", you have many more small ones. The current induced in the smaller "antennas" is much lower and far less harmful. And this is why prediction is so important: the early warning allows grid-operators to disconnect the grid in time to avoid catastrophic damage.
Satellites are also vulnerable because they can suffer deep static-charging that burns out electrical components. Unfortunately, forecasting doesn't help as much for this. The best you can do is study the magnitudes of expected events, engineer as well as you can against them, and plan for redundancy and replacement of the satellites as needed.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
If you don't have solar power stored in a nice dark box inside a Faraday cage, along with (at least) a radio and anything electrical you need to survive
We're talking about a solar flare, not an EMP from a nuke at ground zero. The only reason massive solar flares damage things is because we have millions of miles of wires stretched across entire continents acting like massive antennas absorbing the energy from the flare on a massive, massive scale. The primary risk is the infrastructure itself going down - mainly in the form of tens of thousands of power transformers being destroyed. It's also possible that anything plugged into the grid can also be damaged, similar to a lightning strike, however in all likelihood the grid would be damaged before it can transfer the power of the solar flare into homes (it would be a slow build up over time - hours and maybe days - until it cooks the transformers and other equipment designed to regulate power).
So Faraday cages and the like to protect from solar flare are, well, about as useful as tin foil hats. Main thing is to disconnect your house from the grid via your main breakers when we know CME strike is imminent (and of course we will know about many hours in advance).
Better known as 318230.