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Thread: US Power Grid

  1. #21
    Senior Member

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    May 2014
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    near Pasadena, Ca.
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    We have a vacation place in the San Bernardno Mountains, nothing large, 1,006 sq. ft. I spend a fair amount of time on the local board up there and this morning they are experiencing a blackout. It seems that a transformer in the Lucerene Valley (western area of the Mojave) blew up early this morning. Estimates run from 2 hours to 48 hours to get back on line. The people posting are currently using cell phones, but the cell towers are mostly battery backup and will go dead around noon, though there is one tower near the center of Big Bear that has a generator. The ski areas are open on generator power.

    Many of the people are starting to get concerned as temps are in the 20's and those who have central forced air heating are pretty screwed. Fireplaces working overtime! Glad our little place has gas wall heaters that do not require electricity to operate.

    So, what do you all think would happen if 45% of the continental USA had the grid go down without knowing when it will be back?

  2. #22
    Senior Member

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    Aug 2013
    Location
    Northwest quadrosphere, SOL-3
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    A massive and long-lasting power failure, whatever the cause, would result in an 80-90% mortality rate after 24 months, mostly from starvation and disease.

    The chronically ill that rely on ventilators, dialysis, etc will die first. Those that require medication to live will die off once their supply of medication runs out.

    Water is essential. Once the pumps are off, people will start to die from dehydration in 3 days. Drinking contaminated water will result in dysentery and cholera, and they will die from those diseases in a week or less.

    The food supply, as we know, is only about 3 days in the cities, so riots and starvation will follow. Those that live in cities and think they're OK because they have food stored better have a hell of a defensive plan an enough resources (people, equipment) to make it work or the rioters and gangs will kill them and take their stuff. After 60 days, 70% of the city populations will be dead from starvation and dehydration.

    Right now, much of the US is experiencing colder than typical winter temperatures. Without electricity, most furnaces won't work - assuming they can get fuel. Natural gas systems rely on pumps to provide distribution. If they fail, there goes gas a fuel source. Other furnaces require electricity for ignition and for fans, as well. Think you're safe because you have a fireplace? I hope you have enough wood (and it's really a wood burning fireplace). Horribly inefficient, but it's all you have. Pellet stoves? More efficient but require electricity to run the auger. And what happens when you run out of pellets? Another bad storm (next week) and tens of thousands more could die.

    Sanitation will be an issue, especially in the city. Electric pumps are essential to keep the poop running down hill, and when the pumps quit the poop will keep flowing, backing up into whatever it can. Trash pickup will be a distant memory since electric power is needed to run the fuel pumps for the garbage trucks.

    And hospitals are no better off. Yes, they have generators, but lack sufficient fuel for more than a couple of days to a week. I know that the hospitals I've been involved in disaster planning with are unwilling to commit sufficient space for more than a week's fuel storage - because they cannot imagine a disaster that would keep them from getting fuel for a week. Good luck with that.

    My solution is to have sufficient fuels stored to last me a good long time. I can also heat my house and shop with wood, and have enough firewood stored to last two years. I also have solar and wind power for the house, in addition to the generators.

    But I have been more fortunate than most...or as Louis Pasteur said "Fortune favors the prepared".

  3. #23
    may be in trouble


    Join Date
    May 2015
    Location
    Mid-South TN
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    708
    I only disagree, sir, in magnitude and circumstances.

    Grid power going off, of itself, without a Carrington event, EMP or anything else happening... You'll get your 80% mortality rate, I think, after SIX months.

    Your other points are correct, and I only differ about the timing. As quickly and as deeply as this society hooked up to the grid will be its undoing if the lights go out.

    Much faster if the tech that is grid-dependent goes out too. At least with an outage, there might be pockets of flexibility that will, here and there, hold things at bay as back ups are brought into play.

    A Carrington/EMP disaster, though? 80% in three months.

    There was a rather ridiculous series called THE NEWSROOM some time back... one of the minor characters in it stated it accurately... disaster won't be enemy action, as interwoven the Net and electicity and services are. It'll be some kid hacker monkeying with lock and dam gates, fiddling with pressures at refineries, overloading electrical lines, all as a case of "I'll show you!"... or worse, just for the heck of it, on a lark. Think of the movie "WarGames", and pop an extra Nytol tonight, 'cause if the nightmares these possibilities awake in you are ANYTHING like the ones they do to me, you'll need it.

    33 AAWU

    Kesephist

  4. #24
    Senior Member

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    Aug 2013
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    Northwest quadrosphere, SOL-3
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    Well, lets all pray we never find out.

    It doesn't matter WHAT takes the grid down. If the grid goes down, lots and lots of people will die.

    I set a 24 month framework because of not quite well enough prepared people hanging on for the first couple of years, and succumbing after a crop failure after their last seeds were planted.

    Biblically, Joseph had the vision of 7 fat years, followed by 7 lean...I think that having enough food and seeds for a few bad years and bad crops is probably prudent. 7 may be a bit much, but hey....you can always eat it.

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