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The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

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Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#121

Post by SoftTalker »

lxgr wrote: post #47
arrowsmith wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't modern passenger jets have some kind of failsafe way they could still be controlled and landed safely if the electronics fail? I would assume they do. But then I know nothing whatsoever about aircraft safety and am only speculating.

Modern fly-by-wire systems often don’t have a mechanic backup, and even for mechanically controlled ones (like the B737) I wouldn’t be too sure if they’d fare that well without any electronic controls. But it’s not a given that an event of this type would even disrupt electronics not connected to the power grid. Even the longest possible line in an airplane is only on the order of a couple of meters, compared to thou…

Modern aircraft have full authority digital engine controls (FADEC), even if they use cables and pulleys to operate the control surfaces. If your 737 turns into a glider you have one chance at landing somewhere, so yeah you might survive but not likely especially if you are over water.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#122

Post by thatguy0900 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #44
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd be surprised to see how quickly people adapt - I mean, big parts of the world do just fine without electronics and computers. The biggest risk would be the water supply, followed by infrastructure - think grocery store deliveries. And these have / are already happening, so contingency plans are already there, or should be made. Water supplies have been failing in a lot of places due to droughts, heatwav…

Well, one of the big issues is just in time logistics. India and lots of other countries have a lot of local agriculture and would probably be fine. The US and other countries highly reliant on centralized agricultural production and transportation? Uhoh.

Will they be fine when fertilizer shipments stop?

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#123

Post by [deleted] »

lxgr wrote: post #50
nicoburns wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electricity is used widely by organic life: it’s a key mechanism by which nerves and neurons function.

Yes, but these mechanisms aren’t really electric currents in relatively long metal conductors, which are what’s vulnerable to an EMP. That’s why humans are ok with spending some time in an MRI, while microprocessors wouldn’t be.

[deleted]

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#124

Post by zikduruqe »

Turskarama wrote: post #13
dskrepps wrote: post #9

I've wondered for a while. Lots of people seem to think a Carrington Event will simply fry all small electronics and make everything stop working, but from my understanding all it'll actually do is cause power surges in long transmission lines and disrupt wireless signals. Apparently telegraph lines sparked and shocked people. So what effect will that actually have now? Will a massive power surge go through my house…

The big risk is a bunch of transformers blow up, essentially taking the grid down. Since we would have to bootstrap the grid again without the advantage of the grid... this would likely set civilization back pretty far, a new dark age is far from impossible.

This will be the most probably scenario based on this book which as based on an EMP, but regardless the same outcome - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After

Then you will probably want have - https://www.howtoinventeverything.com

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#125

Post by bsder »

dan_mctree wrote: post #23
hparadiz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding it mostly effects large pieces of metal like copper lines but would be unlikely to create a significant charge in small electronics and wouldn't destroy solar panels or the vast majority of components. Any transformer pieces that are in a disassembled state prior to the event would be easy to put together and bootstrap any such event. Some locations like inside concrete buildings or under ground…

There's not nearly enough transformers in reserve to properly rebuild the grid and you can't always just drop in and replace either. New transformers are also not currently able to be produced fast, and having society collapse around you probably wouldn't help while trying to increase their production rate. If we'd lose most transformers, it could be many months or years before large regions could see their power bac…

We are probably close enough to be able to deploy solar with storage in sufficient quantity that isolated islands would be viable to re-bootstrap.

This also has the advantage that it helps your economics during normal operation rather than just during a crisis.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#126

Post by xenadu02 »

dan_mctree wrote: post #23
hparadiz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding it mostly effects large pieces of metal like copper lines but would be unlikely to create a significant charge in small electronics and wouldn't destroy solar panels or the vast majority of components. Any transformer pieces that are in a disassembled state prior to the event would be easy to put together and bootstrap any such event. Some locations like inside concrete buildings or under ground…

There's not nearly enough transformers in reserve to properly rebuild the grid and you can't always just drop in and replace either. New transformers are also not currently able to be produced fast, and having society collapse around you probably wouldn't help while trying to increase their production rate. If we'd lose most transformers, it could be many months or years before large regions could see their power bac…

In such a scenario we would just start cobbling together makeshift transformers using available materials. You just need some spools of wire, a hunk of iron, then wrap the wires around. It won't be pretty, last for 50 years, etc. But it would be enough to get electricity back on in all major and medium cities to at least some degree.

If it's really bad people will tear apart motors from clothes dryers to steal wire if needed... a jank transformer like that would be hung off the primary wires for each individual house and you wouldn't be able to run high power appliances but in a true "grid crippled" emergency people would do whatever they must.

In the immediate term those of us with solar and battery would be able to help our neighbors charge cell phones and the like. We'd also be able to charge EVs for short trips to gather supplies.

If needed people would disassemble machines for making wire and transformers then move them my horse cart or hand-pulled sled to factory buildings with electric power (or enough solar panels) to restart production.

Don't get me wrong - it would be a bad scenario - but it wouldn't destroy civilization.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#127

Post by darklycan51 »

stareatgoats wrote: post #120
dskrepps wrote: post #9

I've wondered for a while. Lots of people seem to think a Carrington Event will simply fry all small electronics and make everything stop working, but from my understanding all it'll actually do is cause power surges in long transmission lines and disrupt wireless signals. Apparently telegraph lines sparked and shocked people. So what effect will that actually have now? Will a massive power surge go through my house…

Good grief. Here is a thread of currently 58 comments (off the back of a erstwhile top comment no doubt) talking about the effects of a Carrington event. And granted, this is what is mentioned in the title here. But you just need to click on the article title to see that the title continues, with "A “Miyake Event” Would Be Far Worse", and the article goes on to explain how a Miyake event is orders of magnitude worse…

It would be the equivalent of doing an EMP strike by detonating a nuke above a city, but worldwide... it would be bad, lots of casualties from lack of energy.

I do believe we are in urgent need to have some way of printing all code, including legacy of basically any consumer and industrial program, because were it to hit, even with everyone today surviving and writing in plain text what they know, we'd be lacking decades of software, that most modern day programmers would have very little idea on how to emulate, at least quickly enough.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#129

Post by dgroshev »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #66
hparadiz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding it mostly effects large pieces of metal like copper lines but would be unlikely to create a significant charge in small electronics and wouldn't destroy solar panels or the vast majority of components. Any transformer pieces that are in a disassembled state prior to the event would be easy to put together and bootstrap any such event. Some locations like inside concrete buildings or under ground…

After a couple incidents where snipers shot at substations or hackers turned stuff off, there was a burst of worry about the fragility of our electrical grid. Of the large transformers that make up substations, almost all of them are unique. There is no inventory of spare transformers. Each one is custom made and takes months. The small transformers you see on poles are made by the thousand, and stocked at every util…

I doubt that it's strictly true seeing how quickly Ukraine was replacing their transformers after Russia deliberately targeted them. As far as I can tell it was a strain on the global supply, but evidently not insurmountable.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#130

Post by hparadiz »

xenadu02 wrote: post #126
dan_mctree wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not nearly enough transformers in reserve to properly rebuild the grid and you can't always just drop in and replace either. New transformers are also not currently able to be produced fast, and having society collapse around you probably wouldn't help while trying to increase their production rate. If we'd lose most transformers, it could be many months or years before large regions could see their power bac…

In such a scenario we would just start cobbling together makeshift transformers using available materials. You just need some spools of wire, a hunk of iron, then wrap the wires around. It won't be pretty, last for 50 years, etc. But it would be enough to get electricity back on in all major and medium cities to at least some degree. If it's really bad people will tear apart motors from clothes dryers to steal wire i…

Exactly this. We're in the best possible time to deal with it since everyone has a power pack with an attached solar panel and so many homes have solar now. Generators would work just fine as well. We'd be back up in a week tops.
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