: “How would a Carrington Event damage Technology?”
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The Carrington Event was a coronal mass ejection, which is when ionized particles are ejected from the Sun. These are inherently electromagnetic, which has two major effects if they come near Earth:
Satellites, especially those in more distant orbits, will be hit hardest as they have a lot less protection from the Earth. This can induce unexpected charges in the electronics, which may take permanent damage. At a minimum, such will interfere with radio communications from the satellites. The only real option for satellites is to put them into a “safe” mode and hope they survive, and replace those that fail.
The interaction of these particles with the Earth’s magnetosphere will cause charges in all metals. Generally small objects like your phone or computer will likely be safe, but the electric grid may get overloaded with unexpected, and uncontrolled power – much like millions of lightning strike all over the world at once. Surge protectors can help minimize the damage, but would get destroyed in the process, but would not protect major infrastructure such as generators and transforms. The only real solution would be to disconnect the long transmission lines entirely, which means cutting all electric power everywhere – not really something that would be viable.
Its worth noting that anything metallic will generate power, which means that gas pipelines are also a danger in such a storm. The gas pipeline will induce electric currents and become electrified, which may result in sparking and fires or explosions. Even water pipes could cause sparking to ignite nearby flammable materials, causing forest fires.
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