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A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

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Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#71

Post by huachimingo »

ben_w wrote: post #63
zupa-hu wrote: post #50

I don't really get the "nightmare" consequences. Sure, some electric systems will go down / maybe burn down. But few people will die, right? When I saw nightmare in the title, I expected something like humanity will be wiped out, or maybe just 90% of us. Can somebody clarify?

The more we depend on automation, the more vulnerable we are to power failure. Consider grocery shopping: what fraction of sales are online? What fraction in-store are card-based? Do the tills work offline, and if not, how fast can the cashiers work by hand? Does the store request resupply either automatically or via a manager looking at a spreadsheet, and if so, can the manager manage that without computer assistanc…

If everything falls like a house of cards in such scenario, does it mean that we are over-dependent on electricity?

Im not a ludite but I would say thats better to have a plan B in such case.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#72

Post by ErikVandeWater »

zupa-hu wrote: post #50

I don't really get the "nightmare" consequences. Sure, some electric systems will go down / maybe burn down. But few people will die, right? When I saw nightmare in the title, I expected something like humanity will be wiped out, or maybe just 90% of us. Can somebody clarify?

It's much worse than normal grid failure because the grid goes down, the dominant means of communication go down, and the means of transport go down. Can't communicate and can't get anywhere even if you wanted to.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#73

Post by madia_leva »

roenxi wrote: post #62
zupa-hu wrote: post #50

I don't really get the "nightmare" consequences. Sure, some electric systems will go down / maybe burn down. But few people will die, right? When I saw nightmare in the title, I expected something like humanity will be wiped out, or maybe just 90% of us. Can somebody clarify?

Wouldn't this involve losing all communication grids and access to bank accounts? That'd be pretty disruptive. I suppose the immediate challenge would be how to organise food 7 days out if we got hit by something like that. Assuming people put in a desperate effort and sort that out somehow, then the medium term problem would be something like a long period where effective communication is gone and any JIT systems fa…

It would also disrupt food, drinking water and sweage. And all transportation, so even fuel would not be available. Without clean water and sanitation at home cities would be death traps.

People living on an area with rivers and wild animals could do a bit better. Unless they are at reach of people walking out of the cities.

Think about a zombie apocalypse, but with starving people by the hundreds of thousands. Starving and, if in the US, armed.

Keeping food and water at home for at least for a couple of months is a very sensitive thing to do for this kind of events. Think about a new pandemic but this time the virus has 10% or 20% of mortality. Exactly.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#74

Post by JoeAltmaier »

madia_leva wrote: post #73
roenxi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this involve losing all communication grids and access to bank accounts? That'd be pretty disruptive. I suppose the immediate challenge would be how to organise food 7 days out if we got hit by something like that. Assuming people put in a desperate effort and sort that out somehow, then the medium term problem would be something like a long period where effective communication is gone and any JIT systems fa…

It would also disrupt food, drinking water and sweage. And all transportation, so even fuel would not be available. Without clean water and sanitation at home cities would be death traps. People living on an area with rivers and wild animals could do a bit better. Unless they are at reach of people walking out of the cities. Think about a zombie apocalypse, but with starving people by the hundreds of thousands. Starv…

It makes sense to keep food and water, only if you also have protection. I mean a weapon. Because those 20 million zombies are coming.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#75

Post by philjohn »

medstrom wrote: post #45
bananabreakfast wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CMEs are not actually emitted uniformly over the whole spherical surface of the sun. Instead it's much closer to a Gaussian distribution centered on the ecliptic.

For anyone not in the know, the ecliptic is the plane of the Earth's and most planets' orbit.

Is there any reason for that - gravitational forces from the planets perhaps?

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#76

Post by medstrom »

sci_prog wrote: post #6
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #5

I am not an astrophysicist, but I don't see any reason to doubt the study's conclusions. But isn't the more pressing question the probability of such a CME hitting the Earth? The sun is not small, and CMEs could be ejected away from it in any direction, I would think relatively few of them hit any of the planets?

Kurzgesagt has a nice and objective summary on the topic. If I remember correctly, 50% chance of a big one hitting us over the next 50 years (or by 2050, can't remember exactly): https://youtu.be/oHHSSJDJ4oo

If it happens at night, you'll get a great lightshow to start off the apocalypse. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_event

>Auroras were seen around the world, those in the northern hemisphere as far south as the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. were so bright that the glow woke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.[8] People in the northeastern United States could read a newspaper by the aurora's light.[15] The aurora was visible from the poles to low latitude areas such as south-central Mexico,[16][17] Queensland, Cuba, Hawaii,[18] southern Japan and China,[19] and even at lower latitudes very close to the equator, such as in Colombia.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#77

Post by f6v »

kevingadd wrote: post #70
f6v wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess anyone on life support would die swiftly.

Also anyone reliant on perishable medicines or regular treatments that would be threatened by utility outages - some medicines need to be refrigerated, for example, so after a week or so without power all of that stuff is probably a goner.

Yeah, like an insulin. I wonder what happens if someone’s glucose sensor implant(don’t know what’s it called) gets burned like that.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#78

Post by mensetmanusman »

This reminds me of the warnings about a coronavirus pandemic from over 10 years ago.

We know from geological records that these are periodic events that happened every so often. We are due for one, and it is in our best interest to take the periodicity of nature seriously.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#79

Post by achenatx »

zupa-hu wrote: post #50

I don't really get the "nightmare" consequences. Sure, some electric systems will go down / maybe burn down. But few people will die, right? When I saw nightmare in the title, I expected something like humanity will be wiped out, or maybe just 90% of us. Can somebody clarify?

The supply chain contains about 3 days worth of food. Without power there is no 1) gas for trucks 2)food in stores 3) food being produced 4) water to homes 5)lifesaving medical devices

Many people depend on medical devices that will no longer work. All those people would die immediately.

Many people depend on lifesaving drugs. They will die in the short term (e.g. insulin).

Within a few months People will die from untreated water and starvation.

I doubt 90% of the population will die. You can look at the siege of leningrad and see that people survived years of a siege and I think 25% died.

People will find a way to survive even if it means eating bugs.

Re: A “perfect coronal mass ejection” could be a nightmare

#80

Post by barry-cotter »

hourislate wrote: post #12
1cvmask wrote: post #2

It would be interesting to model the way different societies would deal with such an event. Some presumably would have a run on toilet paper and other essentials. Other societies might ration resources on a need basis.

The 3rd world would be fine, the first world would fall apart. Just a few weeks without power is enough to bring the USA down onto it's knees.

I’d expect pretty much exactly the opposite. The first world is rich, developed and full of knowledgeable people and more competent governments. There’s so much more capital to cannibalize to get something working. Anywhere dependent on international trade or aid to feed its people would be fucked by even a two month hiatus in international trade. Starvation and war within two weeks and peacekeepers are busy at home dealing with their own countries’ disasters. Most of Africa is not self-sufficient in food.
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