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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

#81

Post by forgetfreeman »

falconinthesun wrote: post #53
Aerbil313 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But there's nothing in the article to suggest that these events actually affected the entire world. Most of the analysis seems to have been carried out in the northern hemisphere. If one of these events happened, perhaps it'd affect only one hemisphere or we'd have portions of the world unaffected or partially unaffected and able to provide assistance.

You're ignoring (among other things) global food logistics. You delete the ability to produce, deliver, and distribute fuel to a hemisphere for a couple of months and the resulting disruption to agriculture guarantees a global famine.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#82

Post by bigyax »

namlem wrote: post #76
bigyax wrote: post #43

A 1 percent chance of happening in the next decade. It's the inevitability of it that's most terrifying, society will fundamentally collapse, there's no way we could prepare for how rapidly our lives would be changed, and absolutely nothing we can do to to stop it. Only hope is that for when it happens it's far enough down the road for technology to have adapted to bring enough resiliency and/or redundancy into the g…

We could decouple transformers to stop them from being destroyed. Wiring is easy to repair, it's the transformers that are vulnerable.

That would certainly be the most immediate mitigation strategy. I wonder though would there be enough time? Would it be possible to isolate the transformers so completely such that they would not be affected by an event of this magnitude

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#84

Post by forgetfreeman »

denton-scratch wrote: post #7

> and in the event we would lose the data almost as soon as we had found it. Why? I suppose because the equipment to capture the data is electrical (or electronic). But given that a Miyake Event is something that's never been observed, even using non-electrical detectors, I don't see why ordinary optical detectors (e.g. eyes) couldn't capture at least a lot of useful data. And if we can make detectors that work in th…

What is technically possible and what actually gets done bear very little relation.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#85

Post by delfinom »

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.

No utility in the US has enough transformers on hand to replace them in the case that they all fail, hundreds of millions of transformers.

Even right now, disaster responses? All US mainland utilities are part of a emergency response pact (private, not government run) that obligates each other to send workers and equipment _at cost_ to each other. That's how things get fixed pretty quickly right now, they are depending on the supplies and labor of other utilities that weren't affected by the disaster.

That is far different than if the entire country is down.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#86

Post by delfinom »

bigyax wrote: post #43

A 1 percent chance of happening in the next decade. It's the inevitability of it that's most terrifying, society will fundamentally collapse, there's no way we could prepare for how rapidly our lives would be changed, and absolutely nothing we can do to to stop it. Only hope is that for when it happens it's far enough down the road for technology to have adapted to bring enough resiliency and/or redundancy into the g…

As long as it kills cryptocurrencies, I'm more than happy to live without electricity.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#87

Post by geocrasher »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #30
Turskarama wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is there are very few transformers in a disassembled state ready to go. Solar panels would be fine, but they're effectively useless without the ability to deliver power. Covid was enough to create an international backlog of transformers, and that was with a normal rate of attrition.

Exactly this. Lets say there were a few transformers that did survive. The parts to make new transformers are manufactured all over the place. So you would need to transport the 'working' transformers where they are needed to get power back to each plant that manufactures some singular component that goes into a new transformer. AND Transport them, when gas stations in-between are all also without power. The global s…

     And, don't forget, a lot of power plants need power to be re-started. They don't all have backup gas turbines to get going again.
That made me think of this Everyday Engineering video "What Is A Black Start Of The Power Grid?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSnQM1Zu4w

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#88

Post by hattmall »

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.

Don't modern transformers have surge decoupling devices? The same thing happens with lightning and long transmission lines and isn't that why lights will flicker during storms.

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#89

Post by toss1 »

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…

THIS!!

It would be relatively cheap (I've reak ~$500million) to build and store a mostly complete replacement set of transformers.

The difference it would make in a Carrington+ event (or a EMP nuclear attack) is insane. Without them, likely the grid collapses for years, along with distribution, food, etc. Millions die in the years-decades it takes to recover.

With the transformer standby inventory, critical parts of the grid could be restored in hours-days, and full recovery in a few months. The one country that prepared itself with a backup inventory would instantly be the world's superpower for years, likely generations.

Yet, because there is no immediate benefit, only stochastic, there is no political will to even start to get it done. Even a 10% inventory would make a huge difference, but...

Re: The Carrington Event of 1859 disrupted telegraph lines

#90

Post by RugnirViking »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #31
piva00 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, heatwav…

"the biggest risk will be other people."

Idk from my understanding of natural disasters, failed states, and others, it seems to me that people continue to form social contracts continuously. It's kinda our whole thing, as a species. People absolubtely can be brutal, but a majority of people just kinda try to keep going, and often do extrodinary things to help people in their community continue.

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