How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

So in places like that, sure, you'd want to move out. And hopefully other Ukrainians are taking people like her into their own homes, because otherwise, what would one do if they have nowhere else to go?

But it is a very timely issue. Maybe in a couple years, after it's no longer timely, he will dive into it a bit more, such as with the Oroville dam failure, when there's a lot more solid retrospective data to look at.

This will get worse as grid equipment spares run out too.

But with regards to destroying an electrical grid, it would be a very topical intro to the idea. And there's some interesting info, in that destroying a grid is proving to be much harder than one might expect. Russia is a particularly incompetent foe, much like the Pakleds in Star Trek, but even with their massive armament, and being able to target an indefensible number of positions spread over an indefensible geographic area, they have not yet been fully successfully in their technical aims of grid destruction.

And to fail at the technical aim, while also accomplishing the exact opposite of your social aim (Ukrainians are more resolved, rather than demoralized), is utterly embarrassing and pathetic.

I personally don't think renewables will be able to fill the gap for us. For one thing, transporting all the wind-generated power from the likes of Dobruja to Western Romania and Transylvania using existing power-transport infrastructure is no easy task. Second, I don't see solar taking over, for the simple reason that the fields from Southern Romania which it would best to use for such task are of greater use to agriculture (from an economics pov, that is).

On a more general note, we, Romanians, already have past history related to this, not a successful one at that. I'm talking of the period after the 1970s oil-shock crisis and of the '80s in their entirety, when the then government was very aware of the energy problem and was also very actively trying to tackle it and, in a way, solve it. That's why the discourse that we now hear from the West is in many ways familiar to us Romanians (only cars with odd numbers which should be allowed travel during weekends, energy "rationing" etc), i.e. because we have been in that place before them (and failed).

There are several books from that period who explain the problem in detail and which also write about possible solutions. Most of them are from Editura Politica, such as Energy in a finite world [2], published in 1983, but one of the best, imo, is this one: Energy, whereto? [3], published in 1978, a book which has a very comprehensive list of almost all of the solutions that were available back then. It's very interesting that they also talk about shale gas, and about how it's not a recommended solution because it generates mini-earthquakes (they might have also mentioned the heavy water-use as a negative, I don't remember exactly).

Of course, when the mini-earthquakes did indeed happen in the early 2010s when we try to extract shale-gas in Eastern Romania the powers that be all acted surprised, like "how could all of this have happened?". It's not like there had been actual books written about the subject 30 years prior by people who most probably were still around in one way or another. Which would bring me to one of the most important problems we now have, i.e. the lack of specialists on the subject, but this post is already getting too long.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@44.8953743,23.1365373,18333m/da...

[2] https://www.targulcartii.ro/wolf-hafele/energia-intr-o-lume-...

[3] https://www.targulcartii.ro/i-popescu/energia-incotro-scrisu...

Speaking of this, I'm not sure how the three Baltic states handle this. Granted, they're way smaller compared to Ukraine and they had at least 20 years (since their NATO accession) to try and untangle themselves from all that, but until now I haven't seen any article written on this subject.

I don't have high expectations of Manhattan in the winter, but I'd bet on them over, say, Kenosha, or the Kansas City suburbs.

And, you add some antifreeze to your toilet, after you flush it to empty the tank.

Until the "have-nots", who until recently were really enjoying being the "haves", turn up with their guns.

That's when it'll all get very feudal and very nasty, as the people with guns suddenly realise that not only do they have power, they don't have those laws that used to stop them acting out whatever violent fantasies gun-owners enjoy, and shooting people will probably be the least of it ...

Have a nice apocalypse.

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.

Sure those are usually not "guys in their 20s-30s" that is the majority demography of HN (I'm not saying everyone ofc...), but there's a lot of people a few steps from dying that a blackout could make them tip over.

It's actually surprisingly structured, with pretty clear rules. Among them are "bright lines" and "fuzzy lines". A bright line is something which forces an automatic response nobody likes, and it's backed by a lot of commitment. Not responding to an adversary crossing a bright line trashes your whole reputation and strongly signals you're weak.

The problem with bright lines is that once you state them, the other guy is free to do anything up to your line. It's like posting your final price in a classified post - nobody will ever offer you more. A fuzzy line is the solution: you say something like "if you move forward, I will do things you don't like", without saying how much forward or what things. Which forces the other guy to tip-toe around. You see A LOT of this between NATO and Russia in Ukraine.

Back to your point - nuclear attacks are a very clear bright line. One might say the final bright line, written in neon. They should be treated as such, and not watered down - if you say "bombing a power station is identical to nuclear attacks", you may make bombing power stations very slightly less likely, but you also normalize nuclear attacks by the same amount - and this is VERY BAD.

As an American citizen, I'm very glad this wasn't treated as indistinguishable from a nuclear attack. I regret that no one was held accountable for initiating the war, but MAD would have been bad news.

I was and am against those wars, but I am not a pacifist. If a war is a 'just way' and should be fought (there's a whole scholarship on when wars are just, I have a high bar, but it can be met), there will always be targets that are 'dual use' and in that regrettable circumstance in my mind, those would be legitimate targets after a very careful calculus was made to weigh lives lost and saved by destroying them.

Most American military experts assumed the Russians would have started the war with a much more aggressive arial bombardment. It's just kind of how these things are done. I assume them doing this now is Russia paving the way for a more traditional operation to begin when the ground freezes. It's going to be a bloody winter. It's a tragedy.

Exploding nuclear bombs destroys civilian infrastructure and harms ecosystems.

Destroying civilian infrastructure harms civilians.

Both are despicable acts of destruction.

One is not deserving of the other.

One is incredibly difficult to fix with permanent effects, other is minor nuisance and not that big of a deal to fix or even switch to life without power grid, you can just have own wind turbine/solar/hydro if you really need the power.

Also TIL Middle ages were like 100-150years ago, in some countries just decades ago, I'd say you could get by without power very easily even in 1950s. I am pretty sure my grandma didn't much need electricity for anything and she didn't live in Middle Ages. You can have mechanical pump in well, you can store stuff in cold basement and you can use oil lamp or candles for light in dark to cover the basics (water/food/light). Sure you would need to change the way of life, but equalling this to nuclear attack is just plain stupid.

As someone who admires Amish I find it actually appealing.

If I have to choose whether time travel to 1920s-1950s or live in nuclear war wasteland it's pretty easy choice for me.

I've travelled to places with no electricity (they jsut use generator in evening) and people were doing just fine over there and I was also not missing much.

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

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.

I do. It doesn't matter. I'm under no illusion I'd be able do defend myself and my food when I'm outnumbered and outgunned, being on alert 24/7. All it takes is one mistake and it's game over.

Well the nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers have power plants, and a few military bases used to be powered with nuclear (Camp Century, Ft. Greenly, McMurdo Station). But your point is reasonable. We'd be able to counterattack militarily, but it still would not be a happy day, nor a lasting integrity.

I mean, it's possible to win, but it requires 10-20 years and having quite a bit of your country destroyed (and possibly a couple countries near yours). Or at least, that's what's required when you can broadcast what's going on to the populace to turn them against the war. What it takes to defeat the US military when the populace can't communicate electronically is actually much more poorly defined.

This is really only a good strategy for countries with low-levels of infrastructure and a ruling faction with a strong ideological commitment against the US. So, places like Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Also, there's a decent stockpile of food for feeding the soldiers (and probably their families, although someone else might be able to speak to that better).

FYI, Eielson AFB in Alaska has a coal plant and is working on an experimental nuclear microreactor installation, the first of its kind that the military plans to expand to other bases.

That's where Article 90 of the UCMJ comes into play,

    Any person subject to this chapter who willfully disobeys a lawful command of that person’s superior commissioned officer shall be punished—

      (1) if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct; and
      (2) if the offense is committed at any other time, by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.

How are you producing 120kw? That's the equivalent of around 300 solar panels (assuming 400W panels).

Edit: I saw you added CAD software; I actually think that people would go back to just drawing things on paper before they'd go to "solar rig to PC with CAD software on it". Civilization did run just fine without computers up until they crashed the scene, and most of the really memorable buildings were designed on paper.

Ammo, instant coffee, antibiotics. Cheap now, can keep for years, light weight and useful to everyone.

Maybe keep a couple panels in your underground bunker to bring up to the surface after the blast…

If inflation was a factor it would affect digital systems linked to the same currency equally. Cash would still win out on availability. My feeling is that, in the absence of digital systems, physical cash would in fact gain value as a tangible asset intermediate to barter of portable wealth.

Remember the main purpose of cash in my scenario is a flywheel to buffer the economy until things come back online, not as a permanent post-disaster substitute. The main thing is to stop needing the army to guard food trucks or shoot looters. That's what we're undervaluing about cash and what I think the bankers, in their zealous bid for more control, are completely missing as a political dimension about how real people and real societies work.

Based upon the TP panics during the pandemic, I'd say that just the thought of potential shortages will make some people desperate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGguhrEMR_U

If you live in somewhere threatened by climate or earthquakes or volcanos, store some food, water, and basic medical supplies!