Our sun sends ionized particles toward Earth every day. The magnetic field from circulating iron in Earth’s core deflects most of them.

But occasionally a gigantic solar coronal mass ejection will reach Earth and cause problems with electrical systems. The first recorded incident was the Carrington Event, the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking on 1–2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in telegraph stations.

A similar massive solar coronal mass ejection today could bring modern society to a standstill. That’s pretty Macroeconomic.

wsj.com - Solar storm what is stormwall


A Plan to Stop Solar Storms From Sending Us Back to the Stone Age
StormWall, which involves school-bus-size satellites and a whole lot of salt, could provide an ionic ‘air bag’ for the Earth

By Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2026

…
Far out in space, where geostationary satellites orbit, a half-dozen school-bus-size satellites crack open and start dumping barium, lithium or sodium. Within minutes, sunlight transforms this material into an ionized gas shield that slows the oncoming massive blob of plasma…

Even its name, StormWall, sounds like science fiction, but authorities on space weather say it could work, mitigating an event that happens, they estimate, once a century. The trio of scientists who conceived of it say an international coalition could build such a system with existing or soon-to-arrive technology.

Back-of-the-envelope math suggests it could cost tens of billions of dollars. Yet with all of the electronics on Earth that increasingly govern our lives, and ever more infrastructure being put into orbit, from internet-delivering satellites to AI-training data centers, spending that much could be a no-brainer, says StormWall co-designer Brian Walsh, an associate professor of engineering at Boston University…

The challenge, he says, is that experts can’t predict space weather the way they can predict weather down here on Earth. We don’t have as many sensors in space, and the processes that trigger solar storms and make them devastatingly potent are much more complicated…

The system would require 838,000 pounds of ionizable material—lithium, barium or sodium—to be lofted to an altitude of 22,000 miles above Earth’s surface. That’s 68 times as high as the orbit of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.

That altitude is critical because that’s the point in space at which the ionized material could follow what the researchers call “natural highways” in space, giving about six hours of protection before drifting away…

Even if it costs $100 billion, that price tag is only a 10th of the amount tech companies are projected to spend on building out artificial-intelligence infrastructure next year alone. And without a space air bag, any sufficiently large solar storm has the potential to turn all those data centers into inoperable piles of steel and silicon. [end quote]

It’s science fiction right now. But it’s not a matter of if, but when, that the sun will eject another mass of material large enough to penetrate the magnetic field and damage electronics. There have been recent near-misses.

Currently, space weather centers (like NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center) monitor the Sun 24/7. Because a coronal mass ejection takes 12 to 48 hours to travel from the Sun to Earth, we would have an advance warning. This would allow grid operators to shut down power systems, put satellites into “safe mode,” and disconnect vulnerable equipment before the storm hits, drastically reducing the permanent damage. There would still be damage and some satellites would be lost due to friction with a heated/ expanded upper atmosphere.

It’s a lot more realistic to invest in earth-based protective measures, such as emergency drills to disconnect transformers, etc. than a one-shot space-based system. But it’s worthwhile bringing up the subject to keep everyone on their toes vis-a-vis planning. Utility operators have in-depth plans, including ground-based shielding and stockpiling spare transformers. Those plans need to be protected from short-sighted cost-cutting management.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), backed by federal authority, issued a mandatory reliability standard called TPL-007.

This regulation legally forces utility companies to conduct vulnerability assessments for geomagnetic storms and mandates that they have operating procedures in place to mitigate the risks. If a company decides to “cost-cut” its solar storm drills or hardware upgrades, it faces massive federal fines. Regulations effectively turn disaster preparedness from an optional expense into a legally required cost of doing business.

On a more personal scale, what should we do at home if the government warns that there will be a major coronal mass ejection of a size that electric utilities will shut down the grid to protect it?

Should I put my computer back-up external drive into the steel drawer in my steel fireproof safe? Should I wrap my computer in aluminum foil? Considering the problem is magnetic as well as electrical, would it be enough to turn off the electrical panel and unplug the appliances?

Wendy