To the experts, it’s a Geomagnetic Disturbance, or GMD. To most of us, it’s a solar flare.
Whatever its name, it can fry a large electricity system, burn out controls, and black out square miles in seconds, like the massive flare that brought down the grid in Canada’s Quebec province for nine hours in 1989.

Now, the power industry and regulators responsible for electric reliability are trying to figure out how to stop it, or at least minimize the potential damage. Keep reading →