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How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

practical.engineering

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

#161

Post by Falkon1313 »

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…

Living in New England, the blizzards knock out power in harsh cold conditions. A few years back we went without for over a week, and there was no water either since our water came from a well with an electric pump.

We built a fire in the fireplace, cooked over candles (and mostly ate food that didn't need to be cooked) and melted snow for more water. Lounged around in a big pile of blankets playing with our cats, reading books, and talking instead of using TV, computers, and cellphones. It was chilly, and there was a bit of media withdrawal, but it wasn't really all that bad.

But for sick or disabled people who need electricity for their oxygen machines or to run their electric wheelchairs or other things, it could be bad. And without a fireplace (which many people don't have, and we don't have now), it would likely have gotten too cold.

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

#162

Post by paganel »

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…

> Coming from India and as someone who has lived, growing up (in the 90s), without power for hours and days...

Most people in the West will most probably catch a disease, if nothing else. Meaning if you live on the 8th floor, like I do, it means that if you have no running water for days and weeks on end then you cannot literally flush the shit down the toilet. Multiply that by the hundreds of thousands of people who live just like me in the same city (i.e. in apartment blocks) and that's how you get nasty diseases.

On the other hand my parents who live in the countryside 2 hours away from where I live will be just fine. They depend on wood for heating, the village where they live still has a functioning manual water-well or two, my parents grow most of their own food and have basic provisions for at least 6 months, they'll manage.

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

#163

Post by robryan »

monero-xmr wrote: post #146
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Similarly I do not like authoritarians and therefore feel very bad for North Korean citizens. However I don’t understand why they are not allowed (or Iran, or any country) to build their own nuclear weapons. Many countries have nukes - what is their right to have them? Shouldn’t every country have the right to mutually assured destruction? I wish nukes would go away, but morally speaking if one country can have them…

For most normal countries that aren't engaged in a power struggle against the world order it is probably safest for them if no one else can have them.

The problem with nukes is that any one competent holder of nukes can basically trigger mutually assure destruction, so more actors are likely going to be more dangerous than the danger from the current holders.

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

#164

Post by aequitas »

This resonates very much with the Connections[0] series by James Burke. It's an old series, but well worth the watch. Back then it already discussed what would happen if the grid would collapse, and how everything is interconnected. Now with the internet it has gotten even worse. I think the questions asked back then in the series are still very relevant and maybe even more so nowadays.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcOb3Dilzjc

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

#165

Post by infp_arborist »

germinalphrase wrote: post #120
el_benhameen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that last line is really the crux of it. Most of us would survive a “collapse” event exactly as long as it would take for people to get desperate. After that, all the batteries and canned food in the world will do you no good if you don’t have a remote and defensible location, ammunition, and lots of training. I have none of the above, so fingers crossed!

There is a counter argument out there that individuals/small groups that self isolate during extreme events/collapse of social stability tend to do much more poorly than groups that prioritize mutual aid.

Thanks for bringing that up. I don't remember who said: "The answer is _always_ community."

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

#166

Post by snoopy_telex »

epistasis wrote: post #153
snoopy_telex wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I would guess that it was an intentional decision to avoid. Grady goes to great lengths to prevent anything political in his videos, and the Ukrainian war happens to be politically charged in Americ…

The Russian war is actually one of the least political things in the US right now, there is great bi-partisan support, and it's hard to imagine anything else that garners such broad support from all but the most fringe of fringe (the left-right red-brown alliance against Ukraine is so tiny that it can barely be found). But it is a very timely issue. Maybe in a couple years, after it's no longer timely, he will dive i…

My experience differs. The right leaning members of my family strongly support Russia and the left leaning strongly support Ukraine. It’s caused a lot of strife in my family. And I don’t think the right folks feel like they’re on the fringe. They do watch a lot of Fox, but they’re not Q folks, afaik at least.

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

#167

Post by chinathrow »

woodruffw wrote: post #148
wrycoder wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it looks like your pipes are going to freeze, you bite the bullet and simply drain them, using the provided fittings and valves. And, you add some antifreeze to your toilet, after you flush it to empty the tank.

This works if you live in a house, but lots of people live in apartment buildings where they don't have access to the necessary valves. The building's superintendent could theoretically do it, but it's a huge task for a large building.

> The building's superintendent could theoretically do it, but it's a huge task for a large building.

A huge task but a way bigger expense when pipes burst in any size of building.

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

#168

Post by mikro2nd »

bruce511 wrote: post #35
tevon wrote: post #4

I'd be curious if it would be better to be in the city or the country. My hunch is that the city requires more "inputs" to stay survivable (fewer food/water stockpiles available), dependant on inputs. However cities would also be the focus for recovery efforts and disaster relief. On the flip side, the country has a greater store of natural resources per-capita (water, likely food, heat sources), however would be dep…

In the country you can assume it'll take longer to get power back. But, assuming an extended outage, it'll also be safer, and easier in the country. Until of course the city folk get hungry. It'll all be good-will and friendly neighbors in the city until the food runs out. Then lawlessness will go through the roof, and, I expect, the dystopian future of so many movies kicks in. Assuming fuel is scarce, country areas…

As someone who lives "out in the country" I can tell you from experience that city people will walk right past a field full of food without even recognising that it is food. They're too used to seeing the polished, buffed and packaged thing that ends up in the supermarket.

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

#169

Post by Falkon1313 »

pc86 wrote: post #96
lettergram wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly, in that situation we’d expect a 90% fatality in 1 year. https://energsustainsoc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... People thought I was nuts in 2021 when the lockdowns continued and I bought enough tools to survive such an event. I figured, people aren’t working, things gonna break. Lol For reference, some basics would go a long way — survival straw to filter water, 3 month emergency food…

Where did you learn these skills? Hell I barely know how to change the oil in my car because I never had someone teach me and only recently got to a place in my life where I realized that sort of thing is important. I'm making headway, slowly but surely, but something like growing enough food for a family or acquiring meat, let alone preserving it, might as well be trying to get to the moon.

>something like growing enough food for a family or acquiring meat, let alone preserving it, might as well be trying to get to the moon.

Funny to think that for our grandparents, that was just a typical Tuesday.

They did pickling, canning, preserves, all that stuff. Some might've done smoking and curing. Kept a spare freezer stocked. After the Great Depression, they weren't going to be caught empty-handed again.

Two generations later, we learned nothing from them and look at that as comparable to going to the moon. Wow.

But yeah, I don't know how to do any of that either. To learn, talk to some older people, I guess?

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

#170

Post by PeterisP »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #156
chii wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shouldn’t every country have the right to mutually assured destruction? not really. If you didn't already have nukes, but your regime is much against the west, i'd argue that it is the right thing for the west to deny it from them. I am attaching no moral argument to this - simply a practical, utilitarian argument. The reason russia has free reign to invade ukraine is _because_ they have nukes. Iraq invaded Kuwait…

>but your regime is much against the west, flip it over. west is against you so why should you submit to THEIR moral argument of denying YOU of nukes when they themselves have it?

> why should you submit to THEIR moral argument of denying YOU of nukes when they themselves have it?

As the parent poster explicitly states, there is no "moral argument" made there, it's a very utilitarian realpolitik argument that allowing you nukes is risky enough that for any western politician respecting their countries' interests the right choice is to enforce submission with all kinds of means (economic, military, espionage).

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