
If America Lost Its Electricity: An Electromagnetic Shock - clra
http://worldif.economist.com/article/13526/electromagnetic-shock
======
aequitas
There is this interesting old documentary with a similar premise called
Connections by James Burke: (first episode)
[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnwpsp_veetle-
connections-s...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnwpsp_veetle-
connections-s01e01-the-trigger-effect_tech)

It uses the 1965 New York power outage as starting point for the discussion on
how modern society relies on technology and the consequences of a breakdown.
It then goes through the technology tree from the humble plow all the way up
to aerospace and how seemingly unrelated things cause us to end up in our
current technological state (like how a excess of linnen lead to cheaper paper
and widespread literacy).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_\(TV_series\))

~~~
arnioxux
I have fond childhood memories of the 2003 blackout in NYC[1]. Few cars were
driving around because traffic lights were off and intersections became all-
way stops. It was around ~90 degrees so food was going to spoil very quickly
unrefrigerated.

The surprising thing that happened next was that people started up impromptu
block parties with people pitching in ice cream and all the meat they had in
their fridges for BBQs in the streets!

Being city folks, you don't really trust your neighbors let alone talk to
them. But I got to meet a lot of them that day and it turns out people aren't
that scary and are very willing to help one another in times of need.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003)

~~~
beobab
"it turns out people aren't that scary"

This is wonderful to hear. People are just people. Normally they have weird
quirks, and some of them sound odd to your ears and look different to the
people you normally hang around with, but they are all human beings. They all
have hopes, dreams and fears of their own.

I remember realising as a teenager that everyone was in the same boat as me,
and it was life changing.

------
tryingagainbro
If all it takes is $4 billion to secure it and we don't, we kinda deserve it
to happen. The same country has and is spending trillions in Iraq and
Afghanistan..

On the other side, someone mention Pascal's Wager: storing a few basic needs
and self defense weapons (were legal), costs practically nothing now but it
could save your family's life. It's not a sure way but it's much better to
have them then not.

Even in cramped apartments you could store stuff for a week or two; in private
homes, you're talking months. IIRC, tap water in dark areas with a drop of
bleach for liter will last for quite a while. Think 55gallon drums, replaced
every so often.

~~~
legulere
Having weapons makes it more likely for violent acts to happen. Additionally
there's a high risk that you will hurt yourself. And then there's the effect
on the society: a society based on trust is more productive and safe than a
society based on mistrust.

~~~
morganvachon
And not having weapons makes it more likely you will be attacked and killed
for your provisions if the shit hits the fan. In other words, armed or not,
violence is a given when it gets bad enough that people are scavenging for
food. When it's so bad the police and military aren't there to protect you,
you either roll over and die, or fight and possibly live another day.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that we don't live in a perfect world with
everyone following the rules even in the best of times. I would love it if
your ideal world where we all trust each other existed; it would be true
paradise. But, we're only human and even the very best of us are flawed
creatures.

~~~
legulere
> And not having weapons makes it more likely you will be attacked and killed
> for your provisions if the shit hits the fan.

These violence fantasies are repeated on and on in prepper communities, but
that does not make them more true. Violence may increase, but mostly people
come together to help each other.

~~~
theseatoms
Prepping is about being prepared for either scenario, or anything in between.

~~~
hwillis
thats tautological and/or no true scotsman, and doesn't directly address his
claim

~~~
nitrogen
There's no claim to address; history has shown both outcomes can happen.

------
philfrasty
Very good book on this topic based on a scenario-study from the German
government. Study was researching what happens to society in case of a large
scale energy outage.

[https://www.amazon.de/dp/3442380294](https://www.amazon.de/dp/3442380294)

[https://www.amazon.de/dp/1784161888](https://www.amazon.de/dp/1784161888)
(English)

Study (German) [http://www.tab-beim-
bundestag.de/de/pdf/publikationen/berich...](http://www.tab-beim-
bundestag.de/de/pdf/publikationen/berichte/TAB-Arbeitsbericht-ab141.pdf)

Study (English) [http://www.tab-beim-
bundestag.de/en/pdf/publications/books/p...](http://www.tab-beim-
bundestag.de/en/pdf/publications/books/petermann-etal-2011-141.pdf)

edit: study added

~~~
baxtr
Why do you think the book is good? I've read it too, but I was not impressed.
a) style and story was actually quite boring from my point of view b) I
believe that the systems we have in place are much more resilient than people
think (my dad was an electrical engineer building grids all over the world, I
got my hypotheses from him :))

Really just asking, since I'm interested why this book is so well received

~~~
wil421
Agreed, Dad is an EE as well. From what I gather it would be easy to cause
localized disruption but harder to cause a long lasting total outage.

Then again this is US only. I've been to Nicaragua before when lightening hit
a power line. It took them over 3 days to get power back to the portion of the
country I was in. It was such a common issue everyone has generators they
would switch on, from hotels and restaurants to homes.

------
dEnigma
"But the scale of the potential impact is mind-concentrating"

I've never heard this expression before. Is it common in English? Sounds to me
like it is a descendant of "mind bottling" which again is a corruption of
"mind boggling".

~~~
jpbutler
I believe it's a reference to Samuel Johnson's quote: "When a man knows he is
to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

~~~
dEnigma
Interesting, hadn't heard about this.

------
grecy
Moving through West Africa I admire the resilience of people here. In many
places, the power being ON is the surprise, not when it's OFF. I often wonder
what would happen to the world if we lost power, or running water, or grocery
stores, or really any of our "fancy" infrastructure.

In my experience and estimation, a massive percentage of people in Developed
countries would wither and die, while undeveloped countries would continue to
function almost exactly as they do now.

I think there is a lot to be said for knowing how to grow your own food, hunt
your own meat, build your own shelter, etc.

~~~
WalterBright
Too many people for hunting meat to be remotely viable, probably by at least a
100, maybe a 1000. Everyone growing their own food is subsistence agriculture,
and that cannot support the population, either.

~~~
athenot
It's a first world fallacy that you need to eat steak every day—or any other
large animal for that matter.

It doesn't take a lot of land to raise chickens and with a few, you already
have more eggs than you know what to do, ergo you can pool that with
neighbors. Someone can own a cow, which requires 1 acre of pasture but
produces enough milk for many families.

If you want to see what this looks like at scale, just look at the countryside
in Europe a century ago. Villages are mostly townhouses all huddled together,
often with long-stretching back yards supporting vegetable gardens, and fields
all around. Is that hard work? You bet! A lot more physically demanding than
city life. But also more sustainable. The downside of course being that
there's so much focus on basic sustenance that few people can devote time to
occupations of the mind (which is primarily what cities are devoted to). It
seems over time the 2 models have fought each other and the city has won, but
a question to ask is if this has been at the cost of resilliency.

To me, this is the attraction of suburbia. Not the nice lawns (though I have
one) or country clubs, but the ability to have one foot in the city and keep
at least a toe in the countryside, with my own vegetables.

~~~
WalterBright
Europe's population was a lot lower a century ago.

------
prokes
One book that examines this scenario is "One Second After" by William
Forstchen [0]. It involves a coordinated EMP attack over America and the
effects on a small town in North Carolina. In the same vein as The Road but
more detailed in how society devolves i.e. how people behave and what is
valuable / scarce as the event progresses. It is not pretty but a fascinating
read that will make you consider such a scenario and how you can better
prepare.

[0] [http://a.co/2DWrTJ5](http://a.co/2DWrTJ5)

~~~
morganvachon
That sounds almost exactly like _Alas, Babylon_ but with an EMP instead of
direct nuclear strikes.

~~~
Raidion
'Alas, Babylon' was an amazing read as a teenager. Really opened up my eyes to
the fact that war was actually a scary thing because it has the stark realism
without the shock and horror that allows you to compartmentalize it. You start
to realize that we do take a whole lot for granted in terms of simple needs.

------
flipfloppity
The article doesn't even mention the Carrington Event in 1859, which actually
hit earth (with limited damage due to lack of widespread electronics). On the
spectrum of existential threats, this one seems to be fairly underrated.

~~~
mi100hael
For the curious:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859)

------
seszett
There's an old (1943) but good, Sci-Fi book about the disappearance of
electricity. It's French ( _Ravage_ by René Barjavel) but apparently an
English translation exists ( _Ashes, Ashes_ ) [1].

It takes place in 2052, but in a world mostly comparable to ours regarding
reliance on electricity. Especially _active_ reliance for some things that do
not just become dead or useless, but immediately dangerous.

I expect it not to be very well known to US and UK readers, but I think it's
worth the read, in France it's usually considered to be among the best and
most important Sci-Fi stories.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashes,_Ashes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashes,_Ashes)

------
kensai
At least our Bitcoin won't be lost since our wallets will be decentralized.
Still, I won't be able to pay anywhere near the blast zone! :p

~~~
amluto
No, it'll be lost. With widespread telecom failures, the miners won't be able
to reliably communicate, so the network will partition and will reorganize at
random.

People love to think of Bitcoin as impervious, but it's subject to the CAP
theorem just like every other distributed system.

~~~
shawabawa3
It will certainly struggle but there are clear rules for how bitcoin will
behave in a network split - the chain with the most work wins.

As long as the network comes back up at some point no bitcoins will be lost.
Some might be double spent though

~~~
albertgoeswoof
you might end up with a number of isolated BTC forks though. E.g. imagine if
all transatlantic/transpacific communication was lost for a few days, america
would have it's own chain, and people would not be willing to switch to a fork
without their transactions on as they wouldn't be able to recover they goods
they traded for the BTC at the time of the transaction

~~~
Diederich
It's kind of worse than that. The various (temporary) islands, by default,
would not make any decision to 'switch' to different islands. As islands
reconnect, each time that happens, the larger island wins, and the smaller
island automatically switches over.

------
secabeen
There was an old article in Omni in the late 80s or early 90s that claimed if
you did a coordinated attack on only 6 transformer stations across the US, it
would take down the whole grid for months. Given that they've never caught the
people behind the Metcalfe attack, I do wonder if it's still possible:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack)

~~~
jayess
That event still creeps me out. Clearly a sophisticated attack. Penetration
testing? Dry run?

~~~
hwillis
Hanlon's razor, eg Max Headroom[1]. Just a couple smart idiots with enough
intelligence to override a network signal (a hell of a feat, from what I've
gathered) and enough stupidity to use that to moon thousands of people.

The US is full of militias. All you really need is for one to happen to have a
cop/ex-cop and a telecom/electrical guy in the same one, and you get this.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion)

------
fencepost
I'm surprised to not see any discussion about the cost to effectively harden a
home solar system (or business one depending on size) against this kind of
surge and damage. I could easily see locations with adequate rooftop solar to
be mostly grid independent becoming a valuable part of rebuilding. If nothing
else they might provide powered community centers and a way for people to
recharge surviving small electronics. I can kind of understand why utilities
would not be going ahead in investing in this on their own, because they are
basically having to look at interests of their investors and anyone spending
hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to protect effectively their part
of the grid would probably not last long in a position. In addition, even if
they took steps it's entirely possible or even likely that they would be
negatively impacted or completely neutralized by incoming damage from other
parts of the grid. It's also worth keeping in mind that the power grid in the
US is not uniform. I believe the Texas is mostly a separate grid, and I'm
pretty sure that there are multiple other places where there's some cross
connect but the bulk of power control is through separate regional grids.

------
andyfleming
I remember seeing an announcement about an action by Obama to prepare for
this. Not sure how much substance there is to it, but thought it might be
relevant.

[https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-
office/2016/1...](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-
office/2016/10/13/executive-order-coordinating-efforts-prepare-nation-space-
weather-events)

------
macintux
Wait, 5-10 billion USD for something that would prevent the complete collapse
of civilization and Congress won't pony up the money?

~~~
bbctol
Unless voters make it a priority, Congress won't do a damn thing.

EDIT: Which is how democracy _should_ work!

~~~
talmand
I do believe that trying to prevent the collapse of our civilization is one of
the expected duties, with a high priority, of an elected official.

~~~
macintux
That's the key distinction between a democracy and a republic. In a republic,
we expect our elected officials to be smarter than we are about how to spend
money.

------
cmurf
It's amusing, and also damning, the idea that American civil society, designed
pre-electricity, is somehow incapable of retaining civility without
electricity.

I say amusing in a very condescending sense. We think of ourselves as modern,
advanced, and really seriously quite a bit better, than our ancestors of only
150 years ago. And yet if the prediction of our devolution into uncivilized
primal behaviors is true, our assessment as advanced or better is absurd on
the face of it.

But more interesting, is why is this the case? Have we so much more trust in
technology, and so much less trust in civil institutions over time? And in a
moment where we need to shift from one to the other, we simply can't do it,
and therefore civilization implodes? If so, that's embarrassing. Or it should
be.

------
equalunique
In South Florida, the 3 days since Irma have been hell. Without power, homes
have become saunas.

~~~
amigoingtodie
The majority of Florida's population growth coincided w the widespread
introduction of air conditioning.

~~~
0xfeba
The majority of population growth _in the entire south_ coincided with AC.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
> The majority of population growth in the entire south coincided with AC.

That's pretty hard for me to believe. People had been living in the South
since before the formation of this country... Do you have any stats to back
that up?

~~~
0xfeba
Google provided these: [https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/06/cities-might-not-
exist-...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/06/cities-might-not-exist-
without-air-conditioning/2399/)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/keepi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/keepin-
it-cool-how-the-air-conditioner-made-modern-america/241892/)

[https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/024/](https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/024/)

------
devmunchies
the chaos scenario lasted for 6 months and they estimated 7m people dying. So
is the lesson to have 6 months worth of food and water storage in your home
and maybe some propane tanks?

~~~
defined
You need about 1 gallon of potable water per adult person per day. For 6
months and a household of three people, that would require 540 gallons (2052
liters) of water. That's about 110 water-cooler sized bottles of water.

I'm not sure where in your home you would fit that. A small swimming pool
would easily hold that, but keeping the water clean and potable would be very
difficult. I would guess you'd need to have a special water tank made, and to
avoid detection or damage, it would probably need to be underground. How the
water would stay drinkable is another challenge.

Just saying that the logistics around long-term survival appear to be daunting
and expensive. Maybe those "crazy" survivalists are not so crazy after all.

~~~
drusepth
For water, you probably have much better luck finding a place (home) next to a
natural spring, while leaving the storage available in your home/bunker to
food rations and other supplies.

------
sandworm101
Why are rock climbers needed to get people out of lifts? Ive been stuck in a
couple. Opening the doors and climbing out didnt involve ropes, let alone a
fire department.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
A couple? I'd love to know where this can happen multiple times to the same
person so I can avoid it like the plague.

~~~
sandworm101
I used to work in film/TV. Power failures. Fire Alarms. I was in one elevator
that stopped because the overweight sensor was tripped. Getting out is
normally just a matter of forcing the doors.

------
CapitalistCartr
There is a book on the topic called "One Second After". I'm not a fan of it; I
think his scenario is excessively dark, but its worth reading. On a similar
note, living in Tampa, being prepared is on people's minds right now. No, you
can't borrow my chain saw!

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Second_After)

------
jessriedel
See this introduction to the global risk of geomagnetic storms from the Open
Philanthropy Project.

[http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/geomagnetic-storms-
intr...](http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/geomagnetic-storms-introduction-
risk)

------
drewg123
How vulnerable are off-grid solar setups to this sort of EMP?

~~~
thinkcontext
Charge controller, inverter and blocking diode could be fried. Keep spares in
a Faraday bag.

~~~
snowwindwaves
What about all the junctions on the solar cells? They are no different from
other transistors

------
dredmorbius
Speaking of resilience, this article fails to render under either Outline.com
or Pocket, due to JS dependencies and complexity.

------
BatFastard
If the North Korean's were not considering this before, they surely are now!

