Given that society has been around for about 200k years and power grids have been around for about 100 years, I think there would be a bit of disruption but it will be temporary and then things will adapt. People will sell conversion kits to change refrigerators over to using big blocks of ice, steam ships will harvest ice from icebergs. I doubt horses will come back though, presumably even without a grid factories will operate with local generators or solar/wind power farms, and trains don't need the power grid to deliver goods.
How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
81–90 of 310 posts
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#82> 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…
At my cabin I have starlink, limited solar power and a generator with propane that comes on (power goes out a lot). Eventually I'll run out of propane and food (everyone has some emergency food supply for a few weeks at their cabin, right?), but I wonder how long I'd last with internet plus short trips in my electric car? I never planned for a post-gas future independent of the grid. Starlink relies on starlink downl…
>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
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#83A lot of old Cold War preparatory war game scenarios start with EMPs blanketing the continental US. It only takes a few (like 1) nuclear weapon detonations in thin atmosphere (a few dozen km up) where the primary heat transfer mechanism is radiative (vs. convective, conductive) to cause enough EMP to take out pretty much the entire continental US grid. The military is fully hardened against EMP. Civilian infrastructu…
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…
Prepare sure. But make sure you stock up on salt ;)
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
My family jokes that, while everyone stocks up on “survival” products… cigarettes and alcohol will probably be in high demand. Got video games, maybe some solar power (just enough for a TV and a Switch)? Parents will want those to keep the kids sane. Got Blu-rays, DVDs? When people can’t stream, you might get some good resources for them. Got a PC with some offline CAD software? Makes planning making things out of wo…
My favorite is people who think gold and silver will matter. Nope. Ammo, instant coffee, antibiotics. Cheap now, can keep for years, light weight and useful to everyone.
>My favorite is people who think gold and silver will matter. Nope.
Seems like they'd matter more than the electronic number of a non-existent/inaccessible bank account of one's so-called wealth? But I agree that all such instantly barterable items are a better commodity.
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#85Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#86I'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…
There are separate east and west grids outside of Texas.
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#87I'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…
All good points. A small note: there's yet a many orders of magnitude difference between the whole power consumption, or even only residential power consumption, and the storage available in distributed sources. Even projecting ahead a few years and counting what's likely to be built. I'd guess between 3 and 5 zeroes, in most densely populated cities.
If anything, I think the bulk of the flexibility will come from the addition of new greener power sources, plus NOT shutting down the old ones but keeping them either at a minimum or suspended.
The eco legislation in Europe in the past years is the perfect example of how not to do things. They kept going with more stringent regulation after covid, lockdowns and massive financial aids, when the likelihood of an economic crisis was high.
In my country (Romania) in a moment of revolutionary enthusiasm, the local law passed to fulfill the wider european legislation had specific phrasing to permanently close existing power plants, with no option to ever reopen them. Talk about misreading the flow. And now we're a net importer of power, even as we're one of the most power-rich countries around.
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#88Longer than the far-too-many sci-books out there predict. I have lived in areas in the US that went without power for a week or longer...and without the ability to make power for at least that long (New Jersey, Hurricane Sandy as one example)
Society is more tolerant than most people think, and the grid is gradually becoming less of an issue thanks to alternative energy means like solar.
While many will suffer/not be happy if the lights went dark due to a grid collapse, I suspect we would survive.
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just gotta keep your ham radio go box in an EMP-hardened roll of tin foil and have a good crank generator, and you should be good to go. In a grid outage even tiny transmitter powers will be able to get out. It's most power efficient to use CW (morse code) unless you plant to have a computer up and running to run the even fancier digital modes.
Doing CW QRP at 1 watt in the right conditions will cover a huge distance, especially if the power has gone out. It really doesn’t take much when you get down to the absolute minimum viable setup.
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 shelter is vastly more important over the first period of time until things have stabilized at a new local maximum.
Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
#90Coming 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 4am ish.
For water we have wells and ponds. Flushing...well what's that! Indian toilets were made to not need lot of water flushing or people simply used nature toilet!
No fridge (fresh food ftw), no vacuum (brooms and mop only), no elevators, no mixer grinder! But we lived. People adapt
Society would collapse and go back in time...however people are more resilient.