CMEs can be much stronger though. During certain parts of the 11 year solar cycle the sun regularly emits CMEs large enough that, if they hit Earth, would strip the atmosphere, boil off the oceans, and incinerate everything on the surface, sterilizing the planet.

This smells like bullshit. The radius of Earth orbit is on the order of 10^8, diameter of Earth is on the order 10^4, so the fraction of the Earth's orbit actually occupied by the Earth is roughly 10^-4. So if the sun was regularly emitting planet-sterilizing death-farts, on an 11 year cycle, we'd definitely have caught one in the last few 10⁹ years. Assuming an isotropic distribution of farts.