Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL that in 2012 a large solar storm nearly missed Earth by a margin of nine days. If it hit, it could have caused damages to a cost of around $2.6 trillion. (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

One of these hit Earth in the late 1800's, and it was wild. Telegraph lines were setting on fire and people would get shocked just from touching the telegraphs. And that was when we had just barely started to wrap the world in conductive wire, if this happened now we would be majorly screwed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Would we? I remember reading Ted Koppel’s book Lights Out a few years ago, but I’d assume that utilities, grid operators, and governments have been making efforts to improve grid resilience

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

laughs in Texas *

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

God bless the Eastern Interconnection lol

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Being proactive for risks that are small for the near term is expensive, and not very profitable for the shareholders.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

My power goes out every hurricane which is at least once a year.