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Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections with Edl Schamiloglu (Summer Repeat)
00:42:11
In this episode, we discuss geomagnetic storms, extreme electromagnetic events known as coronal mass ejections that would destroy every satellite around the planet, wipe out power grids and most if not all of our electronics. The Carrington event that happened in 1859 destroyed the only electrical system at that point, the telegraph, across all of North America. An event such as that now would have catastrophic, even civilization-ending impacts. Scientists predict an event like the Carrington event happens every 100 to every 500 years. And the Carrington event is small compared to pre-history events. Yet despite the profound impact and the likelihood, public awareness remains low, there is little political action, little has been done to harden our power grid or plan for such an event. Since recording this episode in 2024, we have witnessed numerous X-class flares and geomagnetic storms triggering Northern Lights across the Northern Hemisphere. To talk about geomagnetic storms, the...
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- [00:00]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Foreign.
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Paul Chapman
Welcome to the HC Insider podcast, a podcast dedicated to the commodities sector and the people within it. I'm your host, Paul Chapman. Today we are talking geomagnetic storms, extreme electromagnetic events known as coronal mass ejections that would destroy every satellite around the planet, wipe out every power grid and most, if not all of our electronics. These events are terrifying and have happened within human history. The Carrington event that happened in 1859 destroyed the only electrical system at that point, the telegraph, across all of North America. And an event such as that now would have catastrophic even civilization ending impacts. Scientists predict an event like the Carrington event happens every 100 to every 500 years. So we're already 50 years into that period, so we were well due another. Yet despite the profound impact and the likelihood, public awareness remains low. There's little political action, little has been done to harden our power grid or plan for such an event. To talk about geomagnetic storms, their impact, the likelihood, the fragility of our global power grids and some solutions. Is Distinguished professor of Electronics and Computer Engineering Idil Shamaloglu Edel is the Distinguished professor in the Electrical and Computing Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico and specializes in extreme electromagnetic phenomena. As always, you can support the show by leaving us a positive review. And while I don't expect you're going to enjoy this episode, I hope you find it interesting. It'll welcome to the show.
- [01:55]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Thank you for having me.
- [01:57]
Paul Chapman
So I'm excited to have this conversation. We are talking about geomagnetic storms, coronal mass ejections and the impact that would have on the civilization, the global civilization that we developed and especially its reliance on power. Before we dig into the, into what is quite a terrifying story, can you just tell us a little bit about your work with the IEC and in particular your work on the SC77C task force?
- [02:27]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Sure. So the IEC stands for International Electrotechnical Commission. It was founded in 1906 and is a standards organization. So they develop standards for civilian products in order to protect them from various phenomena. In 1989 a group of experts came together and formed Subcommittee 77C. And Subcommittee 77C focuses on high power transient electromagnetic phenomena. I am currently the chair of SC77C and we have over a dozen international experts that serve on this committee. Initially this committee focused on high power transient electromagnetics due to a high altitude nuclear electromagnetic pulse. The so called hemp. H E M P H stands for high altitude EMP that occurs if a nuclear bomb were detonated several hundred kilometers in the atmosphere and would create a huge electromagnetic pulse that could in principle wipe out the entire grid in a very large region like North America. So in 1999, the committee broadened its scope to include intentional electromagnetic interference. So intentional electromagnetic interference in the military is called directed energy microwaves. It is also called high power microwaves. It could be a small device that a tinkerer can build in their garage that could locally disrupt things from working. Or it could be a highly sophisticated military system, such as the Boeing Champ, which is a flying directed energy weapon that's used for counter electronics. Then a couple of years ago, we further expanded the scope to include geomagnetic storms. So we refer to these three threats as the triple threat.
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Paul Chapman
Yeah. And I guess it's going to pique people's interest, that second threat you mentioned that's tied to or suspected to be involved in what we saw at the embassy staff in Cuba.
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Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Right, right. Some people are of the opinion that it was pulse directed energy that was used. And that was the conclusion of the National Academy's report on this matter that was published in December of 2020. So Pulse directed microwaves, in addition to being used by the military, can also be used by rogue actors. As an example, I was in a conference in Magdeburg, Germany in the mid-2000s, and there was a German company called Diehl D I E H L that had a demo for the conference attendees. They had built a compact electromagnetic generator, a pulse electromagnetic generator that fit into a suitcase. They placed the suitcase next to a garbage can at the end of the sidewalk. And then they had a fleet of black Mercedes Benz limousines drive by. They initiated that device and all of the Mercedes stopped dead. And what happened was the high power microwaves, the high power electromagnetics that was generated, took out all the computers in the cars and put them to a dead stop. And of course, back in the 60s, our cars had no computers in them. But today we're so reliant on computers that all of our vehicles, modern vehicles, would be vulnerable to such threats. Whether it's an intentional threat or a geomagnetic threat, there would all be vulnerable. And of course, car manufacturers know about this, yet they're hesitant to harden the computers because anything that cuts into their profit margins is something that they don't want to hear about. And that's the problem. And we have a similar problem with geomagnetic threats and the power grid.
- [06:42]
Paul Chapman
Yeah. Which we're coming on to. And I just want to clarify with one point, because it's relevant for the rest of the discussion, it's not like when you turn off the suitcase device, the cars start back up. Right. Those electronics are fried, they're dead.
- [06:56]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
They're not disrupted, they're dead. It's just that current surges caused the chips to basically no longer function. So, yeah, in order to get the vehicle running again, you need to swap out the computer and then it'll run again.
- [07:12]
Paul Chapman
Okay, well, so thanks for that. And I think that really sets up well the level of expertise you have to talk on this subject. So we're here. I mean, all of these, particularly the first EMP and the last, have profound potential impacts for our power grids and also telecommunications in general. In fact, most systems that require power. And this was first, I guess, highlighted to the world a long time ago in. We had the carrington event in 1859, just really at the birth of the telegraph and more widespread electronics. And it was noticed at the time as a very significant event. Can you just, just to help frame the conversation we're about to have, can you just give us a couple of minutes on what people experienced in the Carrington Event?
- [07:59]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Sure. So In August of 1859, astronomers around the world were watching with fascination as the number of sunspots that they observed through their telescopes grew. Among them was an astronomer by the name of Richard K. Carrington, who was actually an amateur sky watcher in England. And it turns out that as most people know, there is an average 11 year cycle of sunspot activity. Sunspots, the number of sunspots increase and then the number decrease over time with a fairly regular period of about 11 years. So the event that took place in 1859 actually took place a few months before the peak of the solar activity, which was supposed to happen in early 1860. And of course, back then, in 1859, the world was primarily a mechanical world. The steam engine was ruling. And in the United States we were building the transcontinental railroad. And of course, alongside the transcontinental railroad, we were pitching telegraph lines. And telegraphy was the very first time electricity was used for, for communication. In fact, it was the first widespread use of electricity. Keep in mind that James Clerk Maxwell hadn't published his treatise yet on electromagnetic theory. So James Clerk Maxwell published his book in the mid-1860s, and it wasn't until the 1890s that the existence of electromagnetic waves was demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz at the University of Karlsruhe. So one of the evidences of the Carrington event was that telegraph lines were exploding all over the country and that's because tremendous currents were induced on those lines, and those wires were not designed to carry such large amounts of current. I mean, an analogy would be, imagine a lightning bolt were to strike a telegraph line. It would cause the line to explode because it would be way too much current for the line to handle. And so that was the event. And therefore it was named after Carrington subsequently.
- [10:22]
Paul Chapman
And listeners should note that we're also coming towards the peak of solar activity right now. So I'll park that and come back to that. But just. Just to wet people's appetite for this kind of stuff. So, okay, back in 1859, when, you know, the first systems were just getting going, that would be affected by this, are profoundly affected by it, and people take note, and it's. It's quite an event. Before we dig into frequency and intensity and impact, can you just help us understand exactly what we mean by geomagnetic storms, coronal mass ejection, and those sunspots that.
- [11:00]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Richard Carrington, I am a plasma physicist by training. My PhD is in Plasma physics. And the sun is a large sphere of plasma. On Earth, we generate plasmas, but the only way we can contain them is by using magnetic fields or inertia. But since the sun is so massive, its gravity is able to keep all the plasma together. And the plasma that you see is really ionized gas. And what I mean by ionized gas is the gas particles are no longer neutral. The outer electrons have been removed from. So you have free electrons that can conduct current and you have ions. So that's what a plasma is. Now, the sun is a very dynamic plasma. It doesn't just sit there. It's constantly churning and bubbling. And just like the Earth has its own magnetic field, so does the Sun. So the sun has its own magnetic field. And scientists always believe that magnetic fields must always close upon themselves. You can't have a filamentary magnetic field. Well, that was disproven a few decades ago. And we now know that on the sun, because of the turbulence that's going on, magnetic field lines can actually break apart. And then imagine this magnetic field which breaks apart and then sort of flings itself like a whip. And if the Earth happened to be in the direction that the whip is pointing at when it broke apart, then all the plasma particles, the electrons and ions that are trapped on the magnetic field will flow along that magnetic field and then would fly in free space and would be directed towards Earth. And that event is called a coronal mass event ejection. And we believe that the 1859 Carrington event was a result of a coronal mass ejection. So all of those particles travel very, very fast towards Earth, which is like 93 million miles away. And when it encounters the Earth's magnetic field, all those particles are trapped and very quickly move along the magnetic field lines and encircle the entire Earth. So even if you were at the opposite side of the Earth, if you were in the dark side compared to where the particles were incident, they will still be for sure all the satellites will be affected all over the Earth. The worst damage would be on the side facing the mass ejection. And the impact on the electric power grid would be comparable to what would occur with a high altitude electromagnetic pulse. There is a potential to completely wipe out the North American grid. Now if you think about it, back in 1859, really the only electrical thing that was vulnerable back then was essentially the telegraph lines. We didn't have radios, we didn't have satellites, we didn't have hardly anything. So the damage was mild. If the same event were to happen today, it could be a catastrophe. There are currently over 4,500 satellites orbiting the Earth. The majority, by the way, are owned by elon Musk and SpaceX. For certain, all of those satellites will be vulnerable if a Carrington event were to occur today. And of course we now have a lot of electronics, we have not only the power grid, but with the Internet of things, a lot of technology is currently embedded everywhere and potentially everything could be lost and we'd be essentially back in the stone age.
- [15:17]
Paul Chapman
Okay, so two things. Firstly, can you just talk to us a little bit about the magnetosphere? That's what project protects us on a daily basis from the general normal activity of the sun's radiation, electromagnetic radiation. And just a quick question, a sub question on that is, could an event like this be so powerful that it destroys the magnetosphere?
- [15:39]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Okay, so the magnetosphere is the natural dipole magnetic field that surrounds the Earth. The magnetic field is generated by the dynamo effect, which is due to molten metals in the core of the Earth rotating. And that causes a magnetic field that goes from the South Pole to the North Pole. And as you mentioned, that does protect the Earth from plasma particles that might either emanate from the sun or are naturally occurring in the ionosphere. So as an example, in the northern climates at wintertime you see very brilliant aurora activity. And that aurora activity is nothing more than plasma being trapped by the magnetic field lines. And the reason why they're more intense in the North Pole as opposed to the equator, is, as you can imagine, all the magnetic field lines that you can visualize, visualized that are around the equator, they all converge to a point essentially in the North Pole. So therefore, the concentration of magnetic field is greatest. And of course, the value of magnetic field is nothing more than the density of magnetic field lines. And therefore, the aurora activity is most intense in those northern and southern regions of the Earth. And no, a coronal mass ejection would not disturb Earth's magnetic field. It would just make the magnetosphere more intense in terms of the plasma that would be trapped there compared to normal times.
- [17:23]
Paul Chapman
Right. I can. Although civilization won't continue, at least the succeeding beings will have a magnetosphere. Okay, so I would.
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Idil Shamaloglu Edel
I would like to point out that if your audience is really interested in observing more about what would happen after such an event, the National Geographic produced a very nice documentary back in 2010 called Electronic Armageddon. And it's based on a book that Berkeley physics Professor Richard Muller had wrote, which was titled something along the lines of, I think, Physics for Presidents or something like that. And in that book, Professor Muller talks about nuclear EMP and its impact on civilization. And that National Geographic DVD is a very good visualization and presentation of that effect. So if your audience is really interested in seeing what would happen, I highly recommend that.
- [18:17]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, and we're just about to get there just before we do, because, I mean, then that's ultimately, I should say what, what really fascinated me about this story is it seems this is a relatively low awareness of the. These types of events that have happened within 150 years or so, and the profound impact it would have. And yet there are things that could be done. And we'll come back to that. Can you just talk to us a little bit about frequency and intensity and perhaps use that Carrington event as a marker?
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Idil Shamaloglu Edel
The Carrington Effect was a severe storm, and scientists don't know for sure, but they believe that that's an event that would happen once every 100 to 500 years. That's the current thinking on that. So we're more than 100 years since the Carrington Event and can happen really anytime. I would remind your audience that back in 1989, there was a geomagnetic storm that took down the North America grid from Quebec down to New York, and that was due to a geomagnetic storm. So in our lifetimes we have seen such events.
- [19:28]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, and just so I understand, do we think the Carrington event, if it would happen now in terms of Intensity. Would you consider that one of the major coronal mass ejection that would have this global impact or is that still sort of really would probably be more regionalized impact?
- [19:45]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
No, that could be a major global event especially it may not take the grid down over the entire planet. It would take the grid down in the region that is in the direct line of sight. But as I told you, we're so reliant on satellites for communications, for telemetry, and certainly all the satellites would be destroyed.
- [20:08]
Paul Chapman
So, okay, so events less intense than the carroting event and therefore presumably more frequent could also take down all of our satellites as well.
- [20:19]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
They may again, it depends on the severity. We've had satellites now over low earth orbit now since the 1960s, so we have about 50 years of experience and there have been incidents where one or two satellites were affected by solar storm activity, but those events were relatively minor compared to something akin to the Carrington event. Yeah.
- [20:49]
Paul Chapman
Okay, so all the satellites are done when, when this ejection hits the, well the, you know, our environs and we can just cascade what, you know that, what that would affect from GPS through to global communications through everything. That would have a profound impact on our society. The next level is nationwide grids. So tell us what happens to those. If we would have. And when I say if, I mean when we have a currenting event.
- [21:18]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
If an event like the Carrington event were to strike North America for certain it would take down the North American grid. I mean the North American grid comprises three zones. You have the eastern part of the grid, you have the western part of the grid. And then you have Texas, which basically does its own thing. And even though there's a federal agency, ferc, that's responsible for overseeing the grid, as all of you know, there are individual companies that would own different parts of the grid, even though they're all connected to one another. So if there were an event like the Carrington event that were to occur, and if the grid is fully connected, one would observe a cascading failure across the grid. And by the way, I would like to point out the mode in which it would fail is the following. Every substation, and There are about 3:55,000 power substations in the North American grid. But every substation has a transformer. And these transformers are very expensive. They're multi million dollars. They don't exist as commercial off the shelf products. They're made in Switzerland and they're made to order. And if transformers were to be lost, you're talking about years, if not decades that would be necessary to replace them.
- [22:42]
HC Insider Podcast Announcer
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- [23:16]
Paul Chapman
So, and that is analogous to every grid in most states around the world, right?
- [23:22]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
For the most part, yep. Every, every grid everywhere would have such transformers.
- [23:26]
HC Insider Podcast Announcer
Yeah.
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Paul Chapman
And the point there that strikes me is if Switzerland, which is the primary manufacturer of these things, also gets, presumably it would disrupted by this geomagnetic storm, it's not even going to have the power to create these new transformers.
- [23:44]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Absolutely, absolutely.
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Paul Chapman
And, and one of the terrifying things, especially in that documentary you mentioned is of course, you know, how many days is it before civilization just, you know, ends as we know it? And I'm terrifying myself even thinking about it.
- [23:57]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Okay, it is terrifying. It really is terrifying. I mean, okay, the US government did take the nuclear EMP problem seriously. They formed the so called EMP Commission. The EMP Commission was formed, I believe in 2008, but it came up with recommendations, but a couple of years ago it was disbanded. And I think the problem is, is that if you were to try to harden against nuclear emp, the resources required to do that would be huge and politicians don't have the stomach to make investment in that. A similar type of investment would also harden the grid against a geomagnetic storm.
- [24:47]
Paul Chapman
Yeah. And we're going to come on to some of the solutions and the challenges in that in a moment because that's part of the reason for doing the podcast as well, is there are, you know, this isn't solely doom and gloom. There are things that can be done, but just staying on the effects and this idea that, okay, we don't, we don't really know, but using the Carrington event as a benchmark, satellites are gone, power grids are, if not totally down, then certainly within the region of the direct hit are down, then also, I mean, our cell phones, our laptops, anything that's got a, a live current in it at the point of attack, attack of the, of the hit would also be infected. I mean, do they even need to be turned on? There's these stories of when the Carrington event happened, people being able to broadcast, use the telegraph systems without any power packs in them.
- [25:38]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Yes. So certainly if you can Power down devices. And if you could, for example, take the grid to down intentionally and disconnect from adjacent grids, that would be a way of ensuring a certain level of protection. You can also imagine installing high voltage capacitors at these substations that would help protect the transformers. So there are some things that can be done and I think this would be a good time to point out that we do have some satellites in space that are designed to give us some warning in the case of a large solar storm. Unfortunately, the ones that are currently up there are located at one of the Lagrange points. A Lagrange point is where the gravitational field of the Earth and the gravitational field of the sun basically cancel each other out. So you're basically in stationary position. Unfortunately, the ones that are currently up there are on a direct line of sight between the sun and the Earth. And so those satellites would only give us a 15 minute warning of a catastrophic event. That's maybe enough time to power some things down, to power the grid down. It's certainly not enough time to do anything about the satellites. And I don't even know if you had time whether there was anything you could do to protect the satellites. I don't know. Perhaps you could power down some of the more sensitive modules within the satellite and just keep telemetry open. But the good news is that the European Space Agency ESA is planning on launching satellites in a project called Vigil V I G I l in the mid-2020s. And that would also be at a launch Lagrange point, but it would be at a Lagrange point that is not direct path between Earth and the sun, but it would be off to the side and that one would be located upstream. So as you all know, the Earth rotates and orbits around the sun, but this would be in a direction where it would catch an event that as we're rotating would basically hit us in about a day. So that one will give us about a day warning of an impending event. So a day is a lot more time than 15 minutes and would give us additional time to act. Again, I think being able to protect the grid, being able to protect electronics on Earth, yes, that's a possibility, but not sure if there's anything that can be done about the satellites.
- [28:26]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, so one of the things though, of course is that that day is, is, is very useful, but I don't think there is the awareness in the general population. I mean, I urge our listeners to go and Google solar flare right now and you'll see a number of news articles saying potential big one forming. There's one, as I googled earlier this morning, there's one that Forbes are talking about. I mean there isn't seem, there doesn't seem to be the awareness in the population that okay, a global warning goes out. You know, all of our cell phones get these alerts and everyone's told just to power everything off for the next 20, you know, 24 hours. I mean there doesn't even seem to be, you know, it's amazing if you step back and you think, look at all of the things that could actually the, you know, are pose the biggest threats to our civilization. A coronal mass ejection of the scale or worse as the Carrington event is got to be really. I mean it's going to be a more likely than a high altitude EMP and ultimately it's more likely than most of the things that could cause such an acute devastation of our societies.
- [29:30]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Absolutely, that's absolutely correct.
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Paul Chapman
Yeah, we should props have, you know it's and I will come on to this at the end. I just find it fascinating that this isn't talked about a little bit more because whilst I might be sounding slightly alarmist, I don't think I am necessarily in terms of the known science, the known frequency and the impacts that it would have. That again it's one of these externalities that, and that's, let's go on to talk about that there are things we can do. You mentioned putting capacitators and so forth into these transformers. All of this requires a cost, albeit not actually that significant, but it's just not being done. Can you just talk a little bit about why you think that is here in the US Is the FERC moving towards insisting on having those in? And obviously this is a story that's analogous to where I am in Texas where we haven't weatherized our grid.
- [30:27]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Right. Well, it all boils down to economics and the utilities are not of a mindset that they need to invest to protect against catastrophe. Whether it is a high altitude nuclear EMP burst or whether it is a geomagnetic storm. I think the utilities are like ostriches burying their heads in the ground. They don't want to hear about it. They don't want to talk about it. So about nine years ago there was an incident that took place south of San Jose where there was a well armed, well trained band of assailants, the Police estimate perhaps 4 to 5 who attacked a substation with rifles. And they continuously fired for about 20 minutes and then they escaped before the police came on the scene. They were never identified. We don't know if those five assailants were domestic actors or other state actors. It is unknown. But they succeeded in damaging the cooling functions for 17 of the substations. And the substations did heat up. But fortunately, since the incident was identified, they just powered down the substations and they were able to repair it and get that substation back up and running in a fairly short period of time. The transformer itself was not damaged. If no one had known about it, yes, they would have heated and they would have been damaged. So after that incident, FERC mandated having a security perimeter installed around every substation. But even today, some of the substations don't have very hardened perimeters. They have only chain link fences and they're still vulnerable. So I think FERC recognizes the importance of having secure substations and does understand that it's better to harden the substations as best as you can from electromagnetic threats. But its ability to force utilities to invest in it is quite limited.
- [32:42]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, do. I mean, and how does this compare to other countries? Do you see hardening throughout Europe or is it a similar circumstance?
- [32:50]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Well, one example is South Korea. And of course South Korea is constantly under threat from North Korea. So in South Korea they have been hardening their grid, primarily driven by the nuclear EMP concern. But this will protect the grid against the geomagnetic storm as well. I think in Europe there's also better awareness of this and some investment, but that's about it. In the US there's hardly any investment
- [33:21]
Paul Chapman
at all and there's no way of, in preparation, I guess, standardizing these transformers, these substations, so that there can be a stockpile in the event of whatever happens. Right. Were those actors, whoever they were, which is just a fascinating and quite dark story, were have been able to take out those, those substations that could have represented months, years even of impact on those regional grids. Right.
- [33:50]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
I mean, that particular substation powers Silicon Valley. So Silicon Valley, if those transformers were destroyed, had been destroyed, Silicon Valley would be without power for years.
- [34:05]
Paul Chapman
I mean, that's just such a profound thing to, to hear. Right. I mean, and, and again, is there any effort to try and standardize it so we can get replacements more quickly?
- [34:15]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
That's not a matter of standardization, that's a matter of economics and investment. As I mentioned, these transformers take months to a year to build. They're very expensive, they're huge. And there just is no economic incentive for the manufacturer to invest millions of dollars to build these and store these when the amount that they're going to sell is, is unknown, it's just not economically feasible. Which tells you that there has to be, instead of reliance on the private sector, perhaps this needs to be a government led program that would stockpile these transformers.
- [34:54]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, and it also seems to me that this is one of those things would also be a global event. So how globalized is the response at the moment and particularly the work that you do on your subcommittee? I mean, is there a path forward so that we can improve those twin levels of planning and hardening?
- [35:14]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Let me explain what our committee does. Our committee prepares what's called a standard. And these standards are not enforceable. These are voluntary standards. But industry does pick up on these standards and tries to accommodate them. So we have standards on how to protect a substation from a high altitude nuclear emp. And those documents give you the recipe for what you need to do to protect. And we are currently developing standards on how to protect substations against the effects of a geomagnetic storm. So that is a standard that is available for industry to purchase and then implement as part of their best engineering practices.
- [36:05]
Paul Chapman
Yeah, but again, I think like it comes down to, as you said, that this is tackling an externality and one hell of a fat tail. That perhaps is not actually so unlikely as one would hope. In fact, it's not unlikely. It's just a case of whether you're going to be around or not when these things next hit. You know, that actually takes a whole of government approach or you know, I
- [36:28]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
think it does and in principle it takes a whole world approach. But unfortunately as a civilization we seem to be playing worse and worse with one another as the years go by compared to how we used to in the past. So it's unrealistic to think that there might be a whole world response, but perhaps there could be a US European response at least that would be implemented to at least provide a buffer for, for us in the US and Europe.
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Paul Chapman
So, final couple of things. Firstly, we still, it's still ultimately a little bit unknown the frequency around these things, right? What, how are we basing the carrington event being one every, let's just call every 500 years. And can you also just talk a little bit about the, the sort of the, the natural ebb and flow of solar activity because I mentioned earlier on that we're starting to reach peak activity in what I believe is an 11 year cycle. Just, can you just talk to us A little bit about that and also mention as well how direction matters. It's all about whether one of these big events happen, but also has to be directed at us.
- [37:42]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Regarding the Carrington event being an every 100 to 500 year event, I am not an expert on that, so I can't explain how they concluded that that's the case. I would think it's based on a statistical model that's tied to the typical 11 year cycle and the variability of the magnitude of those events in the 11 year cycle. The 11 year cycle itself is a typical pattern, but we have observed major coronal mass ejections during a minimum of the solar storm activity. So it's really. It doesn't mean that you can't have a major event at a low point in solar activity. You can, it's just that the more numerous events occur every 11 years and then wane in between again.
- [38:40]
Paul Chapman
I guess. Final thoughts before we will go hug our loved ones and prepare to raise awareness of if ever a solar flare warning goes out, what to do and turn off all our electrics as best we can. Just coming back to that idea of the scale and the magnitude and the likelihood of this kind of event, it seems to me that it is way it's much higher in all of those three categories than say, you know, a rogue state using an EMP or a super volcano, Yellowstone national park goes up or whatever it might be. This seems just such a profound, you know, this, it almost seems more likely than I imagine it is than a meteor hitting the planet and wiping us out. I mean this is, it seems that this would be, this is the most existential threat that we face. And yet that just doesn't tally with awareness particularly I think, you know, people are far more aware of close near Earth asteroids than they are of solar flares and that their impact.
- [39:43]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Yes. And of course people have seen movies where you've had such events occur as meteors crashing and near misses and asteroids. And the geomagnetic storm is not something that is in common movies or journalism. It's really not discussed. It's ill understood and I think it's the job of the government and politicians to be responsible and to plan for such an event because we know it already has occurred and we do know if a similar event were to occur today it would be devastating. So yeah, it is a real problem.
- [40:23]
Paul Chapman
Well, many people in our audience are in the generation business so hopefully they, they can go and check out the current plans for hardening and for responding to what currently is a 15 minute warning that we'd all have. Yeah, well, it's been quite a terrifying half hour, but I really do appreciate your time.
- [40:42]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
It's been my pleasure. And I recommend your audience to Google the European Space Agency, ESA and the word Vigil V I G I L. You can read about the planned mission. You can see a visualization of where the Lagrange points are. And they have a very nice animation on that website that shows how the plasma particles from a coronal mass ejection very rapidly distribute all around the Earth, following the earth's magnetic field lines. So I do recommend you view that animation.
- [41:14]
Paul Chapman
Fantastic. And with regards to your work on the iec, we can share your contact details in the show notes or how can people get hold of you?
- [41:22]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
Sure, Absolutely.
- [41:23]
Paul Chapman
Okay. Well, Edel, it's been a real pleasure and thank you for your time.
- [41:28]
Idil Shamaloglu Edel
It's been my pleasure. Thank you.
- [41:31]
Paul Chapman
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