5 ms·

That 90% number seems really hard to believe. Additionally, from the referenced article: > There is no published model disclosing how these numbers were arrive

by _bxg1 6y ago

That 90% number seems really hard to believe. Additionally, from the referenced article: > There is no published model disclosing how these numbers were arrived at, nor are we able to validate a primary source for this claim. Testimony given by the Chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission, while expressing similar concerns, gave no estimate of the deaths that would accrue from a prolonged nationwide grid collapse. I'm highly suspicious that that number is exaggerated in order to inspire action on what still seems like a worthwhile issue.

grecy 6y ago
> That 90% number seems really hard to believe As context, I spent three years driving right around Africa, and before that two years driving from Alaska to Argentina. I've seen my fair share of collapsing infrastructure (Congo... Mali... Sudan, etc.) and what happens in just a few days without electricity. In less developed countries the impacts are actually much less than they will be in our developed countries, because the people there are used to things failing, and their lives go on regardless. i.e. many people have beasts of burden to carry loads and farm, they have bicycles or walk to get around and they grow their own food. For us, it won't be so easy. - Very quickly all the perishables in the stores go bad, and food shortages become very real very fast. - ATMs don't work - therefore no cash for anyone. - Gas and diesel are very hard to get out of underground tanks without electricity (yes, you can hand pump it or use a generator... but how many of those are sitting around ready to go?) - Communications go down - no cell phones, no internet, no radio, no TV. It's extremely hard to get accurate information in that scenario. - Soon everyone is just focused on survival, so many other basics fall by the wayside. Garbage collection. Sewage, drinking water, medical supplies and much more all stop working. - In places with low population density and where people have some "homesteading" skills this might not be so bad - they can just shoot a cow once every few weeks or whatever. In downtown LA, NYC and Chicago, it's extremely bad. In just a few weeks you have mass hysteria, and things go downhill fast. Just look at the scenes in the big box stores when COVID-19 hit of people getting violent and stockpiling toilet paper. Now imagine how desperate everyone would be if the power was out, and in all likelihood will be out for months.
- madengr 6y ago
  You the guy with the YouTube channel?
  - grecy 6y ago
    yep.
    - mercer 6y ago
      link?
- mercer 6y ago
  I'm from a 'prime' first-world country, The Netherlands, but I grew up in a developing nation where not having power or running water for hours was a daily thing, and not having either for days would happen with some regularity. Also the whole place was 90% percent corruption and 10% stale-mate level bureaucracy (to the point where my squeaky parents were forced to participate in the bribing at times). As a teen, back in my fancy country, there was a highly unusual power outage in my country, in summer (which is really nothing extreme over here). Nonetheless, it caused chaos. offices had to be closed because there was no air conditioning and office windows couldn't be opened, trains had issues, people panicked, etc. I remember even back then thinking that if shit would ever properly hit the fan, I'd head to a place where at least the populace wouldn't panic. It's a societal panic and chaos that I fear more than having no power or water, or a 'proper' rule of law. Broadly speaking.
PhantomGremlin 6y ago
That 90% number seems really hard to believe. Not to me. The real number could be even higher, at least for the USA population. Without electricity, here are just a few things that come to mind: 1) no water to your house. Have fun drinking out of the nearest river. There won't be a hospital you can go to when you get cholera or dysentery or heavy metal poisoning. 2) have fun using a chain saw (you do have one?) to chop down nearby trees so you can cook your food. How many cans of spam do you have right now in your pantry? 3) One tank of gasoline. The one in your car. That's it. Gas stations can't pump out of their tanks. It wouldn't be hard to get the 10,000 or 20,000 gallons out of their storage tanks by portable pumps. It's a day or two worth of gas. Many stations get daily gas deliveries, they don't have much inventory around. 4) No electricity means refineries can't operate. No diesel for trucks to deliver the gasoline that refineries can't produce. How many refineries can operate for long, if at all, without external electricity? 5) A lot of oil and gasoline moves by pipelines. These need significant energy for pumping along the way. No electricity, no pipelines. 6) No food being shipped from farms. No energy for factories to process it, e.g. refine grain and slaughter cattle. 7) How long can diesel-electric trains run with the diesel they have on hand? A few weeks? Of course, subways and overhead-electric trains would be totally non-functional. 8) Have fun in urban areas like NYC. I can't imagine what a place like that would be after a week or two without water or power and without working sewage. I'll just stop right there. I could probably come up with another 100 things without really trying. On the bright side, who will be OK: 1) A lot of the third world. People whose daily existence depends on subsistence farming can survive for years. Many of them don't have electricity right now. 2) Some farmers in the USA. They probably have hand-pumped wells (a relic from bygone days) and plenty of food on hand. 3) Some groups like the Mormons. They (at least on paper) prepare for those kinds of things. 4) People like the Amish. They would probably do OK. 5) Survivalists in general. They have stocked up on food, and they have guns. They will be happy to shoot you dead if you come to them to take their food. And if they run out of food they will be happy to go looking for you and shoot you dead and take your food. Just 150 years ago none of this would have been an issue. We didn't have electricity and we had much lower population density. But now, if we lose electricity nationwide for an extended period of time, we are way beyond fucked. We're mostly dead.
- pupdogg 6y ago
thaumaturgy 6y ago
That quote seems to come from the testimony of R. James Woolsley [1], who was referencing this commission report from 2008: http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.p... [pdf] Unfortunately discussion in this thread will be dead before anybody will finish comprehensively reading that report. With the recent failure of the federal government during what should be a significantly easier to manage emergency, I find the 90% to be more believable than I would have just a year ago. [1]: https://www.powermag.com/expect-death-if-pulse-event-hits-power-grid/ https://www.powermag.com/expect-death-if-pulse-event-hits-po...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by _bxg1 6y ago

grecy 6y ago

> That 90% number seems really hard to believe As context, I spent three years driving right around Africa, and before that two years driving from Alaska to Argentina. I've seen my fair share of collapsing infrastructure (Congo... Mali... Sudan, etc.) and what happens in just a few days without electricity. In less developed countries the impacts are actually much less than they will be in our developed countries, because the people there are used to things failing, and their lives go on regardless. i.e. many people have beasts of burden to carry loads and farm, they have bicycles or walk to get around and they grow their own food. For us, it won't be so easy. - Very quickly all the perishables in the stores go bad, and food shortages become very real very fast. - ATMs don't work - therefore no cash for anyone. - Gas and diesel are very hard to get out of underground tanks without electricity (yes, you can hand pump it or use a generator... but how many of those are sitting around ready to go?) - Communications go down - no cell phones, no internet, no radio, no TV. It's extremely hard to get accurate information in that scenario. - Soon everyone is just focused on survival, so many other basics fall by the wayside. Garbage collection. Sewage, drinking water, medical supplies and much more all stop working. - In places with low population density and where people have some "homesteading" skills this might not be so bad - they can just shoot a cow once every few weeks or whatever. In downtown LA, NYC and Chicago, it's extremely bad. In just a few weeks you have mass hysteria, and things go downhill fast. Just look at the scenes in the big box stores when COVID-19 hit of people getting violent and stockpiling toilet paper. Now imagine how desperate everyone would be if the power was out, and in all likelihood will be out for months.

madengr 6y ago
You the guy with the YouTube channel?
- grecy 6y ago
  yep.
  - mercer 6y ago
    link?
mercer 6y ago
I'm from a 'prime' first-world country, The Netherlands, but I grew up in a developing nation where not having power or running water for hours was a daily thing, and not having either for days would happen with some regularity. Also the whole place was 90% percent corruption and 10% stale-mate level bureaucracy (to the point where my squeaky parents were forced to participate in the bribing at times). As a teen, back in my fancy country, there was a highly unusual power outage in my country, in summer (which is really nothing extreme over here). Nonetheless, it caused chaos. offices had to be closed because there was no air conditioning and office windows couldn't be opened, trains had issues, people panicked, etc. I remember even back then thinking that if shit would ever properly hit the fan, I'd head to a place where at least the populace wouldn't panic. It's a societal panic and chaos that I fear more than having no power or water, or a 'proper' rule of law. Broadly speaking.

PhantomGremlin 6y ago

That 90% number seems really hard to believe. Not to me. The real number could be even higher, at least for the USA population. Without electricity, here are just a few things that come to mind: 1) no water to your house. Have fun drinking out of the nearest river. There won't be a hospital you can go to when you get cholera or dysentery or heavy metal poisoning. 2) have fun using a chain saw (you do have one?) to chop down nearby trees so you can cook your food. How many cans of spam do you have right now in your pantry? 3) One tank of gasoline. The one in your car. That's it. Gas stations can't pump out of their tanks. It wouldn't be hard to get the 10,000 or 20,000 gallons out of their storage tanks by portable pumps. It's a day or two worth of gas. Many stations get daily gas deliveries, they don't have much inventory around. 4) No electricity means refineries can't operate. No diesel for trucks to deliver the gasoline that refineries can't produce. How many refineries can operate for long, if at all, without external electricity? 5) A lot of oil and gasoline moves by pipelines. These need significant energy for pumping along the way. No electricity, no pipelines. 6) No food being shipped from farms. No energy for factories to process it, e.g. refine grain and slaughter cattle. 7) How long can diesel-electric trains run with the diesel they have on hand? A few weeks? Of course, subways and overhead-electric trains would be totally non-functional. 8) Have fun in urban areas like NYC. I can't imagine what a place like that would be after a week or two without water or power and without working sewage. I'll just stop right there. I could probably come up with another 100 things without really trying. On the bright side, who will be OK: 1) A lot of the third world. People whose daily existence depends on subsistence farming can survive for years. Many of them don't have electricity right now. 2) Some farmers in the USA. They probably have hand-pumped wells (a relic from bygone days) and plenty of food on hand. 3) Some groups like the Mormons. They (at least on paper) prepare for those kinds of things. 4) People like the Amish. They would probably do OK. 5) Survivalists in general. They have stocked up on food, and they have guns. They will be happy to shoot you dead if you come to them to take their food. And if they run out of food they will be happy to go looking for you and shoot you dead and take your food. Just 150 years ago none of this would have been an issue. We didn't have electricity and we had much lower population density. But now, if we lose electricity nationwide for an extended period of time, we are way beyond fucked. We're mostly dead.

pupdogg 6y ago

thaumaturgy 6y ago

That quote seems to come from the testimony of R. James Woolsley [1], who was referencing this commission report from 2008: http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.p... [pdf] Unfortunately discussion in this thread will be dead before anybody will finish comprehensively reading that report. With the recent failure of the federal government during what should be a significantly easier to manage emergency, I find the 90% to be more believable than I would have just a year ago. [1]: https://www.powermag.com/expect-death-if-pulse-event-hits-power-grid/ https://www.powermag.com/expect-death-if-pulse-event-hits-po...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]