Hate your IT job? Sick of computers? Good news: An electronics-frying Sun superflare may hit 'in next 100 years' Our Sun may be middle-aged but it still has the energy to expel superflares, a rare rush of energy, every few thousands of years that could destroy Earth’s spacecraft and electronics, scientists warned. Stars are unpredictable. They occasionally and randomly let out belches of plasma, particles, and radiation, in the form of …
"There is, after all, a zone of, like, 359° around the Sun where we are not."
On the one hand, it's probably somewhat less than 359 since a flare can easily cover more than 1 degree. But on the other hand, the Sun is a sphere (in a vacuum no less, possibly it's really a cow) so you need to think about solid angle - if a flare isn't ejected in the ecliptic plane, it's not going to hit us even if it's dead on target when projected onto a 2D view. Flares tend to occur more in the vicinity of the equator, but not exclusively so.
Imagine the younger generation who won't even be able to answer the door.
" going round to your friend's to show them that cake you baked"
How are you going to bake that cake?
If you have an electric oven, how are you going to power it?
If you have a gas oven, how is the gas getting pumped to you?
You need to build a new wood burning stove before baking the cake. How do you do that? How to you run the machines to mine and process the metal? How do you make a stove in an age that no longer uses steam?
So build steam engines. From scratch we re-invent the industrial revolution. Horses and their power become premium items as there are not enough to go around for a few years at least. Owners of the really big horses become instantly rich in a barely functioning economy demanding they breed their huge powerful horses to try and increase availability.
Yeah we could carry on like our great grandfathers before us assuming we survive the complete turmoil following the destruction of our electricity grid.
What we need are spare parts for wind turbines and solar panels etc. Parts that are not assembled, not capable of having a powerful enough electric field induced.
I already have some valve electronics, starting with an old valve oscilloscope, so I can fix things. Valve stuff is pretty immune to the big surges you're worried about.
I've got a petrol generator, and the house already has a backup wood/multi fuel burning stove (which comes in handy already if the central heating packs up).
Also what with the Brexit prepping supply, looks like I have most bases covered.
Just need to find the Victorian well in the garden.... it's there somewhere....
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Diesel engines can be started up by air compressors. And they don't rely on spark plugs to achieve detonation, as usual.
You just need a reserve of compressed air, filled with enough of it for the next start-up.
Nuclear power plants use THOSE to start their emergency generators, just in case. They will START, an huge flare may prevent them from WORKING as generators, but the cooling water pumps MECHANICALLY attached to them will work.
Diesel is as steampunk and flare-proof as it is.
Petrol as in 'gasoline' needs spark plugs. When you say 'petrol', I think of all 'petroleum' byproducts, including gasoline, kerosene, and thick oils burned in ship's boilers, including diesel.
Speed governors using mechanical means (inertial rotation) would have to be reinstalled as a result.
Ships, by the way, would be fine, if they offer a direct mechanical transmission from their steam turbines to their propeller shafts (which most don't these days).
Umm, with the entire power grid going down, you can have all the valves you want, not going to be much help without a functional power system. One nice thing about once in 2000 year events is that they have only a 1/2000 shot of happening this year. But then again, there is always wondering if next year's roll of the solar dice might turn up 1/1
You need to build a new wood burning stove before baking the cake. How do you do that?
Quite easily. Haven't you already thought to look that up before Apocalypse Day? No? Then if you want cake post-Apocalypse you can come round to my house and buy cake from me. Prices start at a kilo of salt or 50g of unexpired tetracycline.
in theory, you wouldn't have to remove the battery IF...
1. the phone is bubble-wrapped* and the bubble wrap is encased in tin or aluminium foil AND
2. the foil-wrapped phone is placed in foam/towel/etc* which is placed inside a closed metal ammunition box AND
3. the metal ammunition box is placed on a wooden shelf inside a steel safe which is then closed.
Any one of those three things is insufficient. Two of them MIGHT be enough. All three probably would. Of course, you would also need a hand-cranked or bicycle-powered generator (similarly protected) to charge the phone once you unwrapped it, but still.
* to insulate the item from the shielding. If they touch, the shielding is useless.
"You need to build a new wood burning stove before baking the cake. How do you do that? How to you run the machines to mine and process the metal? How do you make a stove in an age that no longer uses steam?"
Eh, didn't our earlier space aliens overlords originally teach us to make our stoves out of dried, and possibly baked, mud? Mud which was often, if memory serves, in the shape of bricks.
Just saying, a wood burning stove could be made out of bricks, which are immune to solar flares, and will be in plentiful supply once the post-apocalyptic loonies start dismantling civilization.
But how will the grown spawn in far New Zealand WhatsApp me for advice on home diy or moan to me about her job (bioinformatics to keep this relevant) by mere letter? and what about ship or plane electronics? they might get borked as well meaning nothing flies or sails until long forgotten skills like using a sextant are retaught to mariners at least.
After all sailing ships needn't worry about solar flares and even dreadnoughts needn't. But as ships got increasingly electrified and electronics fitted, including relying on GPS and online maps and charts they too could well be very affected. GPS won't be any use if both the satellites and the tech are fried.
Also there are not enough spare transformers in the world to replace enough of them and countries will jealously guard the ones they have so trade in them will cease. You don't make transformers? tough, it's the steam age again for you, get building boilers dude, break out the waterwheels. Wars have been fought for less and suddenly the high tech militaries are on equal footing with the AK47 toting militias. It could get very messy very quickly.
Also how does your local supermarket order fresh supplies these days without tech? Remember we are three days of no shops away from societal breakdown. Remember the fuel strike?
Sir,
I would like to express my deep disappointment and the sense of moral outrage at the failure of this esteemed publication to adhere to the proper, commentard-approved system of units. An anybody remotely qualified to report on any matter of science knows, the Reg-approved unit of energy is Jub-(sheep-in-vacuum)-squared, which must be used in preference to the obscure "erg", which is virtualy unknown outside of the narrow and cloistered bunch of people calling themselves "physicists". Likewise, the Reg-approved unit of power is not "erg per second", it is the much more comprehesible, understandable, and friendly Norris-(vaccum sheep). You would do all your readers a sterling service by remonstrating with the more recalcintrant of your scribes to exclusively use these approved units.
Sincerely yours,
A Disappointed but Loyal Reader.
P.S. As a matter of mere curiosity, neither unit used in the article is a part of that new-fangled frenchie "international system of units" either, which would rather have us rely on "Joules" for the energy and "Watts" for power. Nowever, never shall we stoop so low as to abandon our Norris-Sheeps. Never!
I dunno, erg is pretty funny sounding ;-)
I think it's an entirely appropriate response after converting X*10^<lots> ergs into joules, and that that energy is rapidly heading your way. Which is one of those fascinating parts of the Carrington Event, and fun with wiki. That says-
It is believed that the relatively high speed of this CME (typical CMEs take several days to arrive at Earth) was made possible by a prior CME, perhaps the cause of the large aurora event on August 29 that "cleared the way" of ambient solar wind plasma for the Carrington event
Which prompted me to buy a book called 'Plasma Physics for Astrophysicists' to try and make sense of solar space sweepers 'clearing the way'. In which I learned that space may be a vacuum, but it still throws around collosal amounts of energy, and again 'erg!' is a quite appropriate response.
I remember reading somewhere about a flare recorded in the late 19th century, the telegraph lines were damaged and northern lights were visible at high latitudes. It was a little bit more than 100 years ago, according to the frequencies estimated by the scientists and mentioned in the article an event in the next 100 years seems unlikely.
I daresay that this 100 years and/or "coming soon to a planet near you" is basically scare tactics using statistics. Just because it's "one every 1,000 years or so" doesn't mean the time can be pinpointed. Could be next week or even the next millennia.
I suggest that rather than worrying about it, we just have an adult beverage. If it happens, it happens.
My (layman's) understanding was that we should probably worry most about coronal mass ejections (CMEs) "aimed" at Earth, which may occur with a frequency of a century or greater. CMEs are relatively common and sheer chance means that once in a while they come at our planet. Now that we're in not just the Age of Electricity but also the Internet Age, we are, as the article says, a lot more vulnerable to disruption than ever before.
Isn't it also true that no industrialised, electrified country keeps more than a small contingency stock of spare transformers for their power grid? That building new ones actually takes quite a bit of time and resources? That a typical CME might very well destroy a sizeable proportion of existing transformers? And that, therefore, the long-term effects of a CME could be brown-outs, powercuts, possibly lengthy regional outages, for months?
I do wonder whether anyone has run the numbers on (a) probability of a damaging CME whacking Earth, (b) likely damage scenarios, and (c) probable repair and recovery time. It would be kind of ironic that, while we've been fretting about everything from climate change to Brexit, from Huawei to the Orange Imbecile, from Ebola to comet impact, instead a predictable disaster, that we could have prepared for, brings civilisation to its knees.
Then again, in my contrary and cynical way, I also wonder whether being knocked back to a 1930s-50s technology level for a few months might not give the foolish, childish, irresponsible human race the damn good shaking that it seems to need. Because we are currently letting ourselves be dominated by our worst, weakest and most spoiled impulses. The auguries are not good.
I do wonder whether anyone has run the numbers on (a) probability of a damaging CME whacking Earth, (b) likely damage scenarios, and (c) probable repair and recovery time. It would be kind of ironic that, while we've been fretting about everything from climate change to Brexit, from Huawei to the Orange Imbecile, from Ebola to comet impact, instead a predictable disaster, that we could have prepared for, brings civilisation to its knees.
Fairly frequently, especially as it's long known to have an impact on satellite operations, radio communications, power transmission etc etc. Hence interest in space weather, so operators can try to mitigate. But like most weather predictions, long-range forecasting is still an inexact science. Which can be fun when an active Sun may generate a few CME's & flares per day..
Damage scenarios can then be based on historical observations and possible worse-case scenarios, ie a repeat of a Carrington event. Which then feeds into repair times.. Which ironically would suck if we're all in Teslas when one happened. But then so would ICE vehicles given the amount of wiring and sensitive electronics inside most non-military vehicles. Then there's potential damage to power transmission grids, where big ticket items like large transformers don't have large inventories.. Or manufacturing capacity, especially if manufacturing facilities have been zapped.
And as for climate change, that's a fun subject. So you could potentially protect the grid by isolating bits of it to reduce induction buildups. But in our full-retard mode, we're building more fragmented and fragile grids to support 'renewables', which leads to fun consequences, like the ability to get power going again if you need to do a 'black start' from shutdown.. Along with other potential consquences, like the effect on large subsidy.. I mean solar arrays.
And more controversially, there's the general implications of solar-driven climate change. Especially things like Svensmark's theory about cosmic ray (and SEP) influences on climate. As that defies CO2 dogma, that's controversial. But fear not! The UK's just decided to go zero carbon by 2050. And will be getting the best, expert advice
"Mrs May has taken the unusual step of announcing that a group of young people will advise the government on priorities for environmental action. They will start their review in July.
So the UK is fsck'd regardless..
I went "mining" in the shed of doom and found my box of old valve equipment
Specifically that Heathkit grid dip oscillator circa the late 1960s.
Wonder if its possible to make a radio transmitter using old vacuum fluorescent
displays? I'd expect it to work at least as an amplifier, depending on geometry and
distance between the various grids etc.
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