I contemplated writing a book on the implications of a CME a few years ago, did some research but didn't have the time.
An example of a critical thing that relies on satellite infrastructure are most gas pump payment processing and operations as I understood it.
Regarding transformers there have been various US government level efforts to have back up Replacement transformers ready to go in storage in the last 20 years, the situation has not improved at all and like much single point of failure infrastructure an over reliance on China.
I find it astounding the Pentagon can spend trillions on 'defence' but we can't scrape together the pocket lint to have
back up offline infrastructure for the power grid ready to go with staffing and processes in place.
Having said this there is a lot of alarmist information arguably primarily driven by page views floating around.
The Sun Kings by Stuart Clark is a terrific read on the historical context of all this, highly recommend
> I find it astounding the Pentagon can spend trillions on 'defence' but we can't scrape together the pocket lint to have back up offline infrastructure for the power grid ready to go with staffing and processes in place.
Astounding yes, but it doesn't surprise me. "Defence", no matter the country, and much of aeronautics/astronautics is mostly a jobs creation program. Just look how immensely widespread Airbus, Boeing and EADS are - their operation spans continents, mandated by the lawmakers who fund their programs. No wonder that SpaceX (and Tesla!) who are to a large-ish part privately funded can be so cheap and agile - they simply don't have to account for logistics of transporting all the stuff and produce as much as they can on-site, without nasty politicians shouting from the sideline they want a return (=jobs).
Transformer production doesn't yield to creating many jobs or wide-spread jobs in contrast, and thus it isn't high up on priority lists of politicians. Also, keeping large amounts of spares isn't ideal because the technology itself can date - oils can go rancid, metal can rust, and especially isolator material can break down.
> Also, keeping large amounts of spares isn't ideal because the technology itself can date - oils can go rancid, metal can rust, and especially isolator material can break down.
Couldn't that be a good source of jobs, though? Warehousing, guarding, inspections, ongoing maintenance and replacement, logistics for all this. I think it could achieve both meaningful job creation (particularly if you threw in some procedural inefficiencies under the guise of "national security") and meaningful impact on real defensibility of a country.
An example of a critical thing that relies on satellite infrastructure are most gas pump payment processing and operations as I understood it.
Regarding transformers there have been various US government level efforts to have back up Replacement transformers ready to go in storage in the last 20 years, the situation has not improved at all and like much single point of failure infrastructure an over reliance on China.
I find it astounding the Pentagon can spend trillions on 'defence' but we can't scrape together the pocket lint to have back up offline infrastructure for the power grid ready to go with staffing and processes in place.
Having said this there is a lot of alarmist information arguably primarily driven by page views floating around.
The Sun Kings by Stuart Clark is a terrific read on the historical context of all this, highly recommend
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691141268/th...