Le 10/01/2013 10:52, scott nous fit lire :
>> And then the solar activity just get to cancel the magnetosphere long
>> enough (3 minutes ?) to jolt all the grid over the world, turning back
>> all countries (excepted North Korea) back to middle age for at least 10
>> years (estimation from official studies).
> 
> If everything electronic stopped then I'd be more worried about plane
> engines and hospital generators than car engines...
> 
not electronic, just the long lines get over charged, breaking the
isolation. In fact, Canada had a train collision due to the signal line
(which occurs to be parallel to the northern lights over a long
distance): the sensor had detected a train, but the light at the over
end of the section got a false data due to the induction in the line...
so a second train enters the section (dual way section, with only one
track... both trains went happily on their own direction until they met.)

The inducted current would also break the substations (where the
isolation around the wires is made of coating... once broken, the whole
wire must be cleared and the isolation made again).

The planes would be a small momentary issue (some would crash, most
would return to autonomous navigation... but without radio from the
ground it could be hard to land by eye-view only. Airport should be able
to run on battery for most to land, once they found an airport).

The real issue is to be "no electricity" over a whole hemisphere or
bigger, for a very long term. Batteries are to be depleted very fast
(less than a week)... no pump, no fridge, no light at night, no
heating... The powerplants might be running, but without a distribution
grid, cities are going to be very hard places: the
replacement/restoration of the whole grid, in such situation, had been
estimated to more than 10 years for the big U.S.A. (and very very
expensive).

And I was not worried about the car engine, but about the "smart"
electric car... or rather the successful automated car everywhere that
everyone would then have.

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