# How long could we last w/o electricity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 3, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319 "2004-10-03T13:58:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/41 "2004-10-05T19:07:15Z")
over in Baghdad they’re having to do without power for most of the day. The city hasn’t disintegrated into mobs running around like headless chickens. They are coping, and getting on with life, somehow. If the terrorists weren’t stirring the pot things would be even more bearable ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/42 "2004-10-05T21:12:40Z")
> [@jester21](#): > > …The form of electricity that powers every piece of modern technology (as opposed to the electricity that powers every living creature and lightning for that matter) is suddenly gone… There are not two “forms” of electricity, there are only differences among means of producing it. If electricity itsself disappears through some sudden change in the laws of the universe, we will all be dead before we can even register the change. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/43 "2004-10-05T23:39:40Z")
> [@rainy](#): > > You’ve got to remember, people are basically good and are more than willing to step up to the plate to help each other out. “Goodnight John-Boy, goodnight Mary Ellen”. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/44 "2004-10-06T00:35:17Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > I may have missed a mention, but a recent science fiction novel depicted this exact scenario. _Dies the Fire_ by S.M. Stirling depicts one version of what happens if electricity stopped. Robert Silverberg’s novel _The Alien Years_ includes one section where alien invaders turn the power off for a couple of years in retalliation for the humans getting uppity. He deals with a few of the logical consequences of electrical equipment suddenly becoming useless. If I remember right, nothing more complicated than a piezoelectric spark worked. Any kind of flow was…canceled somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/45 "2004-10-06T01:54:06Z")
I’m really havinf trouble coming to grips with the suppositions in the OP, so I’ve started a separate thread about [how the situation posited in the OP could actually come about.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5334015#post5334015) ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/46 "2004-10-06T18:23:58Z")
> [@jester21](#): > > Don’t forget the Amish 😃 Though… I’d wonder if they’d even notice. Except when people stopped showing up to buy thier quilts and pies. :smack: While the Amish may not have electricity at their homes, they still “use” it. Amish are not against modern medical care in hospitals and they shop at the same stores that we do, all of which require electricity. I’ll concede that they would be impacted less but would still feel the crunch of no electricity. ---
**Author:** ![ntcrawler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/34f0e0/32.png) [@ntcrawler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ntcrawler)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/47 "2004-10-07T23:51:15Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > Aren’t you all overlooking something? > > No electricity = No SDMB = humankind doomed to future of ignorance, unanswered questions and unranted rants. > > Pretty bleak. But why would it be the end of the Straight Dope? This column started out in a printed format before the Internet was in widespread use. We might lose the message board as we know it, but not the weekly column, published in a newspaper, which for decades was produced using equipment that did not rely on electricity. We would simply substitute lively townhall meetings among members discussing interesting threads to pass the long hours without television and radio. A good cute for ignorance if any 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/48 "2004-10-08T15:16:29Z")
Our current society is incredibly dependant on logistics and information. Without electricity of any kind, the inability to move stuff in trucks would end up killing many within at most months, probably sooner. Look at it from an economic viewpoint: The city man has nothing of value to trade farmer Brown for his eggs or wheat. Since city man has starving kiddies, he may try to take from farmer Brown. Farmer Brown doesn’t like that, and people get hurt. Killed. Those who will function as security to Farmer B., or have the manpower to take from him, will have reason to exist - they have something to trade for the resources they need. Same for some skilled trades. The rest will have only unskilled labor to offer, demand for which will be minimal. Odds are, you will develop a pretty nasty society, where the surviving unskilleds are a seperate class - harcore feudalism or even slavery. Yes we’ve had non-electricity based societies for ages. They were much smaller than what we have today. They would be again. Getting there would be painful. ---
**Author:** ![SlyFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SlyFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlyFrog)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/49 "2004-10-08T22:06:36Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > Our current society is incredibly dependant on logistics and information. > Without electricity of any kind, the inability to move stuff in trucks would end up killing many within at most months, probably sooner. > > Look at it from an economic viewpoint: The city man has nothing of value to trade farmer Brown for his eggs or wheat. That might be the case if Farmer Brown were only growing enough food for himself on a small patch of land. If Farmer Brown has extra food, he gains nothing from hording it, but does gain if City Man can come up with something to give Farmer Brown, even if it is just dirt simple labor. On the other hand, if Farmer Brown is only growing enough food for himself on a small patch of land, there will be additional land available for City Man to grow his own food (likely with the advice of Farmer Brown, with the proviso that City Man give some of his harvest to Farmer Brown). You can’t have it both ways - presuming that Farmer Brown will have sole control over the huge swaths of land that only modern vehicles (using electricty) can gainfully work such that he locks everyone else out of the property, but at the same time presuming that the technology to allow modern vehicles is gone. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/50 "2004-10-09T00:36:29Z")
I think people are being way too optimistic in assuming we can just re-adopt pre-electronic methods and everything else will stay the same. One thing to keep in mind is that prior to electricity, the world had a much smaller population. I’ve worked on a farm and I appreciate how much technology goes into raising crops. Without electricity you’re going to see something like a 75% drop in farm output which obviously is going to soon result in widespread starvation. It’s true that human society could probably survive without electricity with a population of a billion people. But I don’t expect the other five billion people would voluntarily agree to quietly remove themselves from the picture. ---
**Author:** ![SlyFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SlyFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlyFrog)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/51 "2004-10-09T02:51:29Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > I think people are being way too optimistic in assuming we can just re-adopt pre-electronic methods and everything else will stay the same. One thing to keep in mind is that prior to electricity, the world had a much smaller population. I’ve worked on a farm and I appreciate how much technology goes into raising crops. Without electricity you’re going to see something like a 75% drop in farm output which obviously is going to soon result in widespread starvation. > > It’s true that human society could probably survive without electricity with a population of a billion people. But I don’t expect the other five billion people would voluntarily agree to quietly remove themselves from the picture. I agree. But I also think people are forgetting that not having electrical tools to farm the land will drastically reduce how much land each individual farmer can possibly work, and will therefore reduce the “land crunch” some people are discussing. ---
**Author:** ![EvilGhandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@EvilGhandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilGhandi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319/52 "2004-10-09T10:30:32Z")
Sorry I don’t follow. What exactly happens here? Does electricity cease to exist? What would stop undamaged localaties from disconnecting from the grid and re-powering their local areas? Internal combustion engines generate electritity to keep them running. What breaks down then? Just the power coming out of wall outlets? Then we run new wire to the power plants. Do all power plants explode on the same day? This is more feasable. There is a cobalt compond used in power plant bearings that could be suspest. Unfortunatly the same compound is used in all the nuclear missle triggers ever built. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-could-we-last-w-o-electricity/267319.md?page=2)