Imagine being a telegraph operator in September 1859. You’re sitting at your station, using cutting-edge technology to tap out messages hundreds and thousands of miles away. Suddenly, brilliant auroras light up the night sky from the tropics to the poles.
Then chaos.
Sparks shower from your equipment, shocking you with a jolt strong enough to knock you out of your chair, while igniting your telegraph message papers. You later find out that some of your fellow operators could still send messages even after disconnecting their batteries — not knowing that the telegraph wires were being energized by massive currents induced in the wires by the most powerful geomagnetic storm in recorded history.
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That storm, triggered by a colossal solar flare observed by British astronomer Richard Carrington, unleashed a coronal mass ejection (CME) that slammed into Earth’s magnetic field. Such a massive solar storm is known as a Carrington Event.
A telegraph operator in 1859 could only wonder at today’s technology — technology that is far more vulnerable to the sun than was the case then.
The sun has an 11-year cycle, and this year is the peak of the cycle. On Feb. 1, giant sunspot AR4366 — a behemoth that grew rapidly from nothing to nearly half the size of the monster behind the Carrington Event — unleashed an X8-class solar flare, the strongest of Solar Cycle 25 so far.
In the preceding 24 hours, this unstable region hurled 23 M-class and four X-class flares earthward. Extreme ultraviolet radiation from the X8 blast ionized the upper atmosphere, blacking out shortwave radio communications across the South Pacific for hours.
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More concerning is the potential CME. The explosion ejected dense plasma that could be Earth-directed. If it arrives with sufficient force, it will compress Earth’s magnetosphere and induce powerful geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) — in other words, electrify the Earth’s surface. GICs, in turn, can impart a current to the high-voltage transmission lines that form the backbone of our electric grid. And that can be a problem.
Modern society is infinitely more dependent on electricity than in the telegraph era. A Carrington-level event today wouldn’t just spark a few fires in telegraph offices. It would risk melting or destroying hundreds of massive high-voltage transformers, triggering widespread blackouts that could last months or years. Supply chains would collapse, water systems would fail, fuel pumps would go dark, communications would vanish and refrigeration would cease. Estimates of economic damage range from $600 billion to $2.6 trillion in the United States alone, with untold loss of life from lack of heat, medicine and emergency services.
Yet despite clear warnings, America’s grid remains dangerously vulnerable.
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In my 2023 report for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Texas Defense, I detailed how both natural geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs) and man-made electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks pose existential risks to the grid.
A severe event could damage or destroy effectively irreplaceable extra-high-voltage (EHV) transformers, leading to prolonged outages across the state and beyond.
But there is good news: Proven, cost-effective hardware solutions exist today. Neutral Blocking Devices equipped with capacitors, installed in the grounded neutral of high-voltage transformers, can prevent catastrophic damage. These devices block the quasi-direct current (quasi-DC) GICs induced by solar storms or the E3 component of an EMP blast, while allowing normal 60 Hz AC power to flow unimpeded. These devices buffer harmful ground currents, preventing overheating, destructive harmonics, voltage collapse and eventual meltdown.
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As a bonus, these devices also mitigate lower-level GICs that currently shave years off transformer life and cost industry billions annually in reactive power losses.
Costs for these devices have fallen dramatically as technology has matured. A nationwide deployment protecting the most vulnerable 6,000 transformers would require a one-time investment of roughly $4 billion — a fraction of the trillions at risk.
Yet utilities and transmission companies remain reluctant, wary of passing even modest costs to ratepayers. Regulators, meanwhile, have dragged their feet, relying on standards derived from studies that dramatically underestimate the threat.
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Many of these vulnerability assessments trace back to European research conducted more than 30 years ago, during an unusually calm solar period. Those models assumed lower GIC intensities and failed to account for today’s more interconnected, higher-voltage grid — or the far more active sun we’re experiencing now in Cycle 25.
Compounding the problem is the fact that most large power transformers are no longer made in America. The majority come from China, South Korea, and Germany, with typical delivery lead times stretching to four years or more under normal conditions. If dozens or hundreds are destroyed in a severe solar storm, replacement could take a decade or longer — time we wouldn’t have in a prolonged blackout.
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With sunspot AR4366 still crackling and more explosions likely in the coming days, the warning couldn’t be clearer. Congress and state legislatures must act swiftly to mandate or incentivize installation of neutral blocking devices. Utilities must prioritize grid resilience over short-term rate concerns. And regulators must update standards to reflect real-world risks, not Pollyannaish assumptions from a sleepy sun.
The Carrington Event literally shocked telegraph operators. A repeat could shock an entire civilization into the pre-industrial age.
We have the technology to prevent it. We should act on it.
