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Doomsday Survival Science


Skyler4856

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Whether you're a serious "Prepper", or simply an individual who enjoys thought experiments, there is no denying that the concept of doomsday is a fascinating one.

In this thread we shall discuss various methods to survive such a calamity, as well as the science behind these methods.

The first strategy I would like to bring to light involves the conversion of plastic into oil.

Edited by Skyler4856
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Question! Why is converting plastic to oil a doomsday event? is it the pollution from said oil that causes faster then normal climate change?

I believe he is saying that converting plastic to oil would be beneficial, making the post-Apocalypse more survivable with easy to access oil.

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I believe he is saying that converting plastic to oil would be beneficial, making the post-Apocalypse more survivable with easy to access oil.
But with the apocalypse taking it's tole on humanity and the world, how would we have the electricity, machines, or people who know how to do it after an apocalypse?
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But with the apocalypse taking it's tole on humanity and the world, how would we have the electricity, machines, or people who know how to do it after an apocalypse?

That's what this thread is for. Education.

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That is what I never understand from many apocaliptic movies as madmax and waterworld.. If everyone is trying to survive and get the last resources.. Why you need to burn all that fuel just to try get more fuel?

A solar electric vehicle in those movies would rock.

Why try to get oil which would be very hard (more taking into account that you can not use crude oil, you need to refine it).

But you can use thermal machines with vapor, or wind.. in those worlds renowable energy is a lot easier to get and you dont need to fight with others to get it.

Edited by AngelLestat
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That is what I never understand from many apocaliptic movies as madmax and waterworld.. If everyone is trying to survive and get the last resources.. Why you need to burn all that fuel just to try get more fuel?

A solar electric vehicle in those movies would rock.

Why try to get oil which would be very hard (more taking into account that you can not use crude oil, you need to refine it).

But you can use thermal machines with vapor, or wind.. in those worlds renowable energy is a lot easier to get and you dont need to fight with others to get it.

you forget some crucial things there.

1) you use whatever you have at your disposal. Internal combustion engines are common, you literally find them on every street corner almost.

2) most of those solar panels and wind generators have a very limited lifetime. Think 10-15 years. An internal combustion engine can last for 50-100 years or more with a little TLC.

3) it's much easier to build an internal combustion engine without clean rooms and access to a lot of plastics (which require complex manufacturing themselves to produce) than it is to build solar panels and wind generators. It's not for nothing that the steam engine and the internal combustion engine were invented before the solar panel.

4) most electrical appliances won't outlive those 10-15 years either.

So: a few decades after the apocalypse most all solar and wind generation power is gone, as will be most useful things that are powered by them. But there will still be scores of car and motorcycle engines out there, either in more or less working order or with enough parts in decent shape to be used as sources for spares.

And of course, in the movies a couple of guys driving around in pimped up Toyota landcruisers and Harleys looking for the last rumoured Exxon truck full of gas make for much nicer cinematics than those same guys paddling around on their bicycles looking for a crate of Solyndra solar panels that is rumoured to still exist in some warehouse.

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Something that's survivable is not a doomsday IMO. A true doomsday would overthrow anything you knew well... Like, seeing Earth boils away slowly (this is bound to happen, still quite survivable though), or maybe big rip or big crunch. The Sun exploding at the end of it's life (well, shedding mass, not exploding) would be something equivalent.

Unless you want to make a [science, fiction, movie].

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you forget some crucial things there.

1) you use whatever you have at your disposal. Internal combustion engines are common, you literally find them on every street corner almost.

2) most of those solar panels and wind generators have a very limited lifetime. Think 10-15 years. An internal combustion engine can last for 50-100 years or more with a little TLC.

3) it's much easier to build an internal combustion engine without clean rooms and access to a lot of plastics (which require complex manufacturing themselves to produce) than it is to build solar panels and wind generators. It's not for nothing that the steam engine and the internal combustion engine were invented before the solar panel.

4) most electrical appliances won't outlive those 10-15 years either.

So: a few decades after the apocalypse most all solar and wind generation power is gone, as will be most useful things that are powered by them. But there will still be scores of car and motorcycle engines out there, either in more or less working order or with enough parts in decent shape to be used as sources for spares.

And of course, in the movies a couple of guys driving around in pimped up Toyota landcruisers and Harleys looking for the last rumoured Exxon truck full of gas make for much nicer cinematics than those same guys paddling around on their bicycles looking for a crate of Solyndra solar panels that is rumoured to still exist in some warehouse.

1. The infrastructure for oil retrieving, shipping, refining and distribution need to be intact. It's highly unlikely to be intact in a post apocalyptic world. They could of course run on methanol or alcohol, but that still takes a lot of work in a world where there are no rules.

2. Combustion engines need maintenance, you can't expect it to run for without breaking down in a hostile environment let alone last for 50-100 years. Spare parts will be scares or non-existent.

3. Look at 2. For example: rubber hoses aren't easy to make, or at all, without a machine let alone in a dusty environment.

4. See 2 again.

After a few years in post-apocalyptic time there wont be any gas left. As it's being used up or will be degraded to a point where it's unusable.

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Everything is survivable, the microbes will survive, alot of deep see vent dwellers would survive, just about any event except a supernova. That out of the way - human survival. The human doomsday bomb - overpopulation. The cause to much herbivore activity, to little substrate and nutrients.\ The result too much carbon in the atmosphere, to little photosynthetic activity on land. The scenario. Drought, roving disasters particularly unpredicted rainfall and wind events. Loss of cropland productivity in many areas, war, conflict in areas of historic grain production like Oh wait historic grain production (fertile crescent). Decline of water resources (Tigris and Euphrates, Nile). Conflict in historic grain producing areas (Syria, Iraq, Egypt). Everything is survivable except suicidal stupidity. http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?v=31

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Something that's survivable is not a doomsday IMO. A true doomsday would overthrow anything you knew well...[...]

Survival... on individual basis? granted, many so called doomsday scenarios allow for the survival of individuals or groups thereof. But a sustainable, stable civilization as we know it now? Without falling back to hunter-gatherer state?

e.g. the end of 'Escape from L.A.'

a world spanning satellite network blanketing earth in EMPs, destroying all higher level electronic equipment...

individually? everyone has a chance to survive. grab your zombie-survival guide, make friends with people hoarding guns, stick close to Bear Grylls, etc.

civilization as we know it? not a chance.

there is no way earth can sustain a stable population of 7-8billion humans without modern technologies. no way cities of millions can thrive. billions would die, and to the rest of humanity? huddled around campfires in abandoned parking lots, after a day looting the dead concrete woods that had names like Paris, New York, Moscow, or Tokyo. telling stories of the forgotten age when people could fly, and fresh water came running out of the walls. when we could know what happened on the other side of the earth mere seconds later... Whatever event would have caused it, it will be called Doomsday.

[...] doomsday science makes me think of super villians and mad scientists.

YES! Mad Science!

After all, that's what KSP is all about. Right? :)

Edited by heng
ahhh, so that's how you do spoilers here...
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Survival... on individual basis? granted, many so called doomsday scenarios allow for the survival of individuals or groups thereof. But a sustainable, stable civilization as we know it now? Without falling back to hunter-gatherer state?

e.g. the end of 'Escape from L.A.'

a world spanning satellite network blanketing earth in EMPs, destroying all higher level electronic equipment...

individually? everyone has a chance to survive. grab your zombie-survival guide, make friends with people hoarding guns, stick close to Bear Grylls, etc.

civilization as we know it? not a chance.

there is no way earth can sustain a stable population of 7-8billion humans without modern technologies. no way cities of millions can thrive. billions would die, and to the rest of humanity? huddled around campfires in abandoned parking lots, after a day looting the dead concrete woods that had names like Paris, New York, Moscow, or Tokyo. telling stories of the forgotten age when people could fly, and fresh water came running out of the walls. when we could know what happened on the other side of the earth mere seconds later... Whatever event would have caused it, it will be called Doomsday.

To be honest, my believes(*) suggest that a doomsday (world's end) would be a really catastrophic event that even destroys the whole Universe, least as you knew it. If you can survive out of it, or any kind of life, that's not quite a doomsday. A global catastrophe, yes; a doomsday, no. Think of Chixulub - such a terrible event, yet life goes on after that isn't it ?

I'm a moslem, really.

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you forget some crucial things there.

1) you use whatever you have at your disposal. Internal combustion engines are common, you literally find them on every street corner almost.

2) most of those solar panels and wind generators have a very limited lifetime. Think 10-15 years. An internal combustion engine can last for 50-100 years or more with a little TLC.

3) it's much easier to build an internal combustion engine without clean rooms and access to a lot of plastics (which require complex manufacturing themselves to produce) than it is to build solar panels and wind generators. It's not for nothing that the steam engine and the internal combustion engine were invented before the solar panel.

4) most electrical appliances won't outlive those 10-15 years either.

So: a few decades after the apocalypse most all solar and wind generation power is gone, as will be most useful things that are powered by them. But there will still be scores of car and motorcycle engines out there, either in more or less working order or with enough parts in decent shape to be used as sources for spares.

And of course, in the movies a couple of guys driving around in pimped up Toyota landcruisers and Harleys looking for the last rumoured Exxon truck full of gas make for much nicer cinematics than those same guys paddling around on their bicycles looking for a crate of Solyndra solar panels that is rumoured to still exist in some warehouse.

1) true.

2) false, new cars engines has very low time expentancy, no more than 25 years, and forget of repair them, the electronic injection system is very complicated. Solar panels said that last 25 year with warranty (keep the solar production under that time), but in fact they can last a lot longer if you are ok with values of 60% or 50% energy production.

3) what? A electric car is much much much easier to make than an internal combustion engine. In fact electric cars (1828) came way before than internal combustion cars (1885), First the electrical car use 90% of the energy input in traction, the internal use 25% of the energy for traction.

Also you dont need solar panels, when the car is stop, just connect a wind helix to the same car engine and it would work as generator.

Good luck building this:

http://garagelatino.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/warrantybmw-x6m-engine-parts-exploded.jpg

That without take into account the box gear (electrical does not needed), radiatior, etc.

4) why not? An electrical motor who was not used, it can last a lot of years, it doesn´t have any complex mechanism.

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1) true.

2) false, new cars engines has very low time expentancy, no more than 25 years, and forget of repair them, the electronic injection system is very complicated. Solar panels said that last 25 year with warranty (keep the solar production under that time), but in fact they can last a lot longer if you are ok with values of 60% or 50% energy production.

3) what? A electric car is much much much easier to make than an internal combustion engine. In fact electric cars (1828) came way before than internal combustion cars (1885), First the electrical car use 90% of the energy input in traction, the internal use 25% of the energy for traction.

Also you dont need solar panels, when the car is stop, just connect a wind helix to the same car engine and it would work as generator.

Good luck building this:

http://garagelatino.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/warrantybmw-x6m-engine-parts-exploded.jpg

That without take into account the box gear (electrical does not needed), radiatior, etc.

4) why not? An electrical motor who was not used, it can last a lot of years, it doesn´t have any complex mechanism.

Modern cars and their engines are very complex machines, development over 100 years with increasing demand for comfort, luxury, decent price, high performance, low pollution and fuel use.

its not an huge marked for cheap cars as you can buy an used car instead.

Much of the same issue with electrical cars, older cars or simpler machines like an ATW is much simpler to keep running without access to special parts or equipment.

Know an almost 100 year old electrical engine who is still in use, larger than modern ones but does it work well enough. It was bought after WW1 to replace an steam engine on an threshing machine.

Used for various stuff until it ended on a machine to sort potatoes and was sold as part of it some years ago.

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1) true.

2) false, new cars engines has very low time expentancy, no more than 25 years, and forget of repair them, the electronic injection system is very complicated. Solar panels said that last 25 year with warranty (keep the solar production under that time), but in fact they can last a lot longer if you are ok with values of 60% or 50% energy production.

3) what? A electric car is much much much easier to make than an internal combustion engine. In fact electric cars (1828) came way before than internal combustion cars (1885), First the electrical car use 90% of the energy input in traction, the internal use 25% of the energy for traction.

Also you dont need solar panels, when the car is stop, just connect a wind helix to the same car engine and it would work as generator.

Good luck building this:

http://garagelatino.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/warrantybmw-x6m-engine-parts-exploded.jpg

That without take into account the box gear (electrical does not needed), radiatior, etc.

4) why not? An electrical motor who was not used, it can last a lot of years, it doesn´t have any complex mechanism.

ICE cars came around the 1810s...

They weren't that amazing, but they were ICE powered.

If you have the ability to make an engine which only needs easily acquired materials, you should build it, depending on its efficiency and usefulness. But electrically powered cars require electrical parts, which may be hard to find or produce in a post apocalyptic environment.

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