The 2012 Near Global Disaster you never heard about

[Knut]

^ Think about if it hit while the Northern Hemisphere was in the middle of winter ?

Or if the Southern USA was in the middle of summer ?

We would obviously adapt.. the economy would be wrecked for awhile.

How do you deal with thinks like loan payments, car payments etc Do we walk our kids to school still ? Do they stay home ? What about transporting food/produce/firewood ?

While no one really knows how we would react, I do think it would have decades of lingering effects on the worldwide economy..

[wretched34]

How did people in the northern hemisphere survive winters for thousands of years before furnaces were installed in homes?
How did people survive in the heat before air conditioning?
How did people pay loans or debts before online banking?
I'm not sure how electricity directly impacts the use of existing vehicles if Oil and Gas are still being manufactured?

I do agree, the economy would take a hit, and it would take years to get back to where we are today, but I don't see something like this as being a mass casualty event..

Definitely an inconvenience, but if our 100 years with electricity has made us as a species evolve to the point that we can't survive without it, we're in trouble.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by wretched34

How did people in the northern hemisphere survive winters for thousands of years before furnaces were installed in homes?
How did people survive in the heat before air conditioning?
How did people pay loans or debts before online banking?
I'm not sure how electricity directly impacts the use of existing vehicles if Oil and Gas are still being manufactured?

I do agree, the economy would take a hit, and it would take years to get back to where we are today, but I don't see something like this as being a mass casualty event..

That's the thing ? Think you will be going on doing your job like before? You going to have the money available to pay off your mortgage, car payments etc ?

[wretched34]

Originally Posted by Hesla

That's the thing ? Think you will be going on doing your job like before? You going to have the money available to pay off your mortgage, car payments etc ?

I get that, the economy will take a hit, jobs will be lost, day to day life will change. Which is why it is humanity that terrifies me. If this were to happen, and the governments, and banks that control the world, started leaving people homeless and without food during a time of crisis, it is humanity that has failed itself. Not a solar flare that has killed people.

[photon]

Originally Posted by wretched34

Gas plant needs to keep running? drag in the generators while the wind turbines are put in place.
Cities need refrigeration to store food, provide electricity to some of the big grocery stores/refrigeration warehouses.

Drag in the generators? The # of gasoline generators isn't going to be anywhere near what's needed, let alone enough gasoline. EDIT: The entire strategic reserves of the US for fuel is 36 days worth (at current consumption). That's scary.

It'd be an interesting exercise in Fermi estimation!

Originally Posted by wretched34

How did people in the northern hemisphere survive winters for thousands of years before furnaces were installed in homes?

They chopped wood, grew their own food, etc. That was when the population density was FAR lower than it is now. If you had to chop wood for all of Calgary to heat their homes (assuming they even had a place to burn it), how much forest would that consume every day? Assuming you could even get there, how far away do you have to go from Calgary to find an actual forest?

I don't care about the economy, basic survival would be a challenge I think. I think they would get it together, but I bet the # of people that would die would be at least in the double digits for percentages.

[The Fonz]

While scary, stuff like this excites me. It'd make for an interesting few months!

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by photon

EDIT: The entire strategic reserves of the US for fuel is 36 days worth (at current consumption). That's scary.

And that's just for the government/military, isn't it? Or is that the whole country?

If it's the latter, I'm pretty sure the panic effect would shorten that by quite a margin. People tend to hoard resources when there is a threat to the supply.

Do we have a reserve? I'd be blown away if we did.

[polak]

Wouldn't we only need to shut off the power grid during the storm to avoid the level of catastrophic damage we're talking about here? (i.e. months of black out)

These storms give a decent amount of warning.

Maybe I'm wrong but I remember reading something along those line when this actually happened.

(Yeah I did hear about it )

[Knut]

^ I think we do not have the ability to detect them.

From Phil Plait's blog

Perhaps our best course of action is early warning. Ashley Dale, an engineer at the University of Bristol, and his colleagues on the SolarMAX initiative, say that deploying small satellites around the Sun can measure its magnetic field and the environment into which the solar storms flow. This can help us predict when and where big storms might occur, and whether they are aimed at Earth. They estimate this could give us at several days warning; critical time needed to divert power on the grid, shut down vulnerable power lines, reorient satellites, and more. All of these actions could prevent much of the damage a storm could inflict.

[V]

Originally Posted by Hesla

I am assuming that it would be a priority to manufacture them quicker. The current rate is 100/yr because that is all we need. You would likely see 100's a day pumped out all over the world to hasten the recovery.

EPCOR installed morethan 100 transformers last year alone. Think of every subdivision that goes up every year. 1 transformer is installed for every 12 houses. Not to mention all commercial development and replacing of old transformers.

[polak]

Originally Posted by photon

Drag in the generators? The # of gasoline generators isn't going to be anywhere near what's needed, let alone enough gasoline. EDIT: The entire strategic reserves of the US for fuel is 36 days worth (at current consumption). That's scary.

It'd be an interesting exercise in Fermi estimation!



They chopped wood, grew their own food, etc. That was when the population density was FAR lower than it is now. If you had to chop wood for all of Calgary to heat their homes (assuming they even had a place to burn it), how much forest would that consume every day? Assuming you could even get there, how far away do you have to go from Calgary to find an actual forest?

I don't care about the economy, basic survival would be a challenge I think. I think they would get it together, but I bet the # of people that would die would be at least in the double digits for percentages.

Well we most definitely wouldn't be living in our own homes during the winter if the power was gone and the temps fell to dangerous levels. I'd assume shelters would be opened up and police would be dispatched to keep looting (unavoidable) under control. Once temps returned to manageable levels (There's only a few days a year in Calgary where it's too cold to be in your house without heat where sleeping bags, lamps and the like wouldn't suffice).

I really don't think it would be nearly as catastrophic as you guys seem to think. The economy would be thrown out of whack but I'd imagine most things would just be put on "pause" and I think the end effect on day to day life economy wise wouldn't be too massive. Phones (for those that need them) would be the first thing put back on line and the industries that are critical to life (Agriculture, Oil & Gas, Anything with Aid) would most likely be given priority to restore power. I wouldn't be surprised if they were up and running to some extent a few days after the initial storm.

I don't know. I think we'd be surprised how quickly we'd bounce back. Human Society is incredible at adaptation in times of need.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Hesla

^ I think we do not have the ability to detect them.

From Phil Plait's blog

We obviously have the ability to detect it or we wouldn't know about it now

It does sound from that quote like we aren't prepared for a nice, planned prep for this but how long does it take to shut off power completely? That's the worst case scenario which I'm sure you could do with decent success with minutes notice.

By decent I mean pretty terrible but not "the whole world is without power" bad.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by polak

We obviously have the ability to detect it or we wouldn't know about it now

We can detect after the fact, but that's not much help.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

We can detect after the fact, but that's not much help.

Actually you get a little notice, depending on the storm usually between 1-3 days. and just to freak you out a G-3 is on it's way right now.

A G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm Watch has been issued for September 13th

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

[photon]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

And that's just for the government/military, isn't it? Or is that the whole country?

If it's the latter, I'm pretty sure the panic effect would shorten that by quite a margin. People tend to hoard resources when there is a threat to the supply.

Do we have a reserve? I'd be blown away if we did.

Looks like it's for the whole country, and I guess that's just crude, I guess gasoline reserves were a vulnerability.

I found this:

http://energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves

Yeah can't find anything about Canada.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by T@T

Actually you get a little notice, depending on the storm usually between 1-3 days. and just to freak you out a G-3 is on it's way right now.

Yep, aurora time!