Solar flares: "the week the earth stood still"

I've been hearing and reading about that solar flare in 2012 that could have sent us back to the 18th century, by causing huge geomagnetic storms which would have prevented (every?) electricity-based devices from working correctly. They say the economic cost of this disaster would have been something like 2 trillion USD.

I found this scenario very inspiring, and I have some questions about it.

1. How far would this regression go if planet Earth was hit by such a solar flare? Would it be just like in the movie "The day the earth stood still"? Could we still find a way to create electrical energy in these conditions? Would we be forced to come back to steam power or something else? Would this actually be our major problem?

2. Now suppose that we could anticipate such a cataclysm and know its length in advance (say two whole weeks). What would be the most likely security measures we could take to prevent most of the potential material and economical damages?

posted over 9 years ago

eyam‭

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