The Blog of Harald

Just in case you ever wanted to know, “The Straight Dope”:http://www.straightdope.com/ brings us:

When the zombies take over, how long till the electricity fails?

bq. How long the power supply would last in the most critical zombie situation depends on two key factors %u2013 first, how long a given power plant can operate without human intervention, and second, how long before enough power plants fail to bring down the entire transmission grid. I’ll ignore the side issues of whether the zombies would want to try to run the power plant themselves, or if they would be a union or non-union shop.

(If you’re lazy, the answer appears to be that:

bq. within 4-6 hours there would be scattered blackouts and brownouts in numerous areas, within 12 hours much of the system would be unstable, and within 24 hours most portions of the United States and Canada, aside from a rare island of service in a rural area near a hydroelectric source, would be without power. Some installations served by wind farms and solar might continue, but they would be very small. By the end of a week, I’d be surprised if more than a few abandoned sites were still supplying power.