There could be more to worry about. It is inevitable that fires will occur. I doubt the capabilities of the city fire departments can overcome a grid down scenario. Sort of like San Francisco after the big earthquake many years ago, it was fires that took down much of the city. I was in the NY area for Sandy and we were fortunate that there were not more fires but one neighborhood in Queens was burnt to the ground. Of course the winds and water were a factor. I think I better be prepared to live in my car if things really go south. One more reason to keep the tank filled.
Board games for the first week sounds like a fine idea nonetheless.
Ignoring these will be a measure of adaptability, for most folks.
Adaptability will be a measure of survivability, for all folks affected.
Sand_Puppy's store brings up an issue of foundational importance: Can you improvise if your plan falls through?
Cheers,
Aaron
Chris thanks for your post on the potential collapse scenario of the US electricity grid. I was aware of the very real possibility and I guess it just demonstrates an increasing number of threats we face going forward in a technologically dependent world. Nothing is simply anymore.
I am however a little concerned that you didn't extrapolate the after effects of a prolonged grid failure even though you went into detail on a number of ways it could happen.
Are you trying to keep things on a positive note by prompting us to prepare for this situation or are you afraid to push this event out to what surely must be a rapid die off of population. What percentage of the population would you expect to die off in the first month or six month period. What would be the major contributing factors? Lack of drinking water, starvation, disease, violence? What would the government resort to in this situation.
I think I am even too scared to explore further.
Arthur,I work as a principal transmission engineer for a major utility in the north east. I specifically work on a multi-billion dollar a year construction portfolio including transmission asset lifecycle replacement. I can tell you for a certain, world manufacturing capacity is at a hard limit to produce maybe a dozen units yearly for us. Lead times are near a year, each unit custom ordered to fit the station. Standing units for replacement in industry are also at very low numbers. I would argue, if you lost more than 75% of the units in an event, you would be hard pressed to recover in anything short of years. China is not a rampable manufacturing option, quality is challenging at current production capacities with encumbent entities. These are sophisticated pieces of equipment.
This remains the most sensitive concern to me in regards to large impact, moderate probability, world events. And I believe few people are prepared for the world that would exist post grid loss 6months-1year.
Aloha! While many may look at the cost to business and citizens to go without power for any lengthy duration don't forget that in places like Mexico rolling blackouts are the norm. Checking into an Acapulco hotel we were told to shower after 2pm and use power until 10am. But Mexico is Third World … we're not!
What is Third World in America is all the political bribes and kickbacks and double-dealing and sellouts in Congress. In that instance politicians are the same the world over, more so with career politicians.
Lets look at just the labor cost to do anything "electrical" in public works. The following wage rates are for Los Angeles county in the state of California. The rates vary depending on county and state.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/PWD/Determinations%5CStatewide%5CC-061-X-3.pdf
What we have is $65.62 per hour for one LA county journeyman lineman cable splicer. Working a full year that one journeyman costs the taxpayers almost $134,000. Nevermind the pension and healthcare for those retired. There are different rates depending on hazardous work and underground like tunnels. One of the highest rates I saw was over $70 per hour. Not included in the rates is extra for travel and subsistence pay. Naturally the grid outside major US cities will require travel. How many lineman would be required to completely redo the grid in every city and state in America? So that's just the labor cost alone. What about material? The wire. Will it be high tech superconductor wire or basic copper?
Superconducting Conductors
Superconductivity is a phenomenon where some materials exhibit no electrical resistance below certain cryogenic temperatures. For this reason, superconducting wire can carry more than one hundred times the current of an equivalent size of copper wire. Power devices using superconducting technologies benefit from up to 8% efficiency improvement, because they have zero resistance to direct current electricity.
These attributes can translate into significant reductions of cost, size and weight for motors, generators and power cables. Superconducting technologies will play a crucial role in the electric power industry: from power generation (e.g. offshore superconducting wind turbine generators) to transmission and distribution (e.g. high power superconducting cables, superconducting fault current limiters (SFCL), superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) and superconducting transformers), to end use (e.g. superconducting industrial motors, generators and condensers and high-field magnets).
Okay … labor and material? How much will a Smart Grid cost America?
I used to put together public works bids for $1M+ electrical projects, but I am thinking this would be many $1T+ to install. To do that cities, states and the federal government would have to rely heavily on "debt". In a time when major US cities are facing bankruptcy and the US Treasury is facing baby boomer doom what is the likelihood that Smart Grids are at the top of the list?
My guess is we will be Mexico soon … In many ways we already are!
There was a commission formed to study the issue of EMP attack on the United States. Here is its executive report.
http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf
Other details are available at the wesbite.
A fiction book titled One Second After http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After attempts to chronicle the series of events that befalls a small town in North Carolina after an EMP strike on the US.
To spoil the ending, there are three waves of problems that hit:
First week: everyone in a hospital/critical care facility, or an "assisted living" facility dies (presumably unless they are rescued by their families).
Two weeks: sanitation issues cause cholera and typhoid fever.
One-two months: drug-dependant patients (cardiac, diabetics) die.
Food problems of course are endemic, and survival rates are area-dependent, as per the wiki entry:
The "average" die-off for the country was 90% leaving 30 million surviving out of original 300 million US population. The food-rich Midwest had the highest survival rate with a 50% die-off. New York City and Florida had a 95% die-off from infighting among their large populations, low levels of cultivated land, high elderly population, a lack of air conditioning, rampant transmission of disease, and natural disasters such as hurricanes.
The scenario postulated by the book was a total national power failure caused by the detonation of 3 nuclear missiles launched from a container ship off the coast that blew up immediately after launch, making the source of the attack impossible to trace.
Problems with the book: according to the EMP testing I looked at, not every car would die, and not every electronic component would be zapped. It would be effectively random. In the book, every car (except the ones dating from before 1960) simply stopped working.
That said, widespread random failures of control systems (say 1 in 10) are quite effective enough to take out the power grid for a year.
Correct Mazanda that you need an inverter and battery backup to gain any autonomy. We have an Outback Radian GS8048 grid tied with battery backup and I'm adding some panels to the system. I bought the 8 kw inverter with the idea of expanding the array as I got a few more dollars to invest. Also have to add a second charge controller now. This is probably a good time to invest in Solar at whatever level you can afford.
In the comments section over at zerohedge one of the posters, "seek," sounds like he works in this field professionally. He sounded very knowledgeable and summarized which electronics will fry.
This was posted after Chris' article above.
EMPs (and Carrington-level events) don't affect small electronics and barely affect some vehicles (most, even with modern electronics, are largely immune.) Integrated circuits, etc will be fine as there's not nearly enough length of the wires to be any kind of meaningful antenna to the ELF pulse generated.
Anything electrical with a few thousand feet of wire attached, aka the grid, or things plugged into it, are pretty well f*cked, however.
An EMP (or Carrington event) develops a known voltage gradient in space, and if you know the length of the conductor, you can make a pretty good stab at the size of the spike. Most ICs have ESD tolerance diodes on their pins that can handle several thousand volts, well below the gradient that would be created at the chip level or even at the device level for portable electronics. ... short conductors = less risk to EMP is pretty well established, and pretty much anything from handheld devices to airplanes has been blasted by simulators at Oak Ridge and White Sands to understand what will happen. Heck, the automakers do EMP testing at white sands regularly.Here's a bunch of references in particular you'll want to read the stuff by Metatech if you care about the power grid aspects of EMP/NEMP/HEMP. [References at the bottom of the wiki page on Nuclear EMP pulse.]
Summarizing: ...every professional I've talked with has basically said anything small (be it an integrated circuit or an iPad or whatever) is a non-issue -- it's big things with antennas (intentional or via long electrical wires) that will have problems.Extrapolating, it sounds like OFF GRID solar systems would survive a Nuclear EMP (NEMP), but GRID-TIED systems would not.
And I loved the novel One Second After, too. And Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
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Hi Jim H,
I am not an engineer and really don't have any qualifications or experience whatsoever in this field. (So take my thoughts on this for what they are worth.)
If the NEMP (nuclear EMP) creates a voltage gradient in space, then the size of the current flow produced will depend on the the number of isovoltage lines the conductor crosses, something closely related to the distance in space the conductor spans. So, even if a conductor is very long, but it is confined in a few centimeters of space, there shouldn't be much voltage gradient or current created.
I suppose this is analogous to a fireman approaching a downed high voltage line lying on the ground during a rain storm. The line creates a voltage gradient in the wet ground that can produce current between his left and right feet. So, the firemen shuffles in little steps. This way his feet do not span too large a voltage gradient.
Now I'll shut up and let our engineers tell me if this is right…
What I found living in Mongolia surprised me a little bit… power outages are frequent (though typically not longer than half a day or so) and I would have figured even the average city dweller would be well 'prepped' for such things. Turned out that wasn't really the case. The average apartment families might have a flashlight, some candles, and perhaps a radio, but seldom anything like a bunch of extra batteries, a convenient alternate method of cooking, solar or battery backup, a small generator, or a sizeable stash of storable food. I found I was better 'prepared' in that sense than most of my neighbors (my LED headlamps were/are very popular with my extended family and neighbors). On the other hand, what I also found was that while they are not often as prepared in the material sense, they coped much better and bitched less than the average American when the power did go down down. They were just better accustomed to periods of doing without and they had more mental resilience. And in the few occasions where power outages or hot water shutdowns lasted a little longer, more often than not they find a way to improvise. The folks living in the smaller communities and herders in the country tend to be a lot more resilient (most use wood/coal stoves for cooking and tend to store a fair amount of dry and raw foods) but any serious homestead prepper would still outstrip most of them easily in terms of material preps. So even for those country folks, their preparedness advantage tends to be more in their mindset instead of the stuff they have.
Oh and that business with stores not being "allowed" to sell their freezer goods that are only starting to thaw… the very thought of that happening in Mongolia would be hilarious. The store owners would do some quick discounts to get it out the door and shoppers would soon be bingeing on ice cream and grilled meat and boiled meat soups (most everyone either has or knows someone with old woodstoves and/or grills), and I bet enterprising street vendors would snatch some up and be grilling up a bunch of kabobs/shashlik on the street corners and city squares. Even should the government try to get in the way, I suspect most people would ignore them. People over there learn they have to trust their own judgement when it comes to determining food safety anyway.
- Nick
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You are right sand puppy. its all about voltage gradient. 1. A voltage gradient of a thousand volts per meter means 1 volt per millimeter.Chips by themselves are small, but are connected to bigger things however.
2. chips wired into circuits already have to withstand pulses of thousands of volts and have designed in hardware such as transient suppressors for protection. I have measured the naturally occuring pulses is in unprotected circuits and am amazed at how much effort has gone into protection of chips and devices already.
3. The tripped circuit breakers in Hawaii we have read about that were caused by US military above ground atomic bombs were associated with very long power lines, not tiny chips in a small board that would pick up much smaller voltage gradients.
I am worried about forming conduits for lightning pulses. I unplug my amateur radio equipment and antennas before thunderstorms to protect equipment. I would expect that my equipment, IF left connected to an antenna during an above ground atomic blast would be susceptible. Power lines have similar issues, so this seems to be a real concern from a power line perspective, but not for a laptop sitting in a bag.
In trying to understand modern technology, most discussions tend to get off the rails when dealing with known effects based on conditions that are many orders of magnitude away from the practical working example. Someone is not scaling things up (or scaling things down) properly in my opinion. In rough sense this is analogous to CM's teaching of geometric increase, which is not understood by those of us who are accustomed to think only in short linear scales.
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We tend to think of urgent critical infrastructure needs when we talk about prioritizing the use of fuel and limited available energy in a prolonged crisis. But I do not see enough attention given to the high priority of ensuring that food production, processing, and distribution can continue if a crisis is widespread and likely to last for a while. We can't afford to miss a planting season or a harvest. Farms are critical infrastructure. Shifting methods of food production and even the whereabouts of food production so that more food is grown close to where people live would be vital. Without fuel to operate big farm machinery, human labor will have to accomplish much more and be deployed in a timely fashion. A measure of training would have to happen quickly. Then there's the problem of food processing. Instead of small canneries in local communities, we now have regional canneries far from fields. Lots of vulnerabilities here. This is a doc I worked up some years ago on the subject of food system vulnerabilities, just to get my head around the issue: http://mindspinner.net/docs/FoodSecurityOverview.pdf. My research ultimately landed me on a patch of land my husband and I are developing now as a permaculture homestead.
Obviously, one can prepare by stockpiling huge amounts of everything from food to fuel to toilet paper. The other option, of course, is to need less. For example, I gave up underwear 16 years ago. One less thing to need when the grid crashes.
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http://www.futurescience.com/emp/EMP-myths.html
Fantastic explanation of the differences between nuclear and solar emp, their different risks and even in depth references for those curious. I found this to have cleared up a substantial number of misconceptions I had.
And for those worried about grid failure who keep referring to tower and line damage, that is not a worry. Large ice storms and severe weather have historically caused significant outages, but correctable outages. A widescale loss of power transformers is the only teotwaki type event as they are just not replaceable in sufficient quantities and time scales.
My in-laws just had an experience that reminded me of the other danger inherent with an unreliable power grid… power surges. Some time ago I purchased surge protectors for the outlets in their country house, after having to replace a part on their fridge after a power surge a couple years back. Long story short, another power surge (we presume) took place last week. They said that one of the surge protectors is dead and smells of burnt electronics, but their fridge/freezer and other appliances are thankfully still functional.
Seems that power surges are just as likely to be a threat as lack of power if it comes to a hacking attack on the electrical grid or heaven help us a CME, and having surge protectors may offer at least some level of protection. Would be bad enough dealing with a weeks-long power outage without having to repair or replace your appliances and electronics afterwards too 
- Nick
I've been stocking up on small appliances and such that run on multiple power sources. As for an EMP, someone on a prepper site recommended putting small electronics into a metal garbage can with a lid. That was supposed to be similar to a Faraday Cage. I don't know if this actually works, though. Maybe someone more knowledgeable knows.
I've dealt with storms knocking out power for brief periods, so I have all sorts of camping lanterns, candles, solar lights and oil lamps. If you pick up cheap outdoor solar lights (they are 97 cents at Walmart) they can be taped to the lid of a canning jar, creating instant light every night for pennies. Go on youtube for all sorts of how-to videos.
Although I also have propane camp stoves, I just bought a Kelly Kettle, which is a small stainless steel cookstove that runs on grass, twigs, and pinecones. For heat I have cabinets on wheels that use 20 lb. propane tanks. Although I always have 2-3 extra filled tanks on reserve, it occurs to me that I will not be able to get these filled if there is no electricity. I've been looking into portable solar generators, but they are expensive and can only power small appliances or maybe one refrigerator.
That aside, the biggest problem faced by most people in an emergency is food. If the lights are out for any length of time, there will be hoards of desperate people fighting over everything.
Replying to a 10 year old thread!
I didn’t want to hijack the comment section on Chris’ new video about the financial system and loss of electricity, but I have a question about an extended power outage scenario.
I am on a septic system that does not require electricity (some do, just learned this morning), but what about residential sewer systems? Do they require electricity? If so, what happens when the power goes out?
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The same thing that would happen to my neighbors across the street who need a pump with their septic. It backs up into the house. Water is always going to run the to lowest point. If you want it higher you need to pump it.
Now imagine being the guy on the first floor of a 10 story apartment complex.
This is partly why the death toll for a grid down scenario is really high. The other challenge is once sewage starts flooding into the streets it contaminates any clean water nearby.
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That’s what I figured. Has the potential to destroy hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of homes.
In terms of importance, I personally would put this above what happens to my 401K in the event of an extended power outage.
You know what’s strange? I only searched for a couple minutes or so but tried multiple search strings. I did not find any articles about this problem.
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A substantial number of municipal sewege systems have powered lift stations installed enroute to the treatment plant. The treatment plant itself requires significant power to pump effluent through the treatment process. The plants I am familiar with have a limited amount of emergency back up power as shutting down is a crappy option.
A bigger concern may be public sewers becoming clogged with waste from a lack of water flow to carry solids to the plant as water is pumped also.
An extended power outage could cause a long down time just to reboot a typical municipal sewage,transport and disposal system. I was told by some relatives in CA that some of the draconian water rationing mandates in the past were causing public sewer stoppage failures because there wasn’t enough water flow to solids for the systems to work as designed.
If I resided in such an area I would,definately have a plan B for waste disposal.
Additionally, even in a single family residential neighborhood it is quite possible for an upstream neighbors sewage to enter your residence and overflow from a clogged system if your residence sewer is not equipped with a backwater check valve. In my experience a substantial number are not.
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