World, Writing, Wealth discussion

What would we all do if the power grid that controls everything was attacked or went down completely? With everything being controlled by computer we would be fumbling around in the dark. It really is a scary thought in one way as our lives are controlled by the power grid. There would be no gas, electricity, and so many other things we rely on in our lives. It is a curious subject to me and I am sorry if this has been posted on here before. I just would like everybody's thoughts.

Bad and very bad. Hospitals with generators for a while but then no top ups of gas as the refining stations and distributors also fail. Expect rioting at first then major issues with food and drugs even water pumping can only last for a short while

At a local level, this happens to me unfortunately frequently. We have frequent strong winds, and where I live there's a lot of bush, so trees give power cuts, sometimes for up to a couple of days. At first it's a nuisance, then, if in the winter, we have to burn wood to keep warm. My house even needs electricity to pump water to a header tank so getting water even to flush a toilet involves a walk in the storm with buckets. You get through it, but after about two days you start worrying about all your precious food in the freezer. Cold water washes from a bucket become less attractive, and you feel like a minor celebration when the lights come back on. What we found here is that neighbours start cooperating, and because it is local, I guess you could go somewhere else. If it were major, like a major earthquake taking out power from the region it would a lot more serious, if for no other reason than the roads would probably be out as well.

I grew up and continue to live in a relatively rural area, so I'm accustomed to and prepared for power outages lasting a week or more. It's far less common now, but last year a hurricane took out power for four days. (After that the woods were full of hunters eager to refill their freezers.) For periods longer than that the biggest threat would be people fleeing the cities.

There is also a question of the failure mode. I live within 100 miles of three nuclear power plants. If the failure mode prevents one or more of those reactors from safely scramming (very relative term) I and thousands if not millions of others would need to evac.

There has been governments worried about such an attack as they know that people would panic as are lives our basically governed by technology.

I read a book (fiction) a few months ago about an EMP attack that took out the U.S. and it made me think about this question I posted. In the book, it was longer than a couple of weeks before the grid was back up.

For something like that to happen in real life, there would literally be chaos in the world.

I had a tornado come through here back in 2011 and I was without power for 48 hours. It gets a little frustrating, but it is survivable. Thankfully, it was April, so it didn't get too cold or too hot. I have a grill, so I can cook anything outside without power. With refrigeration out, anything perishable had to be cooked right away. Because I'm on a well, the water was out with the power. That doesn't just mean drinking water, but also the shower was out, and the toilet could not flush.

At least power was restored in certain areas sooner, so I could still go out and get gas and buy water. But right after the tornado hit, the commute home was tense because every traffic light between work and home was out...and at the time that commute was mostly on an 8-lane highway with a lot of traffic lights.

Last year, we had about a week's notice that Hurricane Florence was going to hit and that it was going to be bad, so we had to gear up for the possibility that there would be no power anywhere, and that it could take a long time to get back on. I filled every container I had and froze them to keep the fridge colder longer. I filled up the bathtub so I would have water for the toilet for about a week. The car had to be filled up, because if power loss was total, no one could fill up afterwards - and that led to long lines at certain gas stations, many stations ran out of gas, and it was an all-around mess before the storm even hit. All through the storm, I was washing dishes almost immediately after eating instead of saving them for later just in case power loss was imminent. Clothes were washed even though it wasn't laundry day just so I'd have one more day of clean clothes.

The irony of it all was that I didn't lose power even though I tend to lose power in a strong thunderstorm...still, it was better to be prepared.

In all the good examples mentioned above the outage is temporary and localised. I was presuming at least national and permanent.

A persistent, worldwide outage would be catastrophic for civilization.

We'd be thrown back to at best a technology level of around the American Civil war era.

The process of shifting back would kill 95%+ of the population in 1st world countries from thirst, starvation, violence and disease in the first year.

Death rates would continue to cull the population as people adapted to the new conditions. For example, the US has 300+ million people. Five years later they would have 500k to 1M people living in the CONUS.

Those people living in small villages with a small herd of goats, a dozen chickens, dirt floors and no electricity will found themselves wealthy in the new world.

The Amish would do alright.

It should be a dream come to true to all those dreaming of the time travel, as it would bring the world to pre-electricity state relatively soon.
Those already living off the grid by choice might be less affected.
Electricity -based businesses like Google, Face, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Boeing and a few more could get a little annoyed.
Carpenter tools manufacturers once switching to "hand-made" might seize the opportunity.
Land & crop owners should review their defense capabilities.
So, switch it off now?! -:)

Nik wrote: "So, switch it off now?! -:) ..."

Only if you wish to live a real nightmare that will not end this side of death.

It would not be quite as bad if it is just the power stations down. Presumably we would still have oil, and hence motive power, so food production would continue. When I was young we had no refrigerator and no washing machine. We did have radio, but you can probably do without that. The biggest single problem would be the population - too many would not be contributing.

If you had a severe EMP attack that knocked off all things electrical, including motors (and I am not sure that would happen to everything) then food production would be a crisis. How many people know how to plough with a horse, if you had a horse, and if you had a plough that a horse could use? My father could, but he never really taught me, and my ploughing was done with a rather old tractor. To reap a grain crop, how many know how to scythe, if you had a scythe, or for that matter how to keep it sharp, if you had a stone. As it happens, I can and I have the equipment, but I don't have land and and I am getting a bit old for that. The problem is, we can't go back to the end of the 19th century because nobody knows how to do things, and we no longer have the things to do them with. There is the odd craft blacksmith still going in NZ, but they mainly make decorative stuff. We have forgotten so much. We couldn't even knap stone!

Hi Ian, without electricity - the refining stations would stop - plus no electricity = no payments.

No one gets paid - the whole logistic chains would grind to a halt.

Graeme wrote: "A persistent, worldwide outage would be catastrophic for civilization.

We'd be thrown back to at best a technology level of around the American Civil war era.

The process of shifting back would k..."

This is exactly why I posted this question on here. You hit the nail on the head as this was the point I was trying to get across.

Something else happened to make me post this question besides the book I read.

Here in the U.S. we have a national television station that many people use for their weather. We can even it download the app to our phones. They had some of kind of software attack on their system and they were shut down for awhile. They do not know what caused the attack, but they are having it investigated. People rely on that weather channel for minute by minute up to date weather.

If a television station has a software attack, then what is to keep someone or something from attacking the power grid? I know governments probably have some kind of defense system to keep it from happening, but what happens if that defense system fails?

Graeme, you are so right about the Amish. They would not be affected. They still live in horse and buggy days.

Ian wrote: "It would not be quite as bad if it is just the power stations down. Presumably we would still have oil, and hence motive power, so food production would continue. When I was young we had no refrige..."

You have made a very good point!

People that were born in a technology world would probably have a hard time coping with no power and would be at a loss of how to survive.

I would not be one of those kind of people. I lived on a farm with my parents for most of my life. My father loved wagons and horses. So I know how to ride horses and hook up horses to wagons. Mending fences, driving tractors, growing vegetables, etc. We also used gas for cooking as my father liked to use gas instead of electric.

The only people that would be able to survive in a world without power are the farmers and the Amish.

Of course, even some farmers do rely on the technology to get them through their day, but if the power went down, I would think they would know what to do in a crisis.

You are also right about the equipment that has disappeared to live in a world without power. No one makes the things that are great grandparents used to live their lives.

Philip wrote: "In all the good examples mentioned above the outage is temporary and localised. I was presuming at least national and permanent."

You are right and this is what I meant too. An attack that takes down all the power grids around the world and we were without power for longer than six months.

I want to post some scary questions to all of you as I thought about these things happening too if we had a worldwide EMP attack.

Would planes fall from the sky?

Would trains derail?

Would ships come to a dead stop in the ocean?

I know our automobiles would come to a stop as so many cars are run by a computer system. The only cars that are not computerized are the ones that were made before computers existed. But how many people have those kind of cars? Very few and far between I would say.

A plane subject to an EMP attack would suffer the failure of its onboard avionic systems - at the very least.

Probably fall from the sky.

Trains wouldn't derail - but they likely come to a stop, especially if electrically powered.

The Amish are pacifists in a nation that reportedly has more guns than people. Without the protection of a civil society they would not last long.

Graeme wrote: "Hi Ian, without electricity - the refining stations would stop - plus no electricity = no payments.

No one gets paid - the whole logistic chains would grind to a halt."

Hi Graeme, First payment. We would have to go back to cash transfers. Not enough cash? Worse still, with computers down, there would be arguments about who owned what, but guns still work and governments would bring out the military to keep some sort of order. My view is that while payments would be a terrible problem, it would be solved. People have two choices: pull together and work something out, or wallow in despair and everybody dies. I have a great faith in the first option. On a lesser scale you see signs of it after a disaster, e.g. a massive earthquake.

Chemical processing plant, such as oil refineries, is an interesting one. External power is needed to run pumps, etc, and to run controls, which are often computerised. If the computers went down, anything could happen because the chemistry will continue - just uncontolled, and what happens might depend on which pump goes first. However, assuming they did not blow up, in a few weeks ways could be found to restart refineries by making generators.

I wonder how many computers are in Faraday cages?

Ian wrote: "but guns still work and governments would bring out the military to keep some sort of order., ..."

Military operations cost a fortune and consume logistics from fuel, bullets, to rations in a hurry...

The US Military will shut down/fracture with the absence of any funding. What happened to the Soviet Union when it broke up would look orderly in comparison.

Graeme wrote: "Ian wrote: "but guns still work and governments would bring out the military to keep some sort of order., ..."

Military operations cost a fortune and consume logistics from fuel, bullets, to ratio..."

Most militaries have fair reserves - I heard the US has 90-day reserves of oil for the US, not just itself, but I wouldn't bet on any being available generally. They certainly have enough reserves of bullets. But you are right in that whatever happens it would most certainly be disorderly.

The thing about the military is 'military families,' which are at risk in a total blackout situation. How will they be protected, and if not protected - how do you motivate military staff in that situation where they have to choose between following orders/giving orders and saving their loved ones?

Same with cops etc, do you go out in the community or do you rescue your own family?

In my opinion, leadership. The point is, unless everyone tries t fix things, it just gets worse. If the military guys abandon orders and go to families, what are they going to do? They may be able to stop someone pillaging their families, but everyone still has to eat and they have no skill there. The only way out of such a mess is if everyone who can do something is protected and helped to get on and do it. The leadership involves showing there is a way out, and convincing people to get it done. It would be extremely difficult, but I think it is possible. There also has to be some way of booking in rewards, so that eventually they can be delivered.

Marie wrote: "I want to post some scary questions to all of you as I thought about these things happening too if we had a worldwide EMP attack.

Would planes fall from the sky?

Would trains derail?

Would shi..."
Like Graeme said, the planes would fall, but the trains would stay on the tracks.

Ships would be scary too, because they wouldn't just stop, they'd keep going until the currents took over their momentum and they begin to drift with the currents. If you have a ship heading into a port when it loses power, it could very well crash into the port. Something like a cruise ship or a container ship could do some serious damage, and a lot of people could even be killed.

Graeme wrote: "Ian wrote: "but guns still work and governments would bring out the military to keep some sort of order., ..."

Military operations cost a fortune and consume logistics from fuel, bullets, to ratio..."

Fort Bragg just ran a drill to test their readiness in a power outage, so it's not like our military complex hasn't been preparing for such a scenario.

Graeme wrote: "The thing about the military is 'military families,' which are at risk in a total blackout situation. How will they be protected, and if not protected - how do you motivate military staff in that s..."

We generally see in huge disasters, the first responders are out helping the community, thinking about the greater good than their personal families...then again, I'm sure the family can take care of itself more than most others..

...It's only California politicians that divert the first responders to worry about their own property and families above the rest of the community they serve...

https://www.apnews.com/921bd0a4951944...

Ships may be OK. If the electronics are deep within the ship, the steel will act as a Faraday cage and protect them.

After reading everyone's thoughts and comments which is very interesting to me as when I posted the question all of you gave more insight for me to think about.

I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this subject. Which brings me to ask two questions.

1) Is there any possibility that such a thing could occur like an EMP attack?

2) Is there a defense system in place in our countries to keep it from happening?

You have almost certainly seen an EMP event. Lightning qualifies. The hazard of such n event is that a massive electric current flows through whatever, and this can be induced by electromagnetic radiation. For radiation, you need a potential difference, so longer wavelength helps. Put metal in a microwave oven and you can generate good sparks. Of course, you can also wreck your oven with anything over a short burst.

Which gets to the next point. The damage done depends on the power transferred. It also has to be done "line of sight". If you are worried about a nuke, the A-bomb is harmless for this. You might note the aircraft that dropped bombs felt no undue effect other than light. The big Russian H bombs can be about 25,000 times more powerful, so the EM pulse will be correspondingly stronger. However, the height is important because the effects depend on "line of sight" (The field pulses or radiation only goes in a straight line.) If a H bomb was detonated 30 miles up, the effect would spread over about four average states; at 300 miles one blast would get most of the 48 states, BUT the power weakens proportional to the inverse square law. The effect also depends on the susceptibility of the object to induce an electric potential difference across it. The less the power, the more things survive.

The defence is (a) surround as much as you can with metal (the Faraday cage effect), (b) don't get into a nuclear war, however if you do, unless you are a military commander, EMP would probably be the least of your problems. The other bad problem would be a massive solar flare. There's no real defence other than to try to protect your equipment, The idea is to try to surround with metal and earth your metal.

The Wiki article is quite comprehensive.

REF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear...

My little town built its own municipal electric plant a hundred years ago and since then it has been maintained and upgraded. We still have our own grid, so when the power goes out all around us, we have electricity. As long as the river keeps flowing.....

Isolated small farming communities can be remarkably self-sufficient so we won't suffer the same problems as the urban population.

I'm unable to think of a sequence of events which could result in a high altitude nuclear attack but not a nuclear response. Since said response would most likely result in a nuclear winter, I think it is more useful to consider this hypothetical event arising from a large CME. This would be bad news for most of the Northern hemisphere and interestingly Australia which is the closest inhabited continent to the magnetic south pole.

Airplanes would be a bit of a coin flip. As Ian pointed out an EMP is equivalent to a lightning strike. Planes get hit by lightning often without crashing. The danger would be the loss of ground control.

Marie wrote: "...two questions.

1) Is there any possibility that such a thing could occur like an EMP attack?

2) Is there a defense system in place in our countries to keep it from happening?.."

Possible it is, but I hope not very probable. Non governmental organizations hopefully lack capacity to stage a national wide attack, while governmental are probably limited to US, Russia, China, UK & France, where the "rivalry" is really among the first 3. However, the real "rivalry" is overblown, in my opinion, and neither has any "existential" issue between them. It's mostly local intrigues and politicking and at the very very bottom line the contention points can be summarized:
"Syria" - no one cares.
"Venezuela" - no one cares.
"Ukraine" - Russia cares, but others - hardly.
"Magnitsky or Butina" - no one cares.
"Hillary" - maybe she cares. Not sure even Bill does -:)
And so on... Cynical, I know, but quite realistic I'm afraid.
The atmosphere of great rivalry though is important to fuel massive global armament. But how many times did Soviet/Russian soldiers faced Americans in combat in the entire history?

As of defenses - not sure we can really count on any at this stage, if ballistic missiles start to fly en masse..

I would not count on missile defences. The first step would be an EMP attack on the GPS system and other satellites, and now the defences are flying blind. Good luck with that. But I also think that the US , Russia and China are too sensible to go to war other than by sheer accident. Not so sure of India/Pakistan, and definitely not if the Saudis and Iran get them, but their war would be too limited. So don't lose sleep.

Your own generators etc will not be immune, unless you shield them. That tends to mean disconnecting from exposed wires.

I found something interesting today and I thought I would share it with all of you. Since I posted this thread and after all the discussions, this book came across my GR feed today.

Lights Out: A Cyberattack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath by Ted Koppel

I added it to my tbr as I didn't know this book existed. Should be an interesting read.

I don't see why a cyber attack should shut down the grid for a long period of time. The grid should be able to withstand all sorts of things and shut itself down if something goes out of kilter by a certain amount. As long as the equipment is not destroyed by feedback loops, it should survive and the problem should be fixed reasonably quickly.

A cold restart of a power grid for a first world country is a very difficult affair.

In the event of a system wide shutdown every device remains connected and switched on - just not running.

A lot of systems use a lot more power to start than they do in operation.

The implications is that when you restart electricity generating plant it has to overcome all that 'load,' that is on the grid.

It's a really ugly technical problem that will be exacerbated by the deployment of renewables and batteries that are intermittent or unable to support a restart for the grid itself.

Oh, I once imagined a world where, for one reason or another, the only cars The Man allowed were electric. And I said to myself, "Sure, the gov'ment will give us little people a subsidy to go buy an electric car!" And the Dear Leaders did just that. So I went and used by [insert deity here]-given entitlement and bought a nice fully electric car. I sang, and praised, and assured myself, "My 'sacrifice' will save the planet for sure!"

When I got home, the first thing I did was, obviously, plug the sucker in. Since my [insert deity here]-given entitlement only allowed me to buy an electric car that got 50 miles to the charge, I cannot go very far, and I have to plug in quite often. More often than I'd like to, really.

But, everybody else did the same thing. At the same time. After all, a radical solution demands a radical action, right?

And when all us little people got home, feeling joyful at having reaped our [insert deity here]-given entitlement, we collectively caused a country-wide blackout. Alas, The Man had not anticipated the new demand on the grid, and it couldn't handle it.

While it's easy to finger evildoers or demented masterminds, a systemic blackout need not be caused by a malevolent actor. It could be our own altruism that causes it.

Graeme wrote: "A cold restart of a power grid for a first world country is a very difficult affair.

In the event of a system wide shutdown every device remains connected and switched on - just not running.

A l..."

Yes, it is not that easy to manage a cold start, but it should not be beyond our ability to do it. A well-designed grid also has segments, and they can be turned on sequentially, so it should be possible to restart bit by bit. Oddly enough, I believe everybody will accept this because the shock of losing the power in the first place will persuade people to give a bit of understanding towards the engineers. Of course, one of the strange things about a power cut is usually the only way you know you are reconnected is when something starts when you turn on a switch!

So I argue they won't restart the grid. They will start it bit by bit, just as they have done here after serious earthquakes,

Indeed. Bit by bit. But still a devil of a problem.

Since I found out about that book, I checked my local library and they do have four copies of it, but as much as would like to read it I am going to have to wait as I have some other books to read at the moment.

I did read a review that is very detailed and gave quite a bit of insight on what would happen if a cyberattack crippled America. It really is a scary thought that America is vulnerable and that there is no set plan in place to protect American citizens.

Here is the link to the reader's review and I have to warn you that it is lengthy, but very informative.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

After reading it, please provide me with your thoughts and opinions.

My first thought was that this was overblown. The concept of "a SEAL-like attack on 9 stations" has to be simultaneous and who can get that many special forces into the country that widely dispersed. My second thought was that presumably Homeland Security, together with the military, are aware of this possibility, and I doubt they will admit having a defence because as soon as you announce it, you don't have a reliable one. If the US military a together with border control cannot stop 9 lots of special forces and their equipment from entering and deploying within the country you are not spending that massive military budget wisely. I would rather think they can. The biggest issue is will they get it completely right, and my guess is, probably no. The problem I see for the US is there are so many agencies that protect their own turf that cooperation is difficult, e.g. 9/11. The authorities easily had enough information to stop that, but it was so widely dispersed that nobody could put anything together.

In one of my novels where society breaks down, the military also breaks up into smaller pieces but remains disciplined. The inability to pay them is meaningless because there is nothing to buy anyway. What I had the "bits" doing was seeking out parts of society that is trying to stay civilized and protect them. Thus in Kris' scenario, the Amish feed some soldiers and the soldiers ensure nobody messes with their families' food supply.

My Internet has been down for two days, so I'm getting a taste of what life would be like if
the grid went down. No access to email or my calendar on my laptop. I'm here now because of cell service, and it's a pain. If cell service fails, I'll have no access to services I depend on. I think this is something we all worry about.

If the grid went down, I have worse problems. My house is mainly powered by electricity. I even pump my water.

I was focused on my Internet problem, but you're right. If the grid goes down, there will be more important things to worry about. You've probably heard about the power failure in NYC recently. Experts here are saying that they're surprised it hasn't happened before and that the grid is ripe for failure. If the power fails in the southern US with current temps, mayhem will ensue.

When I saw that on the tv about Manhattan, NY being plunged into darkness for a few hours I thought about this thread. I cannot imagine the fear and terror that the people who were riding the subway trains, elevators, etc. felt when they became trapped with no way out! It showed one picture from above Manhattan and it was total darkness! People had to be rescued from their situations.

I read on CNN that it had happened before in NY 42 years to the day of this outage, but at that time the technology wasn't like it is today. When it happened in the past, the time was longer (25 hours) till they were able to get the electric back on. At least this time it wasn't quite as long, but still long enough for people to panic. They are blaming it on the failure of a relay switch for the power outage.

Scary stuff to even think about it!

Scout wrote: "My Internet has been down for two days, so I'm getting a taste of what life would be like if
the grid went down. No access to email or my calendar on my laptop. I'm here now because of cell servic..."

Wow! That has happened to me too a few years back, but we had it from one of the hurricanes that went through Florida. We were without power for about four days. Not a real long time, but long enough to feel like we were going crazy. I would have to charge the cell phones at work and then bring them home to only use them if we needed them. It was crazy! Scary too! So I know what you are going through Scout. Hopefully you will have your service restored soon. :)

It's scary to think about not having Internet. I've started keeping a written calendar, a written list of addresses and phone numbers instead of counting on an online service . Back to the old days. After seeing a report on the fragility of our grid, I'm worried.