Comment on The U.S. Just Ran a Solar Storm Emergency Drill. The Real Deal Would Be a Catastrophe

ouRKaoS@lemmy.today ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• Tire@lemmy.ml ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I don’t think it will matter. We need modern logistics to produce and get food to people. Without that 90% of people will starve in the first few months.

  It’s good to have supplies for regional disasters and events that only last a few weeks or months. But if the national grid is going to be out for a year or more and things like fuel and food can’t be transported and stored at key locations then it’s all going to shit.

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  • limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    A hundred years ago most food was grown a days walk away from a person. With no Diesel production or distribution, which some flairs knock out, there is no warehouse refrigeration.

    Even with reserves, there are spare parts drying up. Trucks, ships and planes need constant work.

    Some areas would get by, grains and beans can be moved without all that. Probably a huge percentage would survive. Barely

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• drmoose@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I have an old safe where i keep some old tech and power banks - just junk really but the Faraday is enough for any solar flare and i think it looks cool. Not sure what good that would do if all cell towers and satellites are fried though. Even fiber is unlikely to operate as I imagine most switches are not secured.

  Last time I did research on this I came out entirely unconvinced of value of prepping here. Just the usual water, gas stove and bags of rice is really best bet and invest everything else back to local communities because economies of scale kicks ass.

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  • futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    the Faraday is enough for any solar flare

    Faraday cages are useful. But CMEs are not solar flares. They are very different (though sometimes loosely correlated) phenomena.

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  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    During the recent Iberian Peninsula Blackout, which in practice meant a whole day without power and most of it without water, thanks to a past phase of mine as a bit of a prepper I:

    • Had a windup radio which I used to keep up with what was going on and some entertainment-
    • Quickly concluded that the water supply of the city I live in was likely to get compromised because the pumps are powered from mains so the first thing I did when I got home was fill a bunch of containers with water, most of which I ended up using. Also I already 10L of drinking water stored just in case.
    • Had some freeze dried food so wasn’t worried about running out of food (though 1 days is not enough to empty normal food reserves so much that you ended up having to use that).
    • My habbit of having some cash with me meant I could buy a bit of extra food from a local grocer which was open at the start of the blackout.

    Anyway, my point is not to go full prepper, my point is that some elements of that minset and practices will cover the kind of far more common problems with will leave you without power and water for a few days.

    One thing I did find out is that I probably need something like a solar powered powerbank for loading my tablet since that’s how I mostly read books nowadays (didn’t actually need one in this blackout as it was of just a day), so I’ve ordered one.

    Little things that mean you don’t actually get unecessary stress in a situation like this.

    It’s not something that is going to save you from nuclear holocaust or in general the collapse of human civilization, but it will save you from spending days without food or water or the stress of not knowing what’s going on, such as in such a long and unsual blackout, a flood or other similar more frequent catastrophes.

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  • progandy@feddit.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Do you replace the power banks to keep them charged to 70%? Maybe also add some ham radios and walkie talkies to the stash.

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    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There are powerbanks with solar cells and even in a day which is not sunny, those things will slowly charge the powerbank if you leave under natural light for a few hours (from what I read you get roughly half the rated power from solar cells in a cloudy day).

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    • drmoose@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah it’s a safe in my office and I often go back to it for small projects so the stuff mostly works and in good contion just instead of a plastic box its a big ol’ iron safe as a lazy precaution and decoration.

      One note on safe as a Faraday though is that it has to be a full metal without any rubber seals as any gaps will leak so an old safe is often perfect for this. It also needs to be closed so you want to disable the lock as it’s pita to use otherwise and you’ll never touch the devices there.

      As you pointed out key to sustainable tech is that it has to be used from time to time as if you just put it away in a basement or something it might as well be as good as dead.

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• GreenKnight23@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  you cab use it unless you have it.

  get what you need, take what you want.

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