What would happen if the source of the worlds electrical grid were to

[Keanumoreira]

...burn out.

 

So let's discuss, how would we handle such a crippling blow that is irreversable? How would our lives change without electricity?

[slygothmog]

Our lives ( in the places that depend upon electricity ) would be changed irrevocably. We rely upon electricity for almost everything within our lives, work, home, school and social aspects of life would take a complete U-turn....in a nutshell CHAOS!

 

How would we handle this?....it would be down to the individual, I would seek a farm type community ( if I could ) and try to make a life living on the land. The most important things are food, shelter and security....but both would be difficult to obtain at the beginning of such a disaster.

[Keanumoreira]

Our lives ( in the places that depend upon electricity ) would be changed irrevocably. We rely upon electricity for almost everything within our lives, work, home, school and social aspects of life would take a complete U-turn....in a nutshell CHAOS!

 

How would we handle this?....it would be down to the individual, I would seek a farm type community ( if I could ) and try to make a life living on the land. The most important things are food, shelter and security....but both would be difficult to obtain at the beginning of such a disaster.

 

According to this one show I watched, where a massive solar flare was the cause of this disaster, every city would evacuate(All the major ones anyway) and would migrate to other areas of the globe as the economy and the nation around them inevitably collapses.

[slygothmog]

A very nice movie about the collapse of society is this

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfO_mmFr_Mw

 

It's fantasy but poignant in its statement about courage and corruption.

[Vagrant0]

Any disaster of such a large scale would undoubtedly claim millions of lives, if not initially than in the subsequent chaos that follows. And unfortunately nature would probably need to recover long before humanity could. As a solar flare or gamma burst would also kill off most plant and animal life, recovery wouldn't be a matter of years or even generations, but thousands of years, if at all. So in short, if it happens, the least of your concerns will be in not being able to blog about your concerns, and the lucky ones are those who are killed in the initial event.

[Surenas]

At that moment the worldview of man is instantly reduced to the radius of a half day's march or ride. Inside anarchy rules, buzz, killing and suicide of primitively organized grim faced people and beyond the horizon there will be nothing but horror and memory followed by legend and finally - myth. The urban civilization with the folk that has two left feet dies first and when the last farmer in the outback is butchered, the last Indian tribe in the Amazon district is eradicated by vagabond hordes of hungry raiders the show is over and man can rest in peace, for there is probably no time left for a remake of the history of mankind.

[Trandoshan]

I'm going to express the other side of the opinion. Namely, that society won't fall apart as most of the posts imply. Electricity is important, and there are plenty of other sources of it other than an electrical grid. Even if electricity were to magically disappear, there are still some forms of transportation that do not rely solely on electricity. Older cars for example require no electricity. Electricity has never stopped society from functioning before the 1850's. That means humanity has lived for millions of years without electricity.

 

Slyg's got the best (and only at this point) non-chaotic reasoning behind the removal of electricity. Farming communities would begin to form after a short period of planes crashing. Most breaks will work, so i don't see many cars crashing into each other, just newer ones. A few buildings would burn too, however, I wouldn't fathom to see a mass scene of fiery massacre. guns still work, as they are not powered, so police and military are still viable. Ocean ships will still operate as long as the fuel reserves are still there. By the time the reserves do run out, humanity will begin to repair the power grid again.

 

This article tells the story of what happened the last time a solar flare hit. A few telegraphs burned down, and the scale will be larger due to our electrically obsessed society. However, did we not recover from that last flare? It will be harder this time, but in my honest beliefs I think that society can pull itself together despite losing it's playstation and e-mail for a while. Thankfully for us, we still have not evolved to rely on machines entirely.

 

I find that many people entertain the thought of anarchy because they want to see something different in their lives. I would remind everyone here that anarchy is the last thing you want in a crisis.

 

No offense meant to anyone in this statement.

[grannywils]

To bring it down to simple terms I agree that we could certainly survive with out the electrical grid. I'm not 100% sure I understood the original question. How did we come to lose it. Vagrant0 seemed to imply some sort of holistically explosive disaster. Under those circumstances, I reluctantly (again) find myself agreeing with him to a limited extent. However, I'm more inclined to agree with SlyG and TrandoShan. We, as a people, are incredibly strong and versatile when we need to be. We can use our brains and our brawn and in a case such as this one our common sense. There have been many times in the past when I have asked myself whether or not "progress" was in fact really progress or not. Sometimes what seems to be making our lives easier seems to be causing more strife and disruption than we need. There may be something to be said for going back to a simpler time. Albiet, a more difficult one in many physical ways.

[Surenas]

That's called calculated optimism. Well, the brave new world of the computerized urban dreamer will end already after the first few days without electricity in the first lootings. And the army will collapse short therafter due to a common communication breakdown in a scenario of a fading understanding of law and order, beheaded and the torso broken into fragments of manageable company strength and finally of marauding platoons... until they all run out of ammunition...

[grannywils]

Not sure that I agree with you. Although I do attempt to look at things with a positive outlook whenever possible, I have never been known as an optimist. Personally, I live in the woods on top of a mountain, and although I have access to electricity, we are in the process of getting ourselves off the grid to the extent possible. However, I digress. What you have described is humanity being overcome by stronger humans who for some reason have or want more power. Why do you make the assumption that those power hungry humans have any more innate ability to survive than anyone else. You have pointed out that those power hungry types will run out of ammunition . Well, maybe then they can beat their swords into plowshares. Since we already know how to capture solar energy and dig wells, it seems to me it would best suit this army of which you speak to start there rather than kicking everyone else's butts. Don't you think? Just out of curiosity where do you get the information upon which you are basing your assumptions about what would immediately take place?