yeah, i saw this too. but they barely touched on some of the most important aspects of a disaster of this kind: it wouldnt be only one airliner as depicted in the show, but 90% percent of commercial aviation in the affected area. furthermore, ATC systems and comms would go down, as would emergency communications for firefighters, police, paramedics, etc. it would be total chaos and bedlem.

of course, that is the worse case scenario. as far as the transformers are concerned, i'm not very familiar with that aspect of it.

I suppose everyone is hoping that this will not occur in their lifetime because the fallout will be huge for whoever is around whenever such a storm hits. I know I sure wouldn't want to be on an airplane in such an event. If the information on the tv show was correct, the last major solar storm hit back in the 1800's.

Well, a plasma storm would essentially function like an EMP. Like an EMP, however, important things are often protected. For example, you wouldn't have to worry about the nuclear plant going into an overload, because all the cement and lead would stop the EMP from penetrating the complex. However, when everything else goes out the Nuclear Plant will detect a sudden drop in power usage, and so will cut out a lot of its power-producing abilities.

Overall, the major worry is that, yeah, things would kinda stop moving as if during a power-outage for a few days (whilst people fix their cars and such), and the transformers that blew would have to be replaced - which I'm sure would be faster than what they described, considering that such plants would be making a fortune off of it and so would hire new workers and such.

Definitely not an end of the world scenario, but a massive inconvenience.

Originally posted by orionthehunter
I was wondering if they were referring to a special transformer at substations but I wasn't sure about that.

Yeah, they probably were. If it's something ginormous at a substation (or anywhere, actually), that handles gigawatts of energy, then it would get more exposure to radiation coming in, just because of its size alone, and it would, simply, have a higher chance of being destroyed.

The reason these really larger units would take months to build is that: A.) They need to be built perfectly and are probably checked hundreds of times to ensure quality; 2.) They probably have thousands upon thousands, if not millions, of miles of copper wiring inside them, all wrapped up in a tight coil. I'm sure that that would take some time to do.

Thanks for the info and links. I better understand the situation. Apparently it would cost the utilities billions of dollars (per the information in the link about grid information on solar flares) to protect all of the vulnerable equipment. Therefore the utilities are relying on contingency strategies in the hopes of avoiding a major prolonged power failure. Hopefully we won't have a major solar storm. I still remember a major blackout lasting over a week or two for some due to just a little bit of ice on the trees. This may be one of those things that has to hit hard before big bucks are spent to insure against future occurrences. (just my opinion)

If the power was out in large areas of the US or the world for months, I can't even imagine how much that would cost the US or the global economy.

Originally posted by orionthehunter
I still remember a major blackout lasting over a week or two for some due to just a little bit of ice on the trees. This may be one of those things that has to hit hard before big bucks are spent to insure against future occurrences. (just my opinion)

If the power was out in large areas of the US or the world for months, I can't even imagine how much that would cost the US or the global economy.

Looking at it from the utility point of view, ice on trees probably took out local distribution lines.
Not a major blackout for the most part - although a pain in the backside for those served by that/those line/lines.

Major blackouts are when the transmission system - grid - goes down.

In the case of many lines down due to icing, lines have to be repaired/rebuilt before they can be re-energized and that takes a while.

Utilities have a mutal aid pact with neighboring utilities.
Adjacent ones will call for aid from a neighboring utility - IE: PG&E a Central/Northern California utility receives aid from SCE, a Southern California utility with equipment etc. into the lower reaches of Central California, out past Palm Springs as well as generation units out of state.
SCE in fact sent crews to Kauai the smallest of the Hawaiian islands to help rebuild after hurricane Iniki.
They were sent to Florida as well after a hurricane struck there a few years back.

Most of the time linemen and similar personnel are the responders, but now and then, power station electricians and test personnel will respond if there is power station damage in excess of what the afflicted utility can handle on its own.

Like the government and its many war and potential war plans, utilities have their own set of plans that are constantly reviewed as well as personnel are trained to respond to particular major problems in the desired way.

Some areas that have been around for a while - older towns etc. - have old poles and small conductors.
Newer areas have new and stronger poles etc. with heavier duty conductors as well as having - expensive - underground systems at the distribution voltage levels.

Generally, this is where the money is spent to beef up the system.
And like you'd think it takes a while.

... ungh... and I suppose it will be us poor robotics and electronics engineers who get to de-gauss and reset everything right?

I hope this doesnt happen... I dont need to be THAT busy.

Originally posted by johnsky
... ungh... and I suppose it will be us poor robotics and electronics engineers who get to de-gauss and reset everything right?

I hope this doesnt happen... I dont need to be THAT busy.

Why not see if your company will invest in a UPS unit?

Or, if the company is big enough and you have a sufficient heat source, install your own generation unit.

Many hospitals have their own generation units with lines from the electric utility as backups.
When the generator/generators go down, the changeover to commercial power is automatic.

Actually I believe it's just a matter of when not if a major or perfect solar storm occurs. I think we are all hoping it's not in our lifetimes though. If something like this ever happened, I believe it would be extremely hard for me to get any time off after the power was restored back to the manufacturing company I work at. However I would be more concerned with a major disaster for a while with airplanes dropping out of the sky, no power to pump gas at gas stations, no water if the water plants don't have power to pump water, and no transportation and refrigeration for the food industry. It would be a mess and struggle to live through a perfect solar storm IMO. Of course this is the worse case scenario.

This past winter, I got to experience what it would be like driving through an area at night that has a total blackout after about 1 million people lost power due to a little bit of ice on the trees in the carolinas. It's a lot more dangerous than I thought. You don't necessarily notice intersections that used to have traffic lights if it's pitch dark and could very easily drive right through before you notice. That wouldn't be safe if anyone else was around. I don't think many Americans are prepared for any power outage lasting longer than a few hours.