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There are also now enough people with solar that it may not be catastrophic. Many of those solar + battery systems have enough electronics to make syncing to g

There are also now enough people with solar that it may not be catastrophic. Many of those solar + battery systems have enough electronics to make syncing to grid relatively straightforward. I wonder how quickly you would see small neighborhood subgrids pop up.

gravescale 2y ago
Well, maybe in more affluent suburban areas and rural areas. But in denser cities, the population density doesn't really support that. Moreover, it's not homes you need to keep powered for critical life functions for millions of people (a few medical exceptions notwithstanding): it's hospitals, food infrastructure (e.g. some very big ovens, sterilisers, fridges, etc), water treatment and so on. Fuel refineries take prodigious amounts of electricity, and those logistics vehicles don't run on batteries yet, and reserves will only go so far. Telecoms also, or how will you order more food, medicine and spare parts? And that's all internet-based now, so you need at least some servers running and a lot of exchanges, towers and cabinets to be working. Ham radio might work to link onesie-twosie farmstead communities, but not for millions of people. I guess it really depends if it's local, so you can evacuate and ship in supplies like in a natural disaster, or more widespread where there's no external resource buffer.