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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

Long article for something that can be summed up in two paragraphs. The primary danger is plasma from a CME or solar energic particles from a flare causing a rapid compression of the geomagnetic field by dynamic pressure and the the rate of change in magnetic field inducing large currents in very long conductors (power grid, pipelines, etc) down on earth.

If the large backbone transformers in the grid are not outfitted with fast ground fault interrupters they would be damaged and the grid for large regions would go down. There are no backup transformers waiting. It would take a few to many months to produce and install new backbone transformers even in normal times. It might take more when the grid is down. This lack of electricity would have compounding effects.

A much lesser worry is the satellites in orbit getting deep ion charging and sparking and getting damaged.

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> Long article for something that can be summed up in two paragraphs

Sure, you can answer the question "What can a major solar storm do to our planet?" in two paragraphs, why not, if one would need a very quick, very short summary of what a major solar storm could to our planet.

But.

Some people might want a more in-depth answer, going into great detail. Some people might want so much detail that they might read a whole-ass book about a subject.

Long form articles are not bad or unwanted; they bridge the space between a short summary and a book (along with essays, studies, etc). What is bad, though, is thinking everything should be reduced to a short two paragraph summary, or a 1min tiktok video, or a video. All mediums of communication have their uses and their niches, serving different needs.

This isn't a more in-depth answer... it's a biography of a man researching solar flares.

Perhaps that's what people are actually reading the new yorker for :P

I'd have to imagine that now-a-days these transformers are all or mostly fast grounding. If they weren't, I'd expect lightning storms to be a much bigger and more frequent issue.

The vendors who sell fast grounding transformers must love these articles...

Lighting rarely hits transformers directly nor does it commonly hit the carrier lines. Typically you see a wire along the top that's grounded that 'catches' the lighting at the highest point and sends it to ground. Also lightning is pretty easy to arrest over short burst because of it's large influx and short duration.

It's kind of like the difference between a single (smallish) wave caused by a boat and a tsunami. The boats wave can cause damage but it's typically very limited. Meanwhile the tsunami doesn't stop coming and becomes your environment. Fast grounding doesn't mean much when dumping to ground stops working because the ground gets so hot it's a resistor.

I feel like you're underestimating how old so much of our grid is. There are lines near my house (in a rural area) that are still just held up by warped bent poles with white ceramic insulators on them, a (hopefully) beefier version of what you'd see on an old electric fence before people started using plastic. Obviously old poles and cabling doesn't mean the transformers are outdated but I wouldn't be shocked.

So easy and cheap to prepare for, and the potential destruction is basically infinity, but here we are.

Indeed. There was a strong push for funding for installing and mantaining fast ground fault interrupters after the EMP Commision in congress in 2001 (http://www.empcommission.org/) determined it was the best solution. And then again in 2008. But nothing actually happened besides words.

I'm not sure that we haven't already prepared for this. Lightning is a thing and fast grounding transformers are the solution to that.

As a kid, thunderstorms commonly knocked out the grid. Now as an adult I've rarely seen the power go out (It usually happens due to someone ramming a power line with their car).

Seemingly in these threads a lot of people don't understand solar storms at all.

When lighting hits you get a few microsecond burst of a whole lot of power that gets dumped to ground. Your grounding will get very hot from this, but typically you're not getting hit constantly all day in the same grounding location.

Now imagine this. You start getting excess power to the point it's starting to drive primary movers on the grid. You disconnect them because you don't want bad shit happening to your generators. But your grid is still generating power, in some places an awful lot of power that is acting more like DC rather than AC. So you're going to dump this to ground right? Have you ever welded? Because when you dump power to ground it's still power and it makes things hot. Unless you build in massive heatsinks you're going to have a problem.

Your telegraph lines start catching on fire, eh?

Honest question, because I don't know: Are fast ground fault interrupters "cheap and easy"? I mean, sure, they're cheap and easy compared to replacing transformers. But they don't just grow on trees, either. What's the lead time on getting one?

I meant the transformers. We’re talking a relativey modest amount over a century or more. Governments can handle it.

Every single instance of "being prepared" has to go past an accountant who has to make the math, math for the next 90 days. The conversation will go something like this.

Engineer at electric company: "We'd like to get this project on the calendar for the quarter; should make the equipment more resilient against the risk of solar storms."

Accountant at electric company: "What are the odds this solar storm happens in the next quarter?"

Engineer: "We cannot accurately predict the timing of a solar storm; however, as time goes on, the probability of a solar storm causing damage to our equipment gets closer to 1."

Accountant: "That's not enough certainty when compared to the necessity of profitability." scratches grid hardening off priority list

Now, "prepared" means "society not collapsing", and "profitability" means that a retired couple can buy a timeshare on a golf course in Florida where they can swing until the dementia sets in, but priorities are priorities.

> Engineer: "We cannot accurately predict the timing of a solar storm; however, as time goes on, the probability of a solar storm causing damage to our equipment gets closer to 1."

Engineer: "We cannot accurately predict the timing of a solar storm; however, over a long enough timeframe, the probability of a solar storm causing damage to our equipment is close to 1."

That's not what the accountants do at a company.

The accountants are given the receipts after the engineers have already spent company money, and their job is to account for that spending.

The finance department are the people who decide whether the engineers get to spend the money. (They're also known as the FP&A team = financial planning and analysis.)

I thought the engineers turned in the receipts in hopes of being reimbursed for the critical purchase that the accountants then get to decide if it meets their definition of critical.

Don't blame the accountants for enforcing your company's expense policy. That's set by management.

If I had a dollar for every time a programmer claimed something was "critical" but was actually just an expense for something they were doing to pad their resume for their next job, I would be as rich as Warren Buffet.

Didn't we agree to stop using logic around here? This is a place for irrational berating of $evilTopic.

Edit to match parent's edit: I like how you turned it from a hardware engineering discussion with large and expensive equipment necessary to some flippant software comment. If I had a dollar for every time someone derails a conversation, I'd be Bezos rich

This is what I dislike about the New Yorker. It's a literary circle jerk. I get that you want to show me what a great writer you are, but I don't really need to hear about growing up on Alcatraz at the start of the article about a solar storm. If I want to read something that's 10x as long as it needs to be to get the point across I'll just pick up another Gladwell book.

You think that's bad, wait until you see the recipe blog ;)

Haha at least there’s a “jump to recipe” link usually. I wish New Yorker had a “jump to the point” button.

Its my biggest gripe with the New Yorker, their articles are incredibly long winded and meandering at times.

I really need an Abridged New Yorker feed. I love about 20-30% of their articles, by volume, but they're so, uh, "well written", that they're difficult to even scan for high-value information.

It's not just the New Yorker. This "Gladwell-ification" of non-fiction has been happening for a long time now.

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