After Electricity - Looking at a Possible Future

Here at College Hill Farm we enjoy the comfort of Electricity. We set our thermostat and the electric heat comes on and goes off without any great concern. This is a recent convenience. Many preppers today worry about the electric grid going down. They estimate that human civilization will collapse if an electromagnetic storm of proportion enough to take out our electrical grid hits the planet or they prep for a great EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) attack. I am here to tell you that the electrical grid going down will not be the end of society!

We are only 2 generations away from non electric homes. My grandparents didn’t have electricity till they were in their late 30’s. Mom and Dad probably got electricity when she was in her teens. Automobiles were becoming very common in Appalachia long before electricity was. Oh sure some of the cities had electricity and some of the coal mines had electricity but most of the rural areas didn’t get widespread electrical service until probably the 1950’s.

In 1940, Appalachian Electric Cooperative borrowed money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). These funds were used to buy the existing electric facilities in the area.  TVA furnished them power. Today they have many subsidiaries and too many to mention here but they were one of the first utilities to enter Central Appalachia. Most of the rural communities in Appalachia didn’t get electric power until the late 1950’s. So we are talking about only 70 years or so since electricity came to the mountains in full force.  That is generally a single lifetime. There are people alive today that did without electricity growing up. It is truly a modern convenience.

Yes, we could live off grid like the Amish and do okay. They use propane and other modern conveniences too. I don’t want to go to that. I remember the times going out and harvesting wood and coal for heat. It was good warm heat and we were sure glad to have it on a cold January night. But, I sure do like my heat pump. If I am not feeling good today I don’t have to go out and bring in the coal. But would society stop? Would our society implode at the loss of electricity?

I am not saying it wouldn’t be hard. We have become so accustomed to hitting a light switch and the light comes on. It would be hard to imagine a time when it didn’t happen. The younger generation would have a harder time adjusting than us old timers. But, they would adjust much quicker once they wrapped their head around what was necessary. I would have an exceptionally hard time in the summers without air conditioning. The food system we are used to would grind to a halt. There would be no refrigeration. Five or six years to restore the grid could be a very real thing. We would have a very hard time transporting the needed supplies around to everyone. Our populations are very far flung. People live in some of the most rural areas of the world but still have electrical power. They would get their power back last.

If you look at a map of where people live in the US the bulk of our population is along the two coastlines. Approximately seventy percent of our population live within 100 miles of the coast. That population density is impressive but it is nothing compared to the population density of places like Europe, Malasia, China, etc. The interior of the US is basically empty in comparison. Those populations will require massive amounts of food to survive for those six years without power. When electricity goes down so does our capacity to produce so many things, i.e. oil, gas, natural gas, propane, etc. Thus the transportation industry would go to a crawl. There just aren’t too many coal and wood fired trains anymore. I imagine the few that are left would be called into service.

If we look back before the 1920’s most of the population congregated around rail lines. The US has a vast rail service. Maw – dads mom – used to talk about riding the passenger train into Evarts and Harlan to trade AKA go to the store. It would have to go back to that. Gasoline would be in short supply. Preppers imagine Mad Max but I imagine more along the lines of Grapes of Wrath. Those who have will continue to have. Those at the bottom will be at the mercy of the winds that blow. This could cause unrest. I imagine that the flow of medicines, fertilizers and valuable chemicals will be delayed considerably.

Before electricity they used manures as fertilizers. I have even helped plow with a mule in my youth. I don’t know if I could do it now. I am a member of the Gravy Seals – fat and over 50. I have the knowledge but maybe not the stamina. Modern fertilizer has caused our overpopulation. We can produce, with modern fertilizer, about enough food for 11 billion people. However, without it we can probably support only about 2 billion people on the planet. Our current population sits at about 8 billion. This in and of itself will cause world strife and famine. Great migrations of people will occur as they have all through history when resources became scarce. Then there are the medications.

Here in the US we have a pill for everything. Many people need them to survive for any length of time. Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc. all will take their toll on the existing folks. Without electricity many medications will not be made nor distributed. There will be groups of people that will use this as a means to an end buying, selling, and embargoing. Back before electricity and the advent of modern medicine people died of simple diseases like Croup, Measles, Strep Throat, Finger Cut from Work, Broken Leg, all things that are easily treatable today. Then malnutrition will rear its ugly head and many will succumb to pneumonia, flu, and other diseases. The most common cause of death in world war one was not artillery but disease and war related famine. Back home most of the ones that died back in the day were the most vulnerable of society, the children. My family graveyard is littered with small graves. Most are from before 1950 when vaccines started becoming widely available and the first antibacterial drugs.

I know this all sounds like the collapse of society. However, don’t get me wrong, it will mean there will be strife. There will be conflict of one type or another. But society will not end. World War I was fought long before widespread electricity usage! Humans have been fighting wars, moving goods, and establishing cities since before there was written language maybe as many as 11,000 years ago. Electricity is a modern construct. We will lose many things but the knowledge and engineering ability will still be with us. There will be no need to reinvent the wheel just modify and modernize it. So society will not really collapse but it will be remade.

I imagine how society will be remade. American Mythology is strong with the people in the US. We imagine this country as being the best in the world. We are at least the wealthiest in the world. When you compare us to other nations we even have houses for our cars. Imagine families in the third world looking at what we have. A little over 1 billion people do not have access to electricity today. Only about 87% of the world populations have access to electricity.  Will they miss it? I don’t know. But I would wager that 87% would lament it gravely. I know I would. To that end I have purchased ten 250 watt solar panels as a backup generator – caught a real deal at $40 per panel. But the truth is without a storage capacity they will be only usable on days that the sun is shining. So I will have to have batteries to store the excess electric. How long do batteries last? How long will my equipment keep functioning. I am hoping for 5 or 6 years – note the timeline. But in the meantime I just want them to run my refrigeration on College Hill Farm and save some money on an expensive energy use. Be sure to tune in for those upcoming installation videos.

I hope this finds you well and that you are getting on well. I try not to worry too much about these things. People have been looking for the second coming for a long time. There have been so many times people have predicted the end of the world and it has not come. If you think that before there is any real apocalypse Jesus will come back just ask the folks who lived through ww1 and ww2 if that happened. Faith is just that, faith and if you are waiting for your afterlife reward to do something to help the earth or the people on it you need to wake up. We are all in this together. Be good stewards of the earth. Put love thy neighbor into practice and action. But, also remember that Life and Homesteading are a Marathon not a Sprint – Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride. 

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