Una Persson told us how long it would take from a zombie takeover to failure of the power grid. I’d like to ask a slightly different question. What if the operators of a nuclear power plant managed to keep the zombies out and the zombies didn’t start chewing any power lines? How long could they, cut off from the world, keep the plant running? Let’s assume they have food and drinking water, so all they need to do is keep the plant buzzing. How many of them would be needed (ie, how big a loss of life in the initial zombie breakout can be worked through)?
Another question: So I and a bunch of friends have barricaded ourselves in the basement, zombies swarming outside. We have access to a stationary bike, a dynamo and assorted equipment, and a couple of guys who can rig up whatever we need. How much power can we reasonably get out of the bike? What would we need to get it functioning like we wanted to?
Were you perhaps thinking of something else? Refueling is usually a process which involves personnel and equipment not located on-site, so while it’s possible the workers at a plant could refuel it themselves, I don’t think it would be likely unless they had some lead-time and extra folks. One thing I’m not sure about is where the new fuel is stored, if it’s on-site or off-site, and so there’s another variable to consider.
The plant itself might run as long as the experts say. But what about the rest of the infrastructure?
The plant makes electricity and sends it down a main line. A few miles away there are substations, grid interties, etc. As those items fail /trip the power will go off to everything downstream of those points.
If they fail in certain ways, they may make it impossible to send power down the line to them, e.g. if they’re now a dead short to ground. Which will fail or trip the next device/station upstream.
The net effect after not very long would be the plant couldn’t send its electricity anywhere because their outbound lines all have failures not far from the plant itself.
Yeah, I read that. So that’s how long the guys at the plant - cut off from the rest of the world - could keep the plant operating? They don’t need anything other than fuel from the outside?
How many people are there usually at a plant, and what’s the approximate minimum number to keep it running?
Well, as long as the plant doesn’t break down, yeah. I’m being a bit over-simplistic, and may not fully understand your question. OK, let me be more nitpicky - potable water could be a problem, as could food. Few power plants store a lot of food on-site (Mt Storm in Virginia, a coal plant which often is snowed in, had a large kitchen with lots of food last time I was there, but that is an exception). There may be no more than 1-2 days worth of food on-side in vending machines at some plants.
There could be from 50-500 people at the plant depending on how many units there are (plants are made up of generating units, and while there is a lot in the way of shared resources, you do need more folks as there are more units).
OK, that’s how long they go normally, but there’s zombies outside and they need to go as long as they can “to save the world” (somehow). Will it just cut off at some point, or could they keep it going at reduced power for a lot longer?
This could bring the plant down. The plant would need water for the cooling towers. If they are on local wells they would be OK but if they were getting the makeup water from the city water system that could doom the plant.
IIRC, it was a cascaded failure of this sort which caused the great midwestern blackout a few years ago. One power plant failed due to monumental human idiocy, and its failure in turn caused many others to fail.
Looking to the OP’s second question: Humans using a stationary bicycle to provide backup household electricity after the zombies have ruined the public supply …
Cobbling together a few factoids
The guy who flew the first human-powered aircraft was a professional bicycle racer. Using bike pedals connected to the propellor he was able to put out about 3/4ths of a horsepower (HP) for about 10 minutes & was exhausted at the end.
3/4ths of a HP is roughly 550 watts.
An non-athlete human can sustain about 0.1 HP or about 75 watts.
Typical whole-path losses on mechanical to electrical conversion for homebrew gear are 10-20%, yeilding a net electrical output of 450-500 watts for the athlete or 60-70 watts for the human.
So by pedaling as hard as you could sustain for an hour or more, you can power a small TV OR a single light bulb OR a laptop. But not even two of them at once. You can’t run a coffee maker or a desktop PC. And when you quit pedaling, the power stops instantly.
I say plan on cold meals in the dark unless you’ve got candles. And playing WoW is right out.
Quite true. When nuke plants are located far from hotels, it is not uncommon for them to have on-site accomidations for the “seasonal” workers needed for refueling operations. I spent a week in such during the “off season” at the ~3.8 GW installation at Ringhals Sweden. It was about an hour drive one way to the nearest resteraunt beyond pizza or chinese takeout.
You could make a path through the many many miles of security fences that leads to a boom box playing a tape of people talking in the middle of a room made out of fence.
Wait for a zombie to make his way in and close the door behind him (you want the door to be automatic, if possible, to avoid being near zombies). When he gets to the fence room you snipe his head off from a safe distance away. BAM
Free zombie meat.
Hey… I didn’t say it was a great menu, but you could survive on it if you had to.
Note that was the best the athlete could do for only 10 minutes and was then wiped out, versus the sustained output of a schlub like me. So a fair comparison is probably (WAG) more like 3 or 4 to 1 when measured over the same timeframe.
Bike racers are generally more marathoners than sprinters.
If I was running from zombies I think setting up a bike so I could run a coffee maker would be the least of my concerns. I’m a coffee addict but even I’d let it go in favor of running for my life.