powergrid

[glitterboy2098]

ok, so we know that the golden age had some really good power technology. Reliable and compact nuclear power supplies. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. whatever miracle capacitors make E-clips work. with that in mind, i've been wondering.

would important sites (major businesses, hospitals, etc) have switched from Diesel generators over to compact nuclear or SOFC emergency backup power? (since both would offer much longer duration before needing refueling, as well as much smaller generating hardware and fuel storage.)
and would more places invest in such things than just big businesses, medical facilities, and government offices?

would things like Street lights be fitted with a kind of 'mini e-clip' to let them shine in a lower power mode even when there is a blackout? and if so how long would they last (assuming that high efficiency low power drain bulbs are involved here, since that is the current trend)

one trend today is houses and buildings being designed with solar or wind power that feeds into a battery/capacitor bank, and any power generated that isn't used by the building being fed into the city power grid. would such set ups keep localized power going for awhile? for like building internal lights, light up signs, etc? (while solar is obviously useless with the cloud cover, wind power might still function)


couple of reasons why this might matter:
Atmosphere. a city that still has some working lights, signs, etc can go a long way to improving the descriptive nature of the game. a lone streetlight is obviously going to be more poignant than total darkness, and not to mention if lights and power still work in some buildings, it lets a GM manipulate their players more. (since lights and active machines would liekly be taken as a sign of a survivor enclave and thus safety by players. not to mention that it allows for things like characters instinctively flipping the light switches as they enter the room to occasionally not just be a useless instinct of modern living)

gather points. buildings that still have power would be obvious places for survivors to gather. power means light and heat, which means better survival. not to mention the ability to recharge things like radios and other electronics that might be vital to survival. and the odds that there is some form of medical equipment and/or kitchen functioning.

Logistics. kinda ties into the above. most weapons used by NEMA are energy weapons, and they use a lot of electronic gear.a nuclear or SOFC equipped building would make a good base of operations because they could tap into the generators to run their gear and recharge some of their equipment. offsetting their own limited supply of portable generators.

[RockJock]

Interesting question. I would definitely expect hospitals, police stations and similar to have a compact nuclear pack, or at the least something like a hydrogen fuel cell/battery systems to last days, or more. Farms and rural locations might have more solar/wind then they do today, with crucial buildings having a nuke.

There is a whole strategy of building less big power plants with carrier lines and long on/off starting cycles and moving more towards localized systems that come on and off to supplement renewable sources.

[eliakon]

Looking at the prices of a nuclear power plant for a vehicle...
I would say YES major businesses and especially places like hospitals, laboratories, factories, police stations and other such locations will have nuclear back ups.
Anywhere were the cost of losing power for a few hours is higher than the cost of a reactor... your going to find a reactor.

There may be controls on them (I expect that the national government regulates them and picks up the fuel regularly to make sure no one is making nuclear weapons on the side for instance...)

As for the power grid... I expect that making it more robust would be a goal. So with the shrinking of the size of power cells (A single e-clip holds how many car batteries or what ever?) I expect that that sort of technology would be used to provide a distributed storage network as a backup.

[wyrmraker]

Concerning the power grid itself, consider it's foundations. The current American power grid is based on a design over 50 years old. It badly needs replacing, but the utility companies just upgrade it. I could easily see that the land-based power grid would be, at it's foundation, essentially unchanged even in the Golden Age given corporate methods and practices. Therefore some areas (areas zoned primarily for manufacturing, as an example) would be far more robust than others (pretty much all of the rural areas).

[glitterboy2098]

to provide a bit more context for what i mean in the first post, about battery banks.
the Tesla Powerwall, and it's several imitators, are an idea i can see catching on by the golden age. these are fast recharge battery packs (Tesla's was sourced from their electric car production), tied into a house or building's electrical system, storing power. in a preexisting power grid, it would provide a longer lasting local backup in the even of blackouts or brownouts, or can be tied into alternative power sources like Solar and/or Wind generators to make a building completely off grid, or boost the capability of a Net metering set up (where power being generated in excess of the building's use is fed into the larger powergrid) in places where such systems are still active, it seems to me that they might be able to sustain an amount of local use even for abandoned buildings. and even if the power is not feeding outside the building, having an active battery could mean lights on inside a building, or other active electrical devices.

and even if you don't use that aspect, certainly salvaging such battery systems (especially ones that might still carry a decent charge) could be vital to survival. each golden age level battery ought to be able to recharge a couple e-clips each, or an electric vehicle. or run things like heaters, electric stoves, computers, etc. for days. they'd also make a good buffer and short term backup for whatever nuclear, SOFC, or conventional generator is powering refugee camps and NEMA field bases.