re: Experts Warn Civilian World Not Ready For Massive EMP Caused Blackout

quote:

---

okay i'll spell it out for you.

---

Oh, please do.

quote:

---

it's not going to depend on an "arse load of energy" if everything is shut down. the first priority would be to get the basic electrical infrastructure up and running, which would be done with diesel powered generators at first.

---

The arse load of energy referenced was to run the machine that is America in the first place every day.

And yes, that is the first order of business, and while people are trying to feed themselves, drink water, avoid disease, and kill every human they think may have something that can extend their life by another day in the process, all while that grid is being rebuilt.

The question I asked was simply where you think all this endless amount of diesel is coming from to operate manufacturing plants and facilities in order to rebuild the entire country's electric grid and replace and rewire the entire fricking country, and how they are going to keep them fueled whole battling the bigger concerns with people dying in the streets and the disease that comes with corpses as well?

It's a frick ton to think about and deal with all at one time. That was the point.

quote:

---

which would be done with trucks, that are also powered by diesel. i'm not saying that it would be just some slight inconvenience, i am saying that your pulled-out-of-your-arse estimate of

---

With the magic diesel raining down from the sky in the magic new trucks manufactured after the EMP blast to magically rewire 350 million people over one of the largest geographic areas in the world.

A decade may very well be a bit too optimistic, but then I don't want to give you too much to think about all at once.

quote:

---

I think the fear is, if the entire grid goes down, even if it is just a few small easily repairable parts in each transformer or generator or whatever, is that it would be so widespread that we would be fricked. Death by a thousand paper cuts.

---

The problem is not the electrical grid anyway. If someone is firing nuclear missles at us to take out our grid, we are most likely going to be firing nuclear missles back. This is going to be a very very large war, we aren't just going to sit back and worry about our electricity when someone most likely did it as a prelude to an invasion or annihilation. We will be wanting to get the war machine going which will be much easier than getting neighborhoods back up and running.

quote:

---

The question I asked was simply where you think all this endless amount of diesel is coming from to operate manufacturing plants and facilities in order to rebuild the entire country's electric grid and replace and rewire the entire fricking country, and how they are going to keep them fueled whole battling the bigger concerns with people dying in the streets and the disease that comes with corpses as well?

---

i'd say that the existing diesel supplies would immediately be used in conjunction with existing standby generators to first repair cogen stations at several of the major refineries. if you're talking about a world-wide electrical grid collapse (which is incredibly unlikely, but even still) you would also use standby generators and existing diesel supplies to repair motors for use in pumping oil. this is not a huge task, and with the worlds best engineers and contractors bearing down on it %100, this first step wouldn't take more than a year. i am making this statement based on about 10 years of power distribution engineering experience within petrochemical plants. the rest of the petrochemical production line is mechanical and process based and would therefore be unaffected by an EMP.

once you get some refineries and their cogen stations back on line, you can set the engineers and contractors on the task of repairing the primary power generation stations and transmission lines, which i have less experience with, but it can't take more than another year or two for these to happen (the primary power generators are similar to the ones used in petrochemical plants).

surely the rest of the world would be fighting for survival, but you can guarantee that the powers that be (the gov't & military) would protect (and even forcibly press into service) the engineers and manufacturers necessary to bring the power distribution infrastructure back online, if for no other reason than to keep themselves in (political) power. if there's one thing you can count on a politician for, it's to watch out for himself.

Everything would revert back into the analog eara and depending on what catastrophic events took place before and after a global scale EMP blast.

Fox Fire books would all immediately become more valuable than gold.

I span back into the pre airconditioning days but not the power and telephone.

Lack of critical medicines would kill the weak and sick first then disease and mayhem would surely play an attrition level on mankind.

Toothpaste, refined sugar, coffee would be things I would miss besides AC current and household air conditioning.

Townships would form as forts once again I would imagine just makes you wonder how long we would stay in the dark ages this time?

1000 years like the last time civilization fell...

I took the blue pill

quote:

---

you are a doomsday prepper arent you?

---

Not really at all, save my basic hurricane provisions and cured meat and veg for emergencies of the like. Something like this does have a precedent in recent history and would make Katrina look ridiculously silly in size and scope.

I'm in the reserves. I steal one box of MREs per month. That's 12 3000 calorie meals per box. I've got about 20 boxes now. Stretch that to 2 meals per day and I figure I can feed a family of four for a few weeks.

If you wonder what is recommended for 1 year of food check out below link. From the Mormons, who recommend their members have at least 1 year of food on hand.

Food Storage Calculator

After the tornado hit here several years ago, I decided to keep a 2 week supply for food and water. However this is kinda addictive, I keep adding to the supply. If you take the recommendations from the website above I have about 7 months on hand now. My goal is 18 months I have packaged things in ways to keep them edible long term (some things have a shelf life of 15 years). I do not buy or save anything I do not currently eat so I am not buying a bunch of stuff that I wont ever eat.

I also am a hunter and like to fish. If the SHTF and I can survive for a year, most of y'all will have killed each other or starved to death.