I recently made another thread regarding a power outage at a national level happening yesterday. As you may have guessed by the title of this thread, this will be a reference to that incident, and how we are allowing similar incidents to happen and each time to a greater scale.

So, how bad was it to lose electricity at a national level? Well, beyond emergency services and railways, many people were left at home absolutely powerless. In my flat, for example, everything uses electricity: the kitchen, the windows, the heater... And many more people is in the same situation, simply because it's easier and simpler and some even say more modern.

Yesterday, all of that seemed bulls*** to me. With a standard kitchen we could have kept cooking as usual, with a gas-heater nothing would have happened, and so on. We do have alternatives, yet we opt to discard them and focus everything on a single source. It simplifies things, I agree, but lose that only source and you're f***ed. Yesterday, we had a massive blow of reality towards that. And in my case it was nothing because it's only me and my girlfriend at home, imagine a family with children how things could have been.

Now, think about all other uses for electricity we want to introduce. The first and foremost example is transport. Electric vehicles would have stopped functioning, imagine how many cars could have been left stranded in the middle of a street, imagine buses not working... It would have been the greatest chaos ever. And yet that's the future we're aiming for. Because we're stupid and keep relying on a single source.

Think about the second greatest example: digital currency. Without electricity we can't use any digital method of payment, so we wouldn't be able to get any supplies until the network and electricity returned. So even if the supermarket has a generator of its own, we wouldn't be able to get anything there. We did go to a supermarket that had its own auxiliary supply, but only cash could be used. And if we already rely too much on credit cards, imagine if cash stopped existing altogether. Which is another future they're aiming at.

Didn't we learn anything about using only petrol-engined vehicles back in time? Nope, we didn't. We also don't learn about having everything in your phone and therefore not needing anything else, but lose your phone or leave it forgotten somewhere and you're cooked. And obviously, we haven't learned about relying on a single provider of energy or whatever, because why the hell should we bother?

All the government and other institutions say is "stay safe". Stay safe from you, you mean? Because you're the ones instigating many of the changes society undergoes. And if we divert from your imposed measures we're the ones being prosecuted, even if that means staying safe in a case of emergency you can't predict nor protect us against. You're only driving us further into "secrecy", so to speak, who would like to be connected to anything you give us when this is the treatment we receive in exchange?

Sincerely, after what happened yesterday, I've lost all remaining (little) hope I had in this world. And yes, as much as I can, I will try to have backups whether or not the government wants me to have them, and if that means "becoming illegal" I give well below zero f***s. I don't want to be at the expense of such an incident destroying our entire life because of doing what the ones supposed to work for us say.

I honestly would like governments all over the world to snap out of it and realize the great future they think of isn't as perfect as it sounds, and that whatever reason they give for trying to reach such future is of zero value against how vulnerable and exposed you become to incidents/attacks/failures like the one we experimented yesterday.

Stop aiming for a world that can be shutted down entirely with ease and think of ways that can let us have some sort of life even if such an accident happens. And don't say you will reduce reaction times or anything, we don't want a faster recovery of what we lose but rather avoid losing everything.

Sorry for the long rant and the somewhat obscene language, but I couldn't contain myself. The entire situation of yesterday made me furious, and after realizing what I've poured in this thread I just simply couldn't keep it in.

I think diversification of energy sources is generally a good idea, and I do agree with some of the points you are making, but there are three major factors here that you didn't seem to address: environmental impact, safety, and cost. It isn't just about simplicity.

The environmental activists are the ones that want to eliminate energy sources. Gasoline was always a target, until they decided that they hate Elon Musk more than they hate gas-powered cars. Natural gas and propane are on the chopping block too; here in the US there has been a big push to ban gas stoves for climate and health related reasons. I'm not sure if it's the same in Europe or not. The climate activists want everything to be electric, even though electricity is largely generated by power plants that burn fossil fuels.

That being said, everything in my house is electric, and I actually prefer it that way. With an electric stove, electric water heater, and electric heating and cooling, I don't have to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning. I don't have to worry about a puff back, which both my step-mom and grandparents had to deal with in their home due to their oil water heater malfunctioning. The risk of anything catastrophic happening to my home or the people in my home is lower.

It is also much more affordable. Because I have solar panels on my house, my electric bill is only $32 a month. $32 a month to power everything in my house. If I diversified my energy sources, I would be spending a lot more.

And yes, it is a bit annoying when the electricity goes out. My wife and I lost power for several days last fall when Hurricane Milton hit. It would've been nice to have a stove to cook with, or hot water in our showers, like I had growing up when the power went out. But we were fine. It was only a slight inconvenience.

tgags123 : I can tackle those three major factors with a single word: investment. Many people don't remember there were electric cars in the 19th century and they were much better than petrol-engined cars of the time, until investigation and perseverance eventually allowed petrol engines to gain the upper hand and soon everybody forgot about electric cars, only going back to them when society started pushing against the use of fossil fuels. If we had kept electric cars even if as a niche of sorts, electric cars today would be far more advanced and, who knows, Elon Musk wouldn't have been the figure he is today.

Thus, if companies don't invest in investigation and simply follow the flow of things, we're doomed to make the same mistake again and again. Everything is less safer and costs more when it's a new concept. See all-in-one computers for example, ten years ago they were expensive and unreliable and now they can best traditional PCs at their same price, somewhat rendering them obsolete or secluded for gaming purposes.

If we got the electric stove it's because it was researched into and was found to be such an incredible alternative, and the same goes to the electric water heater. When they first appeared people labelled them as abominations, now they're the preferred choice by both consumers and producers. But because they persevered, they managed to become better than the traditional competition, and with that were able to change the opinion of the world.

With the current technology we have, staying with a single power source is ridiculous. I agree that we fully know electricity, we can produce it via various methods (sustainable or not), but it should just be that, an alternative or/and a stepping stone to explore if other energies can achieve its same results or better. There may not be such an option, but depriving us of the chance without even considering it is a fatal mistake.

I sincerely don't complain about having electricity as my only source. The kitchen is much more safer and I can safely hold the water heater close to me. But choosing that depends on the housing, its distribution and other variables. I didn't get to choose since I didn't build my flat nor I can make any such change for being rented, but if it was my whole propierty then I'd like to have a choice.

Oh, and solar panels aren't an option over here. Electric companies bitterly battle against us being able to produce energy for our own consumption because it reduces their benefits. No joke, they even created a special tax for those who had solar panels at home (they probably took it down for social pressure, but it did exist formally for a time). While this is another kind of problem, it goes on to show we still rely on just a single source and limited providers, thus leaving us open for incidents like that and without a chance of evading them.

I was perfectly fine without power. I have solar-charged lamps for my terrace and a flashlight to combat these situations, and also ways to pass the time. It was a great inconvenience at a personal level for my medication (needs to remain in the fridge to be usable) and because all my work is done on a computer. Without communications it was much worse because we couldn't know anything, nor even convene with my parents who do have a gas-powered kitchen and heater, but we would have found a way around it if it lasted for long.