Carrington Event Prognostication

[Mike90250]

Moving some OT messages here, to clean up a thread there.

Musings about what would happen, not when.

[nwdiver]

Seems like a reasonably sized battery + solar could keep the well and septic pumps running and a minimum amount of lights and miscellany going for a good while even with cloudy skies. Of course, you could buy a lot of nights in a decent hotel for the cost of two power walls, also.

I installed ~20kWh worth of golf cart batteries and a 4kW AC couple inverter. The fact it can ride though short outages is a nice convenience but one of the bigger motivators was the possibility of a civil emergency. The Anniversary of the 'Carrington Event' was a few days ago. If this were to occur today the grid could be disabled for months and possibly years. ~$6k for off-grid capability seemed like 'cheap insurance'.

[Mike90250]

....... The Anniversary of the 'Carrington Event' was a few days ago. If this were to occur today the grid could be disabled for months and possibly years............

When there is another 'Carrington Event' , the only winners will be goat herders in the Alps and pirates in Somalia. You and I will have power, and empty fridges. Our herd of 6 sheep will last us maybe a year, then it's back to eating pine cones.

[nwdiver]

When there is another 'Carrington Event' , the only winners will be goat herders in the Alps and pirates in Somalia. You and I will have power, and empty fridges. Our herd of 6 sheep will last us maybe a year, then it's back to eating pine cones.

Critical areas are hardened enough and can probably be restored quickly but the farther you live from 'critical areas' the longer you'll be without power... It's mostly transformers that will be destroyed.

[Mike90250]

Critical areas are hardened enough and can probably be restored quickly but the farther you live from 'critical areas' the longer you'll be without power... It's mostly transformers that will be destroyed.

And that's a 3-5 year replacement, from factories that have been "zapped", whoops, make that 10 years. Anything connected to more than a couple hundred feet of cable, is getting torched. Water will not be pumped, gasoline and diesel , not refined, and grocerys won't get shrink wrapped. I give it a week for food to run out, and water to stop flowing. Then the starving begins

[nwdiver]

And that's a 3-5 year replacement, from factories that have been "zapped", whoops, make that 10 years. Anything connected to more than a couple hundred feet of cable, is getting torched. Water will not be pumped, gasoline and diesel , not refined, and grocerys won't get shrink wrapped. I give it a week for food to run out, and water to stop flowing. Then the starving begins

Most infrastructure downstream of transmission lines and protected by a breaker or fuse will fine. The limiting factor will be transformers. I'm just parroting what the experts say because I'm not an expert....

[Mike90250]

Most infrastructure downstream of transmission lines and protected by a breaker or fuse will fine. The limiting factor will be transformers. I'm just parroting what the experts say because I'm not an expert....

There are few experts in this field. The experts are not on the news channels. The shock wave is not measured in seconds like an EMP, it's measured in hours. It's going to be a slow moving train wreck. Simply shutting off breakers won't do it, you need to unplug everything, 10' cords will be ok, and not pick up much of a charge. The long cables will build a charge, and if the huge transformers are not disconnected and air gapped, they will die. There aren't enough linemen to disconnect all the transformers in time.

[SunEagle]

There are few experts in this field. The experts are not on the news channels. The shock wave is not measured in seconds like an EMP, it's measured in hours. It's going to be a slow moving train wreck. Simply shutting off breakers won't do it, you need to unplug everything, 10' cords will be ok, and not pick up much of a charge. The long cables will build a charge, and if the huge transformers are not disconnected and air gapped, they will die. There aren't enough linemen to disconnect all the transformers in time.

Should a Carrington Event happen we will be living back in the 1800's and anyone that requires medication to stay healthy will be among those that starve to death. Not a pretty environment for most. So keep your eyes on the sun because we may get something much bigger then a class X CME to hit us.

[bcroe]

I am a lot more worried about something related to U235. Guess I could chop some
wood, drink the river water. Bruce Roe

[Paul Land]

A vacuum tube inverter and salt H2o batteries will still work for lights then what!

[SunEagle]

A vacuum tube inverter and salt H2o batteries will still work for lights then what!

And wax will work for candles. So what.

[Salts]

I think a Carrington Event would be bad, but not as bad as many make it out to be. The reason is pretty simple. We watch the sun 24/7 in stereoscopic vision and we would know if a CME was going to hit us and how bad it was going to be, and we'd have a day to prepare. Unlike the old days, even as recent as the Ontario blackout in (1989?), we didn't have eyes in space paying so much attention to the Sun.

A Carrington type event will induce about 1 volt per meter of conductive surface. So a 100 foot extension cord would see about 30 extra volts. The expert on EMP stuff is a guy named Dr. Arthur T. Bradley. He is a verified NASA engineer with a PhD in Electrical Engineering. Apparently, he prepares for this kind of stuff buying bread, butter and bullets sort to say.

I read a couple of fictional post-apocalyptic book series that deal with EMP's. One (3 book) series by author William R. Forstchen (One Second After) was a story about a Nuclear EMP and its effects on society. It was a three part series. Pretty good.. a bit melodramatic for my tastes. The second series by A.American called "Going Home" was actually 9 or 10 books and was much better. It was also about a Nuclear EMP and what would happen to society. It was pretty realistic. Started off a bit dry, but within a couple of chapters it became a very interesting read. By the second book, I had a hard time putting it down.

I live in a rural area outside a very small "blink and you miss it" town. We lose power out here every time the wind blows or a mean looking cloud floats by. We have a grid tied solar system that takes care of all our power requirements. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you all know, its pretty useless when the grid goes down. To combat this, I'm installing a couple of Sunny Island 6048 inverters and a lithium battery bank from a Chevy Volt. If the grid goes down, all I'll have to do is flip a couple of breakers, push a couple buttons, and the solar array will jump into an AC coupled system to charge batteries and power the home again.

At least that takes care of our power problem, which takes care of the water problem as well, since we have well water.

[Ampster]

There is a hybrid inverter manufacturer that promotes their EMP hardened system. I guess that is important to some. I remember air raid drills in grammar school and neighbors building bomb shelters. I worry more about rising sea levels than a Carrington event.

[SunEagle]

There is a hybrid inverter manufacturer that promotes their EMP hardened system. I guess that is important to some. I remember air raid drills in grammar school and neighbors building bomb shelters. I worry more about rising sea levels than a Carrington event.

The problem with a Carrington event is that even though we monitor the sun and can prepare for a large CME impact the question is how many POCO's will actually pull the plug and de-energize their grid? I will gamble that many will not and the rest will go down for months if not years due to damaged transformers. Most are not protected or in hardened enclosures and there are no where near enough replacements sitting in their storage facility.

The power outage will cause a lot of panic along with loss of food and medicine production. Sure there will be survivors but at what cost to the rest.

As I said it will not be a pretty environment to live in unless you can be totally self sustaining.

[Ampster]

I understand the impact. I just dont have a clear sense for the probability of a Carrington event.
I have In friend who is a retired lawyer in Florida. He tells me when the banks stop lending on ocean front property there it is going to be a big economic disruption from sea level rise. I know planning departments in my former beach town in California are already requiring some additional dewatering systems for some projects. That is palpable.