Powerful solar activity released by the sun is heading for Earth and it’s likely to create dazzling auroral displays in unexpected areas Monday evening and early Tuesday morning. It could also disrupt satellite-based communications and GPS accuracy.
“An S4 severe solar radiation storm is now in progress - this is the largest solar radiation storm in over 20 years,” SWPC shared on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The last time S4 levels were observed was in October, 2003. Potential effects are mainly limited to space launch, aviation, and satellite operations.”
Imagine a CME that knocks out all our computers in the western hemisphere.
Current AI production is eating all the nand. Replacing everything would cost tens of thousands of dollars per person probably for years due to demand between AI and now this massive catastrophe. (Would they even bother with AI? would contracts just not be honored? I can’t even imagine how f’d the whole thing would be.)
People would be freezing in the winters from power plants going down and running out of fresh water from computers dying until they get replaced…
The world we live in today is scary.
It won’t. A CME is not an electromagnetic pulse. It’s more a surge. Think hurricane rather than nuclear blast shockwave. We can see CMEs coming a day to three days before they hit, and there are mitigation measures to protect the grid (there are also mitigations for satellites, but they’re less effective).
Look up the 1859 CME. Lloyds of London said back in 2013 that a sufficiently sized CME hitting the US would cost 600 billion to 2.3 trillion in damage. Power outages could last for up to two years. Inflation and rollout of even more technology would make that number look much larger today.
CMEs actually can produce electricity in circuitry. Really tiny circuitry that can only handle very small voltage and amperage can be fried if such a thing occurs. This kind of circuitry is in almost any kind of electronics.
anyway, here’s the lloyds of london report. https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-the-north-american-electric-grid/1/pdf-Solar-Storm-Risk-to-the-North-American-Electric-Grid.pdf