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agate_ t1_itnv2li wrote

There's a really great book called "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman that goes into detail about this and other related questions about how long the relics of humanity would stick around if we all disappeared.

He argues that the power would go out almost everywhere inside 24 hours. Power plants really do have a "driver" who decides how much to "step on the gas", and while there's some automation, a lot of the decisions happen by humans and involve manual work, like bringing new generators online as electricity use varies over the day, running a bulldozer to shovel coal into the loading hopper, and so on. If nobody does this, supply doesn't match demand, the grid gets overloaded, and circuit breakers start to trip. That shifts the load to other parts of the grid, overloading them and causing a cascading chain reaction. (This can happen even when the power workers are doing their jobs!)

Anyway, if you liked "Station Eleven", do check out "The World Without Us", it's a scientific look at the post-apocalypse and it's pretty great.

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larsattacks94 OP t1_itnxd8r wrote

Thank you so much! Just ordered the book, very excited to read it!

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hypatiatextprotocol t1_itoh547 wrote

This book is very good! I found it surprisingly peaceful to read descriptions of the earth continuing without us.

Best of luck to the animals currently in their Stone Age, inc. New Caledonian crows, macaques, and robust capuchin monkeys.

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