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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

#31

Post by Cthulhu_ »

piva00 wrote: post #19
graemep wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also lead to the collapse of vital systems: transport, utilities, payments.... > Hoaxes will spread without rapid fact checking. They already do. I think you have found the silver lining: hoaxes will spread a lot slower.

It would lead to the collapse of modern society until/if we manage to rebuild it. Nothing in the modern world works without electronics and computers.

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, heatwaves, and dwindling supplies. Infrastructure took a big hit when COVID started, in part because some people started hoarding (toilet paper, for some reason), but the bigger one was "just" because people changed their habits a little - buying a little extra (toilet paper), working from home (lunch options), baking their own bread (flour), etc. And the office real estate issue took a hit as well, but I don't think anyone will really miss that.

Besides that, the biggest risk will be other people. We've seen in recent history that it takes only a small disturbance - a natural disaster, a protest gone violent, a football match - for people to stop following the social contract. It's often depicted in zombie survival themed media, people losing their morals quickly for their and their family's survival. And with Covid, it wasn't even survival, it was toilet paper.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#32

Post by api »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #28

As far as Carrington-like events are concerned I believe consensus is that most equipment and electronics would be fine, satellites would take damage, radio communication would be out, the electrical grid would go down and be hard to restart, but at least the most important grid transformers would be protected and survive the event, as would cars, computers and machinery. Would a Miyazake event change that meaningful…

If they are many times larger it sounds like they could be more like an EMP from a thermonuclear bomb.

Looks like they happen on average every few thousand years. We really should be looking at how we recover from such an event, and whether we can do things in the design of power grids to minimize damage.

If there were humans living on the Moon or Mars these seem like they could be even more fatal unless they were living underground.

Given how profoundly useful and powerful electronics are, perhaps events like this are why electricity and electronics are not used at large scale by organic life. Have you ever wondered why humans and other life forms are so unaffected by EM that we can subject ourselves to things like MRI scans without even noticeable effects? Maybe there has been selection against anything that is vulnerable to EM because every few thousand years anything else is culled.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#33

Post by [deleted] »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #27
Turskarama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> a new dark age is far from impossible. Nah, it's just transformers and the power grid, that can be fixed pretty quickly - see the response after natural disasters, Ukraine's power grid being directly attacked, etc. The only limiting factor would be the availability of spare parts and personnel.

[deleted]

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#34

Post by borbulon »

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.

having lived in the tech age, I'm not completely against that idea.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#35

Post by shitstorms »

One of the more likely black swan events that has the potential to cause global upheaval. Quite a bit of data now from other solar systems in terms of likelihood of these events. So far it looks like it is slightly more likely to occur in the ramp up stage of a cycle, not at the very peak.

We would most likely see a very large sunspot(s) days before the event and have 10-15 hours to take action, decoupling transformers etc, but the effects would be massive nonetheless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2012_solar_storm

https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2023/06/06/how-big-was-carri...

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#36

Post by dwighttk »

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…

are uninstalled transformers even safe?

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#37

Post by Aerbil313 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #27
Turskarama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> a new dark age is far from impossible. Nah, it's just transformers and the power grid, that can be fixed pretty quickly - see the response after natural disasters, Ukraine's power grid being directly attacked, etc. The only limiting factor would be the availability of spare parts and personnel.

A global disaster is very different from a local one. I suggest you review your faith in The Almighty We. Civilization has never been more fragile in history than it is now.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#38

Post by Aerbil313 »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #28

As far as Carrington-like events are concerned I believe consensus is that most equipment and electronics would be fine, satellites would take damage, radio communication would be out, the electrical grid would go down and be hard to restart, but at least the most important grid transformers would be protected and survive the event, as would cars, computers and machinery. Would a Miyazake event change that meaningful…

Do you know the amount of hours into grid breakdown before widespread lawlessness begin?

My memory is not very clear, but I remember it was around 48 hrs.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#39

Post by arrowsmith »

rwmj wrote: post #11

> Astronauts would undoubtedly receive lethal doses of radiation, and even people on board airplanes could encounter dangerous levels. It sounds like a more immediate problem would be that all aircraft and spacecraft electronic systems would fail permanently? They wouldn't need to worry about the radiation doses.

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.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#40

Post by nicoburns »

api wrote: post #32
dividedbyzero wrote: post #28

As far as Carrington-like events are concerned I believe consensus is that most equipment and electronics would be fine, satellites would take damage, radio communication would be out, the electrical grid would go down and be hard to restart, but at least the most important grid transformers would be protected and survive the event, as would cars, computers and machinery. Would a Miyazake event change that meaningful…

If they are many times larger it sounds like they could be more like an EMP from a thermonuclear bomb. Looks like they happen on average every few thousand years. We really should be looking at how we recover from such an event, and whether we can do things in the design of power grids to minimize damage. If there were humans living on the Moon or Mars these seem like they could be even more fatal unless they were li…

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