Special Report: Wild Cards in Our Future

Sunspots and a Communications Catastrophe

Sudden electromagnetic pulses from the Sun could give us only a few minutes to hunker down before we lose all communication with each other.

By Dennis Miner

Sunspots need our immediate attention. What we should be looking out for is the one that will toast all computers and electrical distribution systems—i.e., the global grid. We will only get a few minutes of warning, then all transistors and most circuit boards will be burned up by the electromagnetic pulse of radiation. The sun may be in a lull during its active cycle right now, but this might be the calm before the storm.

Industrialized humans have become so dependent upon electricity that it is difficult to imagine what we would do without it. Since we build computers with computers and run the grid with computers, what do you think will happen when they all turn off simultaneously? And, if they stay off for a couple months, then what? The right to bear arms as an individual citizen will have a huge effect in the United States. Anarchy and panic are likely, and law enforcement would be rendered helpless.

Widespread infrastructure failures would ensue. Food is not distributed because fuel is needed to do that and the fuel pumps will be dead. Water is not distributed because the pumps are controlled by computers. Waste-water collection systems with pumping stations will fail. Waste-water treatment facilities will bypass their plants with manual valves and dump waste to the receiving streams. Fuels needed for heating will be unavailable. Nuclear power plants will melt down.

We need to develop thirty-minute emergency shutdown procedures for all critical facilities. We need to harden the systems that we use for utilities and emergency power. We need to design fuel storage tanks to be operated manually. If we are lucky, we might have an hour to react.

About the Author

Dennis Miner is vice president, finance and administration, of the Construction Sciences Research Foundation Inc. He lives in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. E-mail dennisminer@comcast.net