Comment by jiggawatts
19 hours ago
The panic about these is way out of proportion with the real risks. Modern systems have all sorts of over-voltage protection, and we no longer use "telegraph wires" directly connected to vulnerable electronics like speakers and amplifiers.
All modern telecommunications are over fibre or radio links.
How much do wire distance, intended voltage matter? All the power electronics are almost certainly protected by caps, but are big office ethernet runs long enough to cause issues? What about coax cables? It seems like with how many more cables we have now, that one of them probably has a design that would cause notable inconvenience.
Geomagnetically induced currents generally become a problem over hundreds of kilometers. Long range electricity transmission lines are the main worry I believe and solar storm events have knocked off large grids occasionally.
I have no idea what the correlation is between particle flux (the metric reported here) and actual geomagnetic variation which induces the current (varying magnetic field causes voltage). Basically the charged particles zoom past earth, then loop back from the magnetotail towards the poles. The magnetohydrodynamics cause effects large enough to modulate the magnetic field on earths surface.
”We have this long conducting loop” is the issue. The Earth is one component of the loop.
You need at least hundreds of kilometers for the effects to become significant (as in "tens of volts"). Nothing on the small scale will be affected.
Power lines might be the most vulnerable part, actually. The geomagnetic field can induce current that will bias the core of transformers, causing them to overheat. This can lead to blackouts if the networks are close to capacity, and it's suspected that the 2003 North East Blackout was at least partially caused by them.
Over voltage protection is not provided by caps (generally), but MOV’s, Zenier Diodes, spark gaps, etc. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_protector].
Essentially, components that kick in when a voltage exceeds a certain limit to allow that excess voltage to shunt to ground instead of continue to build up in the circuit.
Similar devices in pneumatics or hydraulics are pressure relief valves [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_valve], and they provide similar functionality - giving a easier/lower resistance path for the high voltage/pressure, so delicate things downstream don’t fail.
What about ground to satellite communication?
That would be radio links. Not many satellites connected to the ground by copper cable.
Yeah, I was asking generally with regard to panic involving "computers and everyday electrical devices", which I thought would be obvious, apologies.
honestly I'd be more worried about the upper atmosphere puffing up and taking out low satellites, like what happened with a starlink launch last year.
There was a blackout in Canada caused by a solar storm in 1989. Has this changed dramatically since then?