Geomagnetic security

America isn't prepared for a 2 a.m. cyberattack

At 2 a.m. on a Sunday, the White House operator takes a call from the 24-hour Command Center at NASA. There’s a grid or cyber emergency. The operator asks if it’s the Russians. If it is, it would be an act of war. “Not this time.” The NASA officer says smugly. “It’s from a far more deadly source.” Fifteen hours earlier, NASA’s solar observatory satellite had detected an enormous ejection of plasma from the Sun’s surface, creating a huge geomagnetic storm in space.

The odds that this storm would intersect Earth’s orbit were infinitesimally small. But after tracking it NASA realized that it would, indeed, strike the Earth. In a little over two hours! NASA calculated that the geomagnetic storm was so huge that it would produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) equal to a “Carrington Event” — one that would shut down all electrical systems on the entire planet. A total blackout. No lights. No power. No Internet.

The president is awakened. The staff at the White House have the presence of mind to get the president to declare a “grid emergency” under the Federal Power Act and turn the responsibility for dealing with it over to the secretary of Energy. No one in Washington is prepared for a grid emergency caused by the sun. Russia, yes. The sun, no.