So you wake up today and nothing which works via electricity works anymore!

[PhaedrusZ]

And anything requiring batteries or an outlet will ever work again! Not now! Not ever! Without computers, the internet, cellphones, cars, air conditioning, refrigerators, jet planes, MP3 players, etc., how does your life change? I'd be trying to find my great-grandfather's pocket watch, which still "sort of works." And trying to buy a horse, a whole bunch of candles and canned food, etc. I know I wouldn't be very happy, but I'd survive.


PhaedrusZ

[Deogol]

A lot of times I wander off to the campgrounds or national parks and get lost for a few weeks (beauty of being a contractor.) I love it!

[Prester_John]

And anything requiring batteries or an outlet will ever work again! Not now! Not ever! Without computers, the internet, cellphones, cars, air conditioning, refrigerators, jet planes, MP3 players, etc., how does your life change? I'd be trying to find my great-grandfather's pocket watch, which still "sort of works." And trying to buy a horse, a whole bunch of candles and canned food, etc. I know I wouldn't be very happy, but I'd survive.


PhaedrusZ

It means there were massive EMP pulses, and aliens will be crawling out of the ground with tripods to turn half of us into ash, and harvest the other half to feed their red weed.

That horse aint gonna help ya.

[AudreyLeigh]

I never got that red stuff in that movie... and I ALSO didnt get - all electricity AND batteries wouldnt work yet the camcorder was on and recording - remember that in the beginning?? Guess it was a mishap by the director...

As per if there was no elect or batteries id make a fire and read a book... until the giant eye found me and killed me....

Id also like to know how the son made it to Boston... guess well never know...

[MojoJojo]

Hey.....no problem....DRUGS SEX LOVE

[Mia M]

I'd weep for days over the death of my vibrator... I don't like your hypothetical future!!!

[TJAndDani]

Going along with someones alien invasion theory. I kiss my Marine Corps tat, grab the gun collection and protect my car since it will still run with out any kind of ECU.

[tampafldancer]

i would mourn the death of stripperweb.

[big_daddy]

It would really suck, but I think I would live. I would go live with the Amish, they have done most of this forever I'm sure they would help out.

[pet_rock]

If electricity and electrical components were truly rendered completely inoperable, 90%+ of all people in industrialized nations would DIE...

...within a couple of days from mass panic and animalistic killings to grab resources.

...from lack of fresh water, within a week. Or from disease contracted from contaminated water shortly thereafter.

...food would run out next if you managed to have your own fresh water source.

Why? Because electricity is used in the production of EVERYTHING somewhere along the way nowadays--the infrastructure that was in place to support the population in the pre-electricity 1800's has been abandoned and could not be re-implemented quickly enough to support current population levels...

This is why a terrorist threat to the electrical grid is taken VERY seriously--and it's even scarier that it might be taken down by a computer hacker!

(BTW, TJandDani, if your car isn't a hand-crank diesel then by the given conditions the battery won't work to start it. And then you're still left with a Mad Max future where somehow you keep managing to find diesel fuel somewhere.)

[PhaedrusZ]

...Because electricity is used in the production of EVERYTHING somewhere along the way nowadays--the infrastructure that was in place to support the population in the pre-electricity 1800's has been abandoned and could not be re-implemented quickly enough to support current population levels...

This is why a terrorist threat to the electrical grid is taken VERY seriously--and it's even scarier that it might be taken down by a computer hacker!...

It is interesting to note we have secondary, maybe tertiary, and perhaps even beyond tertiary systems in our commercial jetliners. Yet, we don't have backup systems in place to prevent events considerably more important to the general population as a whole. As to the electric grid, is there some reason or reasons it has to be hooked into the internet at all? I don't know...just asking if anyone else does.


PhaedrusZ

[Niceguy]

This is a overall big view question of energy conversion in physics and technological applications. As many of you know Bush recently was at the Cat plant in Illinois.
Cats second best selling product right now are their commercial generator units able to put out up to 200,000 watts of emergency power. The power source being diesel, natural gas, or propane. I read somewhere that the United States has more backup generators
(owned by all sources not just government) than any other country in the world.

Things without the power grid would get tough, but there would be essential power
available as long as we can convert hydro carbon fuel into electricty using the back up power generators.

Like many semi rural areas of the midwest, I live in an area with municipal well water supplies. We need electricty to pump the water up to the storage tanks. Each of our
water districts nine well and storage tank locations has automatic emergency generators
for the water pumps.

No terrorist group could get all the power plants and all the transmission lines.
There are alot of peaker plants and smaller power plants. Rewiring the grid system on a temprary basis to bypass electricty bottleknecks would be needed, but not that hard to do.