
Solar storm of 1859 - nhkssol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
======
Animats
Oh, the Carrington Event again. This has been on HN several times. It ought to
be on a list of common misconceptions.

\- This has nothing to do with "EMP". That's a big but brief RF pulse with a
rise time around 1ns. This is induced DC in long wires over a period of hours.

\- The basic effect is that a current is induced in the earth's crust,
resulting in a DC voltage between grounds at widely separated points. This is
mostly a problem for long AC high-tension power lines using wye-connected
transformers at each end which run in the same direction as mountains of
igneous rock. The DC component can partially saturate the transformer, using
up some of its capacity. If undetected, transformers can overheat, and worst
case, burn out. This occurred on March 13, 1989 on some lines in the eastern
US.

\- PJM, which runs the northeastern US power grid, is now prepared for this.
See PJM's training manual for this[1], starting at page 22. They get 1 to 6
days warning from the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They have
monitoring for unwanted DC flows at multiple points in the power grid. When
trouble appears, certain power lines have to have their current reduced.

\- A few times a year, more at the top of the sunspot cycle, there are
warnings of a potential problem. PJM last issued a warning on August 26, 2018.
It didn't progress to an "alert", or actual action. There are people in a
control room in Valley Forge, PA, and another backup location, watching this.
They can reroute power around the trouble spots, call for extra generation
output, and dump some loads if necessary. Load dumping starts with bulk buyers
of "interruptible power" \- aluminum smelters, Bitcoin mines, etc., which are
willing to be the first turned off in exchange for a discount.

\- It's not a problem for anything shorter than hundreds of miles. It's not a
problem for high-voltage DC power lines, like the Pacific Intertie and the
really long ones from western to eastern China. It has zero effect on fiber
optics or small devices.

\- When you encounter clueless reporters writing about the power grid, aim
them at "PJM 101", which is a set of introductory training materials on how
the power grid works, written for people who run it.

[1] [https://pjm.com/-/media/training/nerc-certifications/gen-
exa...](https://pjm.com/-/media/training/nerc-certifications/gen-exam-
materials/gof/20160104-conservative-operations.ashx?la=en)

~~~
shubhamjain
Potentially off-topic, but you how do you know so much? It seems that from law
to physics to computer science, you have an absurd level of detailed
knowledge. It's incredulous that someone can talk at such great depth about an
obscure topic from the top of his head.

~~~
Animats
I got interested in this back when California was having blackouts because the
power industry managed to convince the legislature that a totally free market
with an auction every half hour was the way to run the power grid. I wanted to
see how other places did it. PJM has a "day ahead" market and a backup spot
market, so generating stations mostly know what tomorrow will be like.
California now has something similar.

PJM has online training courses. Taking "PJM 101" is worth it to get a sense
of how the market system and the actual operation interact. A few hours and
you know more about the power grid than 99% of the population, but less than
any PJM employee or energy trader.

One of my interests is how market-based systems fail. They're feedback systems
with delays. Some of the delays are short; others are measured in years. A
point I make regularly is that such systems have no guarantee of stability. In
short-term energy markets, the consequences of this are immediate, because
there is not much inventory in electricity.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Further to the parents comment, do you use a personal knowledge base? I keep a
flat text file, but have been pondering whether it might be worth moving to
something a bit more structured.

~~~
yitchelle
From practicality perspective, how do you use your personal knowledge base? Do
you review it on a regular basis?

I have thoughts of keeping a similar database, but I kept thinking "will I
ever use the collected details in the future". When I first started in
computers on the Atari 8bit in Australia, I would collect as many of its
software as possible, due to its scarcity. Looking back on it, I would ever
only used 1% of it. The rest would be sitting it on the floppies gathering
dust. I fear that the database that I collect would end up in a similar
situation.

~~~
hef19898
I don't use anything writen down myself. Most of the time I try to focus on
basic principals and the connection of things to remember stuff. Downside is
that the concrete data points I know on top of my head a) come without a
definitve source (I try to work on that lately) and b) can be interpreted as
anecdotal evidence (an issue I see lately with people not from my field and I
have to find a solution for sometime).

------
nhkssol
If you're interested in the modern risks of coronal mass injections, there's a
report called "Solar Storm Risk to The North American Electrical Grid" [0]
(2008) that summarizes the topic well. From page 4: "The total U.S. population
at risk of extended power outage from a Carrington-level storm is between
20-40 million, with durations of 16 days to 1-2 years."

[0]
[http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk...](http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/solar%20storm%20risk%20to%20the%20north%20american%20electric%20grid.pdf)

~~~
starbeast
We should hurry up with developing power over fiber, now that the new hollow
core fibers have been developed that have essentially no transmission losses.
Is one of the few power transmission technologies that should be entirely
unaffected by solar storms.

~~~
cesarb
High power on a fiber has a problem called "fiber fuse"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_fuse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_fuse)).

I followed the link on this article to the article on a more recent solar
storm
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_2012](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_2012))
where I found a report from Lloyd's which mentions that there are workarounds
(like "neutral-current-blocking capacitors"), so it might be possible to make
even large power transmission systems resistant against solar storms.

~~~
starbeast
>High power on a fiber has a problem called "fiber fuse"

That is much less of an issue in the new hollow fibers, as their losses are
significantly lower than glass ones.

------
dmix
> Some telegraph operators could continue to send and receive messages despite
> having disconnected their power supplies.

What a fascinating read.

It really makes you happy that this type of solar/planetary stuff affecting
the earth only happens on such a long timescale where it doesn't commonly
affect our day-to-day lives as much as earthborn issues such as severe storms
or other extreme meteorological events. But it's also a shame in some ways:

> Myself and two mates looking out of the tent saw a great reflection in the
> southern heavens at about 7 o'clock p.m., and in about half an hour, a scene
> of almost unspeakable beauty presented itself, lights of every imaginable
> color were issuing from the southern heavens, one color fading away only to
> give place to another if possible more beautiful than the last, the streams
> mounting to the zenith

~~~
ridgeguy
It's stochastic. Could happen tomorrow.

We got lucky in 2012. [1]

[1] [https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/2014/2...](https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm)

~~~
wallace_f
> On July 23, 2012 a "Carrington-class" solar superstorm (solar flare, coronal
> mass ejection, solar EMP) was observed; its trajectory missed Earth in
> orbit. Information about these observations was first shared publicly by
> NASA on April 28, 2014

Why would NASA not share this with the public?

~~~
lolc
Oh NASA did share the event at the time:

[https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/fast-
cme.html](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/fast-cme.html)

They just didn't realize the magnitude.

------
jefftk
David Roodman wrote an excellent 4-part analysis of risks from geomagnetic
storms for the givewell blog: [https://blog.givewell.org/tag/geomagnetic-
storms/](https://blog.givewell.org/tag/geomagnetic-storms/)

~~~
greesil
This is an amazing read. "When magnetic cores saturate and the field strays
outside the core (see my first post), wires and insulation can overheat and in
effect burn. Hot spots manifest not as a flames (one hopes) but as chemical
decomposition that forces gaseous byproducts into the oil, which can be
monitored. In all of these eight transformers, degradation began right after
storm activity and proceeded slowly, so that failure arrived in weeks or
months rather than minutes."

------
weavejester
Ars Technica had a longer article on this:
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/1859s-great-
auroral-...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/1859s-great-auroral-
stormthe-week-the-sun-touched-the-earth/)

------
lgats
What satellite companies and energy providers should I be prepared to short in
the event we are expecting another solar storm of this magnitude?

------
itronitron
are there any data centers that are shielded from this sort of event?

~~~
hexane360
All of them. This wouldn't affect low power equipment, only transmission over
long distances. As others have noted, it's not an EMP.

------
mabbo
If it happened again today, the event itself wouldn't be the thing you'd tell
your grandchildren about. It would be the terrifying years afterwards as the
world tried to put itself back together.

------
altitudinous
Hmm, we always have a science fiction meme that says that says any
civilisation that gets to our level of technology will wipe itself out with
nuclear weapons or something. This seems like a more real risk, the technology
gets sufficiently advanced that it cannot withstand any external shock. 1859 =
fine, 2018 it would destroy capitalism and commerce. The same dark abyss we
were staring down at the time of the GFC.

~~~
lolc
> more real risk

What's not real about the threat of nuclear bombs?

