What if?

What if there was a global blackout?

It would take something huge for a global blackout to happen, or would it?
In 1977, New York experienced a 2 day blackout which cause immense chaos and changed the city forever. What would it take for a global blackout?

If our planet careens into the path of a massive solar system. These happen all the time on a geologic scale, but one hasn't yet occurred in the electrical era. As a species, we're woefully unprepared for the moment when it does. So what would happen? let's go through this in a time series.

Initially after the power goes out there would be no struggle in particular. Things would just be the same, surviving would be no issue unless you're addicted to video games in that case you're doomed.

5-8 days without power -
Those who were not prepared for such an event would begin to feel the changes. Stockpile of food and water is easily enough for survival for a week however if you didn't have stockpiled food and water then it'd be a rush to the local tesco or asda to loot as much as you can. Generators would cost far too much money to power for the average family but governments would have to start using them for radio towers and telephone exchanges.

roughly a month without -
(I'd just like to point out the further we go the more unrealistic it becomes. A huge solar storm would be the only thing known to man to deal such damage) Panic would begin to settle in alot more at this point. People's reserved food supplies would begin to run very low so they would have to go on a hunt for clean water and food. Many people would not know how to actually filtrate dirty water themselves so it would be down to communities to come together and help one another. No matter what masses of people would begin to die. People who rely on medical care and mediation to stay alive would be the main source of the population decline as the medications would be near impossible to provide.

1 year without power -
This would have catastrophic effects on the human race as we know it. If you were to survive this long you'd be very lucky as all grocery stores and petrol stations would have been looted to the max with nothing left on the shelves. Estimations have been made that over 88% of the global population would die off, the final people living on planet earth would be of those who either formed massive groups of 25-50 people or smaller groups of highly skilled people in certain fields. Little to no government facilities would be operating at this point apart from a bunker for officials to live in.

We as humans in this day in age rely on power for us to keep living and to provide essentials for us. If we do ever get stripped of it globally, it would simply be chaos.

Thanks for reading