I just read it so Im still catching up.
The question and her answer got me thinking so now Im asking a new question along the same lines.
What about our other utilities?
OK so the electricity is out but I can live easily without that.
What about my water supply? Is it contingent on human intervention? For instance could I get life giving water from the faucet even after the electricity is gone?
And what about sewage?
If I flush the toilet will it go away and never return as Im currently used to? Or is that too something non zombie humans would have to continue to service?
And while we are at it how about the gas for my stove? Where and how am I getting that?
I guess the overall question is how long before we are reduced to collecting rain water, burning our furniture and using a bucket?
It scares me how much I know about the operation of the basic services I take for granted.
One key thing to note is that so many of the other utilities depend upon electricity as well. I noted in my article that natural gas pipelines needed electricity for their pressure regulation and controls. Water supply will work for a while in most areas, until the water towers have no more water to supply head. Depending upon how many people use water, and their consumption, and the size of the tower, you might expect water to last from hours to days.
Sewer services, if you have a sanitary sewer, also need powered equipment to operate. I wrote another Staff report on sewage systems a while ago… Eventually, with no power, the sewage systems will back up, backing all the way up to your street main access. Now if you have a septic tank, you can go for years, possibly decades, so long as you have water to flush.
I’m not certain if human intervention is required with water and sewer before electric power loss would be a problem. A water or sewer plant expert would have to give their opinion. I do know that one sewage plant I visited likely needed human intervention every 8 hours or so or else it could be shut down, but I do not know if that is typical.
You talking about all of them going out at the same time?
Sorry, but you’d be screwed if that were to happen. There would be anarchy within hours - even before the technical problems bite in a huge way, just because of the anticipation of them by the general population. No traffic lights, no power to pump gas, minimal medical services, sewers backing up onto the streets (disease), no fresh food…
Lots of roaming warlords shooting people for essential supplies, lots of cities burning unchecked, the list goes on.
The water supply still requires electricity as do those other things even if the electricity isn’t required every second for it to run. Many if not most municipalities use water towers to provide the pressure to homes and those require pumps to move the water up there in the first place. After that is gone, the pressure will go away. If you live in a place with some whacked out water system, the treatment system still requires electricity so the water will get more dirty fairly quickly.
Well, if you want to go off teh grid, to make biodiesel takes a vegetable oil, lye, alcohol and s spiffy machine that costs about $3K US. If you want to be anal about it, and lived on a farm in a zone that will grow fruit and olives, you could press your own oil and ferment the lees with some sort of crushed fruit to make a weak alcohol that can be distilled fairly easily. Lye can be produced by running the same batch of water through several changes of wood ash.
Said chemicals can be created with roman/greek tech and medieval tech.
The biodiesel can be used to run the car until the rubber/buna/gas-offable bits rot into unusability. The same biodiesel can be used to run a generator to pump your water from a well, light your house and electrify a fence=)
Electrical generators can also be made from copper wire wrapped and whirled around in a magnetic field. IIRC mother earth news back in the 70s had a plan for a homewrapped generator coil to be used with a wind mill. You could also generate with water powered wheel spinning the coil. Hell, make slaves trudge on a wheel to power the generator=)
Water can be pumped a fair distance and height with a series of archemedes screws and hydraulic rams.
Just because we today think in terms of letting the municipal utilities control the creation/purification/processing of our utilities doesnt mean we are lockstepped into ruin if civilization falls. Research ‘ancient tech’ online [while we have it in this zombie-free time] and see what is possible.