When space weather attacks! --- seriously.

By EmmaZahn on Sat, 07/13/2013 - 6:43pm |

Today, electric utilities and the insurance industry are grappling with a scary possibility. A solar storm on the scale of [the Carrington Event] in 1859 would wreak havoc on power grids, pipelines and satellites. In the worst case, it could leave 20 million to 40 million people in the Northeast without power — possibly for years — as utilities struggled to replace thousands of fried transformers stretching from Washington to Boston. Chaos and riots might ensue. That’s not a lurid sci-fi fantasy. It’s a sober new assessment by Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market. The report notes that even a much smaller solar-induced geomagnetic storm in 1989 left 6 million people in Quebec without power for nine hours.

URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/13/when-space-weather-attacks/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein&clsrd