371–380 of 418 posts
"The Threat of a Solar Superstorm Is Growing—And We’re Not Ready" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-threat-of-a-s... Discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40196820
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The water seems like the hard part. Are there any tricks for cheap, safe hydration for a family? I guess we could just start building walls of unopened water bottles in our basement… (In my teens I saw a family friend had a bag full of food supplies. I asked someone if that was a prep bag, and they said yes. I thought they were a bit weird. Now I’ve come full circle browsing Amazon for cheap doomsday food.)
I've got a 1000 litre / 250-ish US gallon rainwater collection tank. While I wouldn't want to start there for drinking water, it would do for quite a while if I boil it. We do get power failures, so it's mostly been for some garden watering, and being able to flush our toilets during an outage. We're on a well, and the pump needs 220v. I suppose I could get a better generator too, ours only does 120v.
Especially as an autotransformer it's pretty cheap (should be about 50$).
While the photos of the auroras which have been circulating are certainly impressive, this has got me thinking about the Carrington Event [1], as well as a possible future event of equal or greater magnitude. I'm not an electronics expert, but I'm guessing that the reason we're so vulnerable to such an event today is because our infrastructure was originally built without such an event in mind, and now the upgrade co…
I'd guess the goal would be to get things going again as fast as possible so no, I doubt there would be much time & effort put into some of the points you mention, at least in the short term. Decentralization might come not so much by design in an event like that, but out of necessity.
Relevant YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGlGCIiyZE This guy has done solar weather reports every morning for years at this point.
While the photos of the auroras which have been circulating are certainly impressive, this has got me thinking about the Carrington Event [1], as well as a possible future event of equal or greater magnitude. I'm not an electronics expert, but I'm guessing that the reason we're so vulnerable to such an event today is because our infrastructure was originally built without such an event in mind, and now the upgrade co…
My understanding is that it is fairly easy to protect the electrical grid from solar storms. It requires adding grounding at all of the vulnerable equipment. My impression is that the cables won't be hurt but the transformers can be destroyed. It sounds feasible to do but requires the government to regulate the utilities and provide money.
That would be a lot cheaper than implementing distributed grids. It is much more efficient to put lots of solar panels in sunny areas than enough panels and batteries in each house.
We have early warning system. This notice is from space weather tracking that detects flares and predicts if and when they will hit Earth. I don't know if anyone is thinking about how to decide and shut down the grid temporarily, but it should be something they are thinking about.
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I've got a 1000 litre / 250-ish US gallon rainwater collection tank. While I wouldn't want to start there for drinking water, it would do for quite a while if I boil it. We do get power failures, so it's mostly been for some garden watering, and being able to flush our toilets during an outage. We're on a well, and the pump needs 220v. I suppose I could get a better generator too, ours only does 120v.
You can just use a transformer to re-create the 240 for your pump if the power/load is otherwise fine Especially as an autotransformer it's pretty cheap (should be about 50$).
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Keep some oats, you can eat them raw.
That’s an interesting point, I hadn’t considered that. It should be noted for other readers, that it’s processed oats that have been treated with steaming and an extended heat treatment that are safe to eat as is. That said, “overnight oatmeal” is still not recommended. The steaming and heating steps allow oats to be shaped, modifies the flavor, kills the many possible pathogens present (like ecoli and salmonella) an…
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Thanks! :) Haha! I think the ISS hull uses classified shielding to provide some kind of advanced protection. But it's expensive and based on materials science activated with electric fields. I think they also have some detection system to detect and correct single-event effects. Just info tho, I don't have an article source for this haha! :) Even then astronnauts may be advised to not use some devices during specific…
I think it’s worth mentioning here COTS hardware is also very resilient (things like ZFS without ECC excluded) to radiation these days. Here’s a video of a GoPro riding through an electron beam: https://youtu.be/Uf4Ux4SlyT4?si=6z6626hrdXhvZ2x_ There are lots of bad things happening while it’s in the middle of the beam, but it appears to function normally after completing the pass.
While the photos of the auroras which have been circulating are certainly impressive, this has got me thinking about the Carrington Event [1], as well as a possible future event of equal or greater magnitude. I'm not an electronics expert, but I'm guessing that the reason we're so vulnerable to such an event today is because our infrastructure was originally built without such an event in mind, and now the upgrade co…
There is no worry with electronics and Carrington Event or high-altitude EMP. The wavelengths are too long and electronics are too small. The main risk is induced current in long wires. I read article recently that long-distance fiber optic cables are vulnerable even under the sea. My understanding is that it is fairly easy to protect the electrical grid from solar storms. It requires adding grounding at all of the v…
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Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Climate change is a liberal hoax to steal money from you. Jesus is coming soon and will rapture us into heaven. Antifa wants to burn down your city. Gays are destroying family values. Women should be forced to have children if they got pregnant. Taxes are theft. The US should let Russia take Ukraine. The earth is 2000 years old. Weed should be illegal. More guns will solve crime. E…
Agreed, but: The words “are allowed to be” are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Who allows these beliefs to be mainstream? Does anybody have the power to not allow it? The thing, is, we cannot get rid of those beliefs by force – and arguably, we should not even if we could – so where does that leave us? Reason does not seem to help. It is hard to avoid a feeling of despair. But we cannot allow ourselves the luxury.