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Cities in the US and Europe have very reliable power and gas supplies, until suddenly they don't. The trouble is that people have started to take the reliabilit
by makomk 6y ago
Cities in the US and Europe have very reliable power and gas supplies, until suddenly they don't. The trouble is that people have started to take the reliability of the power grid for granted and stopped thinking about what happens when it inevitably fails.
- Ma8ee 6y agoWe take metric shit tons for granted in our everyday lives. The risk that we will be out of power for more than a few hours where I live is very small, so I chose to save the about $10000 that it cost to install a fireplace and a chimney, so I’m instead prepared if I get long time sick, unemployed, or the car breaks down. All of those risks are order of magnitude higher than that we would be without electricity for any extended period of time.
- ghaff 6y agoFor that matter, as someone who lives in New England, if I wanted to install backup for extended power outages (which do happen where I am now and then), the sensible thing to do would be to get a propane-fueled generator installed because that would work if I were traveling (to keep pipes from freezing) and would also keep refrigerators running in a summer outage. (Added: Maybe a Powerwall-type thing would make sense today.) I do have a fireplace and a wood stove which provide something of a backup but won't heat the whole house and only work if I'm there.
- vidarh 6y agoWe've started taking it for granted because it works. It's ~35 years or so since last time I experienced an outage longer than a few minutes, and enough years since I experienced any outage that I can't remember when it was.