Has anybody read about the Carrington Event? According to the National Academy of Science, a "space storm" could produce a devastating apocalypse. The report provided "an estimate of $1 trillion to $2 trillion during the first year alone" and that "societal and economic costs of a 'severe geomagnetic storm scenario'" would have a "recovery time of 4 to 10 years."

Excerpt: "While a severe storm is a low-frequency-of-occurrence event, it has the potential for long-duration catastrophic impacts to the power grid and its users. Impacts would be felt on interdependent infrastructures, with, for example, potable water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in about 12-24 hours; and immediate or eventual loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, transportation, fuel resupply, and so on. Kappenman stated that the effects on these interdependent infrastructures could persist for multiple years, with a potential for significant societal impacts and with economic costs that could be measurable in the several-trillion-dollars-per-year range."

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12507#toc

Yes, that report is creepy. It would take so many years to restore the electrical grid's damaged hardware and every aspect of modern civilization, in the developed world, is dependent on electricity.

Think I saw something about the possibility on the Discovery or History Channels this winter.

Talk about a stimulus program, we'd all be put to work building transformers.

big article

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20....html?full=true

Interesting listing of past magnetic storms, replete with links to contemporaneous news articles.

http://www.solarstorms.org/SRefStorms.html

The shocking thing is that there are not enough transformers, so, without electricity, you can't build more -- and you can't get electricity without tranformers. It's a cascading effect situation that would be hard to recover from. Yikes.

So basically your normal preparations for loss of power should work, but you might be looking at a longer timeline.

Solar storms have caused power outages before, one example they give on page 16 and page 18 is the 1989 Quebec power outage.
Steps are being taken to make power systems less vulnerable. The fact that there are conferences like the one your link reports is actually encouraging.
The report is an interesting read, but not really earth shattering.

edit:
As they say on page 88,

My understanding is because of the tilt of the Earth the southern hemisphere wouldn't be as affected. Are there any manufacturers of these transformers in Australia, Africa or South America?

-Blast

I just found it interesting that sunspot activity had the potential for being such a devastating threat.
And while it is encouraging that these guys are thinking about it, I am not convinced they will DO anything about it. Having worked in government, I know how these guys think. Pearl Harbor and Hurricane Katrina come to mind . . .

There are two places this possible event shows up that you can get:

Scientific American, August 2008
Discovery Networks, "Perfect Storm", Season One,Episode 2: "Solar Storm"

I agree that the power grids are vulnerable and that the risks are high, but it still leaves me with the question of what I can do to reduce the effect on me and mine personally.

At the level I exist at it does not matter much if the cause is a solar flare or a winter ice storm.
I would still end up with no power. The additional problems like loss of GPS, telephone or radio communication and damaged computers are just icing on the cake.

That seems to put me back to preparing for it like almost any other power outage. (back up generator, heating, water, light, stored food, etc?)

I don't think it is quite fair to blame the govt for inaction in this case either.
There is the basic problem of business mathematics involved here too.
Power companies try to keep their costs down and most of the costs of power losses are not born by power companies. The large costs listed in the report are almost all losses of income to power users caused by loss of power, instead of out of pocket expenses. In other words, losses generalized to the economy.

The costs of upgrading the grid are out of pocket expenses to the power companies though, which they would have to pass directly to their customers.
This means they all have a real hard time justifying the expense to their accountants.

Anyhow, I have very little influence over the business decisions of large or small corporations.

So again I am left doing what I can to prepare at my level, and that means pretty basic and simple emergency preparations.

I would think that in such a serious crisis, companies should be able to spool up production of these transformers pretty quickly. At least I would hope so.

I wonder how many other electrical systems would be affected, computers, pacemakers, etc. I keep mentally comparing this to EMP, although it's not the same at all.

But the night time sky spectacular would look awesome that night and the next couple of years would allow me enough to time to learn the piano.. Those Las Vegas golf courses would get pretty stinky within a few weeks though.