Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies Cambridge Risk Framework Technology Catastrophe Stress Test Scenario HELIOS SOLAR STORM SCENARIO Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies University of Cambridge Judge Business School Trumpington Street Cambridge, CB2 1AG United Kingdom [email protected] http://www.risk.jbs.cam.ac.uk November 2016 The Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies acknowledges the generous support provided for this research by the following organisation: The views contained in this report are entirely those of the research team of the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies, and do not imply any endorsement of these views by the organisations supporting the research, or our consultants and collaborators. This report describes a hypothetical scenario developed as a stress test for risk management purposes. It does not constitute a prediction. The Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies develops hypothetical scenarios for use in improving business resilience to shocks. These are contingency scenarios used for ‘what-if’ studies and do not constitute forecasts of what is likely to happen. Report citation: Oughton, E.; Copic, J.; Skelton, A.; Kesaite, V.; Yeo, Z. Y.; Ruffle, S. J.; Tuveson, M.; Coburn, A. W.; Ralph, D. 2016. Helios Solar Storm Scenario; Cambridge Risk Framework series; Centre for Risk Studies, University of Cambridge. Research Project Team Helios Solar Storm Scenario Project Lead Dr Michelle Tuveson, Executive Director Tamara Evan, Coordinating Editor Helios Solar Storm Scenario Project Contributers Dr Andrew Coburn, Director of Advisory Board Professor Daniel Ralph, Academic Director Simon Ruffle, Director of Technology Research and Innovation Dr Edward Oughton, Research Associate Dr Andrew Skelton, Research Associate Jennifer Copic, Research Assistant Viktorija Kesaite, Research Assistant Jaclyn Zhiyi Yeo, Research Assistant Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies Research Team Dr Shahzeb Malik, Research Associate Eireann Leverett, Senior Risk Researcher Dr Louise Pryor, Senior Risk Researcher Dr Duncan Needham, Senior Risk Researcher Dr Jay Chan Do Jung, Risk Researcher Dr Andrew Chaplin, Risk Researcher Arjun Mahalingam, Research Assistant Dr Ali Shaghaghi, Research Assistant Jessica Tsang, Research Assistant Shaheera Asante, Editorial Assistant Consultant and Collaborators Professor Richard Horne of the British Antarctic Survey Dr Helen Mason, Assistant Director of Research, University of Cambridge Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Dr Alan Thomson, Head of Geomagnetism, British Geological Survey Professor Emeritus C. Trevor Gaunt, University of Cape Town Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies Website and Research Platform http://risk.jbs.cam.ac.uk/ Helios Solar Storm Technology Catastrophe Stress Test Scenario Contents 1 Executive Summary 2 2 Introduction to Space Weather 6 3 Ground-effects of Extreme Space Weather 9 4 Defining the Scenario 17 5 The Scenario 20 6 Direct Scenario Impacts 24 7 Indirect Supply Chain Impacts 26 8 Macroeconomic Analysis 30 9 Insurance Impacts 34 10 Investment Impacts 42 11 Conclusions 44 12 References 46 Appendix 1 55 Appendix 2 58 Appendix 3 59 Appendix 4 61 Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies Helios Solar Storm - Stress Test Scenario 1 Executive Summary The study of solar eruptive phenomena has progressed disruption footprints that stem from suspended over the centuries from scholarly recordings of business and production activity directly caused by astronomical events, such as sunspots, to advanced power outages in the US. This perspective provided modelling of how solar activity may drive geophysical a detailed industry sector breakdown of potential planetary responses, e.g., geomagnetic disturbances. economic losses but does not account for the dynamic However, there is still a great deal of uncertainty response of the economy. Global supply chain around the potential economic impacts of extreme disruptions are conservatively estimated to range from space weather on modern society. $0.5 to $2.7 trillion across the three scenario variants. In this report, we provide a catastrophe scenario for Second we employ a global integrated economic model a US-wide power system collapse that is caused by to estimate losses in global GDP over a five year period an extreme space weather event affecting Earth: the relative to a baseline projection – our standard loss Helios Solar Storm scenario. metric referred to as GDP@Risk. Importantly, this perspective accounts for post-catastrophe dynamic This scenario is a stress test for managers and policy- responses in the global economy, including, for makers. Stress tests are important for understanding example, changes in monetary policy. For this reason risk exposure across a spectrum of extreme systemic our GDP@Risk estimates are lower than our estimated shocks such as those proposed in the Cambridge static losses from supply chain disruptions. The Helios Taxonomy of Threats, which encompasses a dozen Solar Storm has a global GDP@Risk ranging from major classes of catastrophes. A suite of scenarios can $140 to $613 billion across the three scenario variants be used as a basis for calibrating an organisation’s (representing between 0.15% and 0.7% of global GDP inherent risk, vulnerability and resilience. over the projected five year period). Helios Solar Storm Scenario Selection of a space weather scenario as a This scenario describes how an extreme space disruptor of infrastructure weather event can cause direct damage and indirect debilitation of high voltage transmission grids in Anomalous behaviour of US telegraph operations in the USA, resulting in power blackouts along with the mid-1800s, especially during the 1859 Carrington consequential insurance claims and economic losses. Event, brought about the recognition that solar Over the past decade, there have been a number of activity can affect human technology. analyses of the potential effects of extreme space Although extreme space weather events include a weather on the electricity transmission network.1 variety of phenomena like Solar Particle Events (SPEs) This report adds to this literature by providing a and bursts of electromagnetic radiation from solar transparent economic analysis of the potential costs flares, it is very fast Carrington-sized Coronal Mass associated with such an event. Ejections (CMEs) which are mostly associated with We estimate a range of US insurance industry losses the geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs) that are severe resulting from three variants of the scenario which enough to cause power grid failure. A severe CME has explore different damage distributions and restoration the potential to generate geomagnetically induced periods, culminating in losses between $55.0 and currents (GICs) that could cause permanent damage $333.7 billion. At the low end, this is roughly double to Extra High Voltage (EHV) transformers. Such high the insurance payouts of either Hurricane Katrina or value assets are not easy to procure and replace in the Superstorm Sandy, and similar to the total insured short-term. losses from all catastrophes in 2015. Failure in these critical assets could cause system- Overall economic losses are evaluated from two wide instability issues leading to cascading failure perspectives. First, we estimate global supply chain across the electricity system, passed on to other critical interdependent infrastructures such as transportation, 1 See Space Studies Board, 2008; Organization for Economic digital communications and our vital public health Co-operation and Development, 2011; JASON, 2011; North systems. This disruption could also cause considerable American Electric Reliability Corporation, 2012; Cannon et al, disruption to business activities. 2013. 2 Helios Solar Storm Scenario Our impact analysis is underpinned by some key damage levels but similar restoration times, reflecting methodological contributions which include deriving uncertainty about how much damage the components bottom- up, state-level restoration curves, which of a power grid might be exposed to in extremis. The show how long it takes to restore the supply of X1 scenario is deliberately extreme, and reflects the electricity after the extreme space weather event, Kappenman (2010) perspective, with similar damage based on key risk factors including geomagnetic levels to the S2 scenario but with longer restoration latitude and deep-earth ground conductivity. periods.2 The scenario is used to explore the upper Disruptions in electricity supply are mapped to state- bound for the economic and insurance loss estimates. level industrial output by industrial sector, and are Indeed, this is considered by some to reflect an overly aggregated to the US national level. This yields direct pessimistic view of vulnerability of the electricity economic loss estimates that are then fed into a global transmission system to GICs. Opponents of this multiregional economic input-output model to assess perspective do not necessarily disagree with the long domestic and international supply chain disruptions. replacement times for damaged EHV transformers, These estimates are themselves a basis for applying a but instead disagree with the severity of the damage dynamic economic equilibrium model to gauge how distribution to the assets themselves. the USA and its trading partners recover from this shock over time. This is a stress test, not a prediction This report is one of a series of stress test scenarios that Variants of the scenario have been developed by the University of Cambridge The