@Vashon thank you for that. I massively appreciate you going to the effort to write all that out.
Would it make any difference if it happened today in 2019 as opposed to 2012? I was kind of basing the thread on the solar storm hitting us back then as opposed to the present day.
Infrastructurally, no, same damage, same response. More angry fatter people distraught at no Netflix. Tumblr wasn't huge back then and they have nuked the porn off so that stays the same.
And that was a very sanitized narration of what would happen. And only for a 1st world nation with the industrial power and spare land for agricultural use to recover with. All electrical lines everywhere are getting set on fire, causing a massive disturbance everywhere. Death toll from the disorder and chaos and inevitable wars, civil and otherwise, will reach over a billion outside of the powerful industrial nations.
Europe, Russia and its immediate friends, China, much of North America will recover the fastest. Of that group, Europe will have the hardest time, it will have to immediately get in contact with Algeria and Nigeria for oil, because Russia is going to be busy with its own problems and Coal Liquefaction takes time to bring online. Actually, no, I take Nigeria back, Algeria and Libya, Libya is closer and more thinly populated.
Of the major powers that are fucked and are likely to see greater than 50% loss? I'll work from the top toe the bottom as I think of them. Japan, North/South Korea, India and Pakistan(might very well nuke each other, might not), Singapore(not really major, too small), Indonesia(big and populous, but poorly industrialized), Brazil, Israel. Its either not enough food, or the transportation of the food is completely fucked, or both.
The Middle East is completely done. Water Desalination plants are going offline and aren't going to come back on quickly enough. It will be at least 2 years before the big boys can get everything back together enough to begin recovery, so thats 2 years of Middle Eastern electrical grid going offline and staying offline. On top of massive stockpiles of weapons and an already volatile political situation. Combine that with nobody having the spare resources to sit on them?
New Zealand should be alright though. It would be a bit rough, but overall, I see New Zealand being in an alright place. Australia is on the edge. It grows plenty of food, but only in the South East of the country does the population live near the growth of that food.
North Eurasia and China and the richest parts of North America have the resources and manpower to recover quickly enough to recover at all, but millions will still die. Much of the rest of the world will count themselves lucky if half their population survives and they have any industrial base left afterwards. The rest of the world that depends on how mucht relied on imports/exports just to survive.