More and more the world is dependent on technology. What will the effect be on all of this technology that permeates our everyday lives if a Coronal Mass Ejection were to strike the earth this year with the force to bring many of these modern advances to a standstill?

The sun is approaching the peak of its 11-year Solar Maximum cycle later this year. As it draws closer to this peak, coronal mass ejections are expected to occur with more regularity and force.

It is thought that if a massive solar storm were to strike the planet during this solar maximum, that the impact of that strike could rival or surpass any modern disaster the planet has ever seen.

A large Coronal Mass Ejection has the potential to knock out the electrical grid over large expanses of the United States. If this happens, power could be lost for days, weeks, months, or even years. Without power, during the summer months, lives would be lost to heat waves that occur annually in many parts of the nation. If it were to last beyond summer, as winter approached many more lives would be lost to the cold.

Without power, many of the cities that use power to move water, would find themselves without adequate drinking water supplies. Wastewater treatment would also come to a halt. Within days, large segments of the urban population would be on the brink of dying of thirst.

Electricity also powers our communication grids. It would be a matter of hours before all land line and cell phone connectivity would be lost.

Even though many states make it mandatory that gas stations have backup power for their facilities, many do not. Without power, gas stations would lack the ability to pump fuel for cars and fleets of trucks that move items such as foodstuffs over great distances to markets. Even larger pipelines utilized to move fuel across great distances would fall to the lack of power.

Very soon after a massive power outage, most stores will have closed because of the lack of power to operate even the cash registers and freezers that the population takes for granted now. A small number of stores would still be able to operate on a cash basis, but even they will close as shelves emptied.

Within just a few short days, households would begin to run out of food, and without fuel for their vehicles, would not be able to retreat from their circumstance. As tensions rose in urban areas, police and firefighters would leave their jobs to be close to and to protect their families. As this happened, in many places the social fabric of society would begin to break down as individuals began to actively compete for food and water for their families.

A more dire circumstance of a nationwide failure of the power system would be the lack of water to cool the many nuclear reactors around the country. All of the facilities would shut down immediately. In a short time, those reactors would begin to melt down. Without massive amounts of water to cool the rods, the meltdown would continue unabated, spreading radioactivity over large expanses, even globally.

While the possiblity of such an event this year cannot be verified, one only needs to look to the past to understand that these solar events do occur on the scale that could cause widespread devastation.

It was only 154 years ago, in late August and early September of 1859, that the Carrington Event took place. During that solar maximum, which was named after Richard Carrington, an amateur astronomer who observed and demonstrated the existence of solar flares, that a massive coronal mass ejection struck the earth only 17 hours after it was emitted by the sun.

During that event, the night sky was lit up by what looked light a luminous cloud and the aurora could be seen as far south as the Caribbean. Telegraph pylons burst into flames and telegraph operators reported electrical shocks. In some places, the telegraph even continued to operate without power, using the electrical power generated by the event.

While there have only been two large events after that date, that were less severe, that occurred in 1921 and 1960, it was discovered by Kenneth McCracken that these types of events occur on regular cycles. McCracken found, through ice core samples taken from Greenland, that high-energy proton radiation events such as the Carrington event occur about once every 500 years. But it was also discovered that events that are at least one-fifth as large occur several times a century.

What can we do to prevent the worse case scenario? An overhaul of the nation’s grid system is first and foremost. The nation would need a smart grid in place that is not operating so close to its capacity as the one that is now in place. Another would be to protect our electrical infrastructure with shielding to protect against the magnetic fluctuations caused by a massive solar event.

Another safeguard would be the stockpile of extra-high voltage transformers. These transformers can take months to build and test, and most manufacture of these transformers is done overseas. These transformers weigh several hundred tons apiece and would need to be transported first by ship, then by rail or road. But availability could be a concern if that country itself had suffered from the event and needed any replacements they had on hand for themselves.

A coronal mass ejection event would strike northern areas with the most ferocity. Areas such as Alaska, the Pacific Northweast and the Northeast would be the hardest hit.

What can you do for yourself? Safeguards against an event of this nature would be small emergency generators, individual water supplies and caches of foodstuffs and other essential supplies.