How long would society last during a total grid collapse? • Hacker News Board

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#131

Post by 2Gkashmiri » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

meitham wrote: post #122

woodruffw wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the experience you've described mostly works out because the infrastructure has developed (or not developed) in conjunction with unreliable power. It would be a pretty different story in a dense US city: there are no wells to draw from, no simplified infrastructure designed to operate with minimum power or water, etc. In other words: mature infrastructure is both our greatest strength and our greatest weaknes…

From Iraq, we went from zero power cuts in decades to no power at all within two weeks in the gulf war in 90, as NATO countries attacked all our civilian power stations. Life became horrible but we adapted. In some cases there were fights between people no different than the fights you saw in western countries over toilet rolls during covid, but I wouldn’t say it was a total society collapse. People will always find…

not to sound all propagandist but russia attacking ukraine infra is "bad" but NATO attacking iraq is "collateral damage".

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#132

Post by throwaway742 » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:03 AM UTC

piyushpr134 wrote: post #90

Coming from India and as someone who has lived, growing up (in the 90s), without power for hours and days...trust me you are going to be deeply inconvenienced but not going to die. We had hand fans (hot climate) and fire in large bowl shaped vessels (when cold). Nights without power are spent sleeping on terrace. We had oil lamps for light in the evening. Most night activity would siege by 8pm max to wake up early at…

You can't exactly light a fire if you live in the middle of a large apartment complex.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#133

Post by throwaway742 » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

eek2121 wrote: post #94

cpsns wrote: post #36

> Critical facilities like cellular base stations and data-centers often have an on-site backup generator. These generators have enough fuel to extend the resiliency beyond 24 to 48 hours. During the 2019 hurricane here in Nova Scotia people stole the fuel (and even a few generators somehow), so don’t even count on that. We had no internet, cellular, or landline service for days where I live as a result, much less po…

Verizon is my absolute mad-lad hero in NJ. All of our towers had Natural Gas generators keeping the towers alive during Hurricane Sandy. I lost power and land-based internet, cellular internet and phone calls were alive and well thanks to those generators. Kudos to whatever NG company they used as well.

One thing that stood out to me in this video is that he claimed natural gas infrastructure can't run without electricity. It would seem obvious to me that you would have natural gas powered generators capable of sustaining the gas infrastructure.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#134

Post by vkou » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:06 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #61

I'm surprised that this article doesn't even mention the ongoing, continual attacks on the civilian Ukrainian electrical grid, in a concerted effort to take it out with thousands of cruise missiles and loitering drones. Perhaps not all countries will be as determined as the Ukrainians are in their constant repairs, but even with half of their generation capability destroyed, and so many substations targeted, the effe…

> I'm surprised that this article doesn't even mention the ongoing, continual attacks on the civilian Ukrainian electrical grid, in a concerted effort to take it out with thousands of cruise missiles and loitering drones.

It doesn't have to, because the past 83 years has proven, over and over again that strategic bombing does not work. [1] And so far, this war is once again, proving that same point.

The purpose of those missile and drone attacks isn't to win the war by making the Ukrainian army unable to fight. The purpose is either terror, positive domestic Russian propaganda, or, most likely, it's just something keeping the Russian Aerospace Force generals busy.

[1] It doubly doesn't work when you aren't actually bombing the warmaking industrial capacity of your opponent (Which in this case is located in North America and Western Europe).

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#135

Post by kart23 » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:07 AM UTC

JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #80

After the Texas winter fiasco, we had solar panels + backup battery (40kWh worth) + backup whole home generator installed. Thankfully enphase allows you to go fully off grid so if the grid is down, you can still use your panels & backup battery compared to the Tesla system which does not allow that. The batteries can output up to 15kWh at once so it pretty much is "whole home" backup even if its just the batteries as…

how much did the entire thing cost? just curious

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#136

Post by ltbarcly3 » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:07 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #114

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only like 300 * $100 for the panels if you buy them used. That's less than a Model 3. Installation usually costs far far more than the panels. If you have plenty of room and you can install them on the ground, and you are remote enough you can do it without permits or permits are easy to deal with (so really this means not California or New York) and wind isn't a huge concern (so not the Atlantic or Gulf coast…

> That's only like 300 * $100 for the panels if you buy them used. That's less than a Model 3. Installation usually costs far far more than the panels. I brought it up more for the space requirements. That’s a physically huge system. Panels are only a fraction of the overall cost. Unless you have a massive commercial building somewhere, 300 panels are going to take up a huge amount of ground-mount space. You also nee…

I don't think it's very hard to EMP harden anything that has a physical size less than a few hundred meters. The power grid is in danger because there is a huge potential created over very long distances. I think to be protected from EMP just requires isolation from large DC voltages, which can be done with an isolating transformer and some varistors? But something which is not miles long and isn't connected to the grid won't really be touched by an EMP anyway.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#137

Post by atq2119 » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:12 AM UTC

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #129

piyushpr134 wrote: post #90

Coming from India and as someone who has lived, growing up (in the 90s), without power for hours and days...trust me you are going to be deeply inconvenienced but not going to die. We had hand fans (hot climate) and fire in large bowl shaped vessels (when cold). Nights without power are spent sleeping on terrace. We had oil lamps for light in the evening. Most night activity would siege by 8pm max to wake up early at…

yeah, as my name suggests, i live in a place where "today", as in 23/11/2022 i have a 9 hour electricity cut "EVERYDAY" in near to 0C temperatures. It is winter and snowing most of the places. Heck, the places that are snowing get close to zero electricity for days and when it does come back, at best 3-6 hours. People adapt to living in harsh conditions. as you said, "creature comforts" take a hit but you don't just…

People can adapt, but the real question is how quickly. If you go from virtually 100% grid availability to a complete long-term outage, many people won't be able to adapt quickly enough and will die, especially in large cities.

Depending on how long the outage is and how many people die, civilization doesn't necessarily collapse. But the adaptation process isn't going to be fun.

If you only go to rolling blackouts, people will most likely manage, except for those with certain health conditions. But that's a very different scenario, since it implies that there's continuous control over the grid.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#138

Post by throwaway0x7E6 » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:13 AM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #113

throwaway0x7E6 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And someone coming in and taking it away from me. perhaps there's another thing you should invest in. well, unless you're cool with someone coming in and taking everything from you

I imagine in a really long haul disaster, it would really depend on the nature of the local community and your distance from society. If the local authorities want to impose order and redistribute your resources, a single person with a gun (I assume that’s what you mean) wouldn’t realistically be sufficient defense. If you are far enough out and might only have to scare off, like, an occasional random drifter, that’s…

if the local authorities know they risk getting shot by every local they come to distribute resources from, they're far less likely to think that's a good idea in the first place

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#139

Post by socialismisok » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:15 AM UTC

Indefinitely. Unless you have a very narrow definition of society.

People forget that things like industrialization and capitalism are very recent inventions, and throughout our species history we've had many many different ways of organizing ourselves.

Heck, the society of the 1970s is pretty radically different than today.

But I'm surprised to see fertilizer production not listed. Ammonia fertilizer is whole integer percent of electricity usage, and it's what enabled us to add 7 billion additional people on the planet. Without ammonia fertilizer, there will be mass starvation on a scale we've never seen.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#140

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 6:16 AM UTC

cpsns wrote: post #104

daveevad wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed but at the same time, weapons and ammunition begin to look far more valuable than communication. I'm trying to reason through how valuable information would be in a grid-down scenario. Presumably, all the major roads would have check-points operated by the prevailing authority and would confiscate any valuable goods one learned about over the air. It seems to me that having access to defensible food and shelte…

I mean when disaster happens weapons are always a top of list item even above food since they are a means to sourcing it (and not just in a killing animals kind of way). I would not be leaving my property, I live hours from the nearest city, and 30 minutes from “town”. There would be little benefit for me in attempting to travel. I would still like access to information if possible, buts it’s definitely not at the to…

A shortwave radio will get you info without revealing your location or capabilities.

But I'm still stocked with transceivers for HF, VHF and UHF. 'Cause you may still need to transmit in an emergency or to coordinate friendlies.