The World Without Electricity

Technology Without Electricity

SOCIETY - Have you ever tried to imagine today's world without electricity? Personally, I think about it quite often when I start writing a new article if you know what I mean...

Have you ever tried to imagine today's world without electricity? Personally, I think about it quite often when I start writing a new article if you know what I mean.

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Don't expect a dark story with a pessimistic end-of-the-world vibe (although that's part of what might happen if our modern system were left without electricity) - I offer a reflection on our way of life 99% dependent on electricity.

Let's project ourselves in a hypothesis, not impossible at all, that one day (perhaps tomorrow) for a reason X (it can be any reason) the earth remains without electricity. And this - not for 2 days or a week, which happens to a village or an agglomeration after a storm or some technical collapse, but the whole planet without electricity and for an indefinite period.

What does this represent? Well, the fact that absolutely everything becomes non-functional.

Thinking about it, we can easily realize that we are even more dependent on this energy than on oil. Indeed, combustion engines can (should) be replaced by electric ones (what a benefit for the lungs and ears in cities...). Many engineers are already looking into electric planes today, although for now, the science is not strong enough to lift 150 tons (or more) 10,000 meters above the earth with a single electric battery.

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And it would seem that moving multi-thousand-ton ships across the globe now seems somewhat complex with electric motors and solar panels. But being of a realistic and pragmatic nature - I consider that it is a matter of time and that scientific thought will eventually be able to solve what today seems unachievable.

On the other hand, would there be a single area or aspect of our life, as we know it today (and in particular recent generations), which would not be affected or would not be based at least partially on electricity?

Everything works with electricity. Already starting with what you are reading - is not feasible without "moving charged particles". Let's say that I could write this article by hand, and then give it to read to my relatives, or at the limit to the neighbors. But only one person at a time. The fact that this article is read in Alaska, Australia, Easter Island, Russia, and South Africa simultaneously and instantly after its publication is simply unimaginable without electricity.

We cook with it, we wash the dishes and the laundry with it, we communicate with it, we start the car with it, we print, we photocopy and we make coffee with it, we light and heat ourselves with it, we take care of ourselves with it and we produce absolutely everything with ...

My reasoning is simple: on the day that reason X occurs (like a strong magnetic storm due to solar activity, for example) - within 48 hours humanity reverts to the Stone Age. And all its globalization and globalization with it. LOL! On the other hand, not LOL at all: we no longer have TV, radio, internet, telephone - no more communication. We no longer have stocked and refrigerated supermarkets, no more TGVs, no more water in the tap, etc.

Or even - imagine if we removed from our current system even ONE of its parameters...

Television and radio, despite our near dependence on its media - we could survive. Although I know some who would really struggle to fill their evenings... But imagine the suppression of the internet and, therefore, of all communication networks based on this invention - how many branches of modern human activity have stopped immediately, becoming totally incapable of functioning and thus paralyzing all the other links in the system? No need to draw a picture - the conclusion is obvious - all progressive society with human rights and the emancipation of women becomes like young children or like old people in a retirement home.

Humanity has become so dependent on its comfort, which is also 99% dependent on electricity, that finding itself without it overnight - the majority of humans (and in particular the developed countries) are neither able nor to light a fire with their bare hands, nor to defend himself without special tools, nor to preserve his food, nor to produce it in the quantity necessary to feed the 7 billion procreated thanks to the industrial revolution - due to electricity (and oil as well).

Thus, humanity, as intelligent as it is, risks becoming even more vulnerable and helpless than it was before the mastery of electricity.

In light of the said, the debates, particularly in France, on the exit from nuclear power should, in my opinion, above be preceded by the logical questioning - how to prevent and significantly reduce the overconsumption of current? Instead of seeking to satisfy the immeasurable and ever-growing "electrical appetites" with an economic calculation at the key.

Yes, we can say that there are more and more new technologies that make it possible to operate appliances without electricity that we cannot even imagine without being plugged into a socket, such as, for example, the radiative cooling fridge with natural water convection currents. It would still be wise to specify that such a fridge today requires 250 liters of water stored in the cooling circuit. Just imagine the volume of this device in your kitchen and you quickly realize that for the moment we are still far from the comfort to which we have been accustomed for several decades.

According to the report by IEA (the International Energy Agency), co-directed by the World Bank, in 2013 around 1.2 billion people still live without electricity.

These are 19th century (not to say 18th) in every sense of the word - no access to modern media and absence of all the attributes of contemporary life previously and profusely enumerated. Although they are, despite this, more adapted to (one would say) natural life and, therefore, more able to survive an "electrical disaster" terribly frightening for the Western way of life.