Yeah. I'm no survivalist. But it takes almost trivial effort to plan just a little bit for redundancy. Maybe it's having lived off rice and beans for months or having gone camping as a kid. But living without electricity for a week or so doesn't seem that difficult if one's relatively healthy. Beyond a week, I think I'd start to have some trouble. I think CERT recommends 3 weeks of stockpiled resources. But it's difficult for me to imagine most renters achieving that, much less the [food|housing] insecure.
On 2/17/21 8:07 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > A couple Powerwalls are $14k, plus solar panels. There’s always the option > of stockpiling gas for a generator. When electricity is out gas stations > can’t pump. It has been like this for days in Oregon due to the consequences > of an ice storm. > >> On Feb 17, 2021, at 7:24 AM, Prof David West <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> Ted Koppel, NYT, wrote a book a few years back called "Lights Out." About >> the national power grid. >> >> When published in 2016, the quoted assessment of DoD, FEMA, DOE, >> Congressional Energy Committees, and others was a *100% chance of >> catastrophic failure within 20 years*. >> >> Death toll in the millions within days and weeks of the failure. >> >> The grid is an amalgam of mismatched hardware and, perhaps more importantly, >> software that prevents inter-operability — including within grid, e.g. >> Texas. (local power companies control what bespoke hardware and software is >> used: there are no standards). >> >> The grid is already infected with malware installed by Russia, North Korea, >> Iran, and China. >> >> The key components, giant house size transformers, cost from 10-150 million >> each and take 2-4 years to manufacture, so there are no backups. And best >> part — all are made in China. >> >> Despite the consensus that this _will_ happen in the near future, no one is >> planning for what to do about it. >> >> All kinds of other good news in the book. >> >> True story: in 1971 an intrepid band of revolutionaries set out, bombs in >> trunk, to blow up the railroad tracks between Salt Lake City, UT and >> Wendover, NV. Way out on the salt flats where no one would be hurt; trains >> given lots of advance warning. The rationale: nearly all of the ammunition >> used in Vietnam was transported by train from Baraboo, WI to San Diego, CA, >> via those tracks >> >> Six left Minneapolis and one by one they lost their zeal and commitment >> until 2 were left. Contacted by a co-revolutionary in Portland, plans were >> changed, bombs were transferred, and the colleague used them to take out a >> single power transmission line, a carefully selected nexus in the northwest >> power grid, and caused a two-day blackout that affected Portland up to >> Tacoma, WA. -- ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
