Nuclear and solar both require a pretty intimate knowledge of quantum physics, I think that may vanish. Even the best self taught individual could not understand the math required for nuclear physics. Water would probably be easiest. Even the Romans knew how to make a water mill. As long as the knowledge that a moving cook through a magnetic field survives, it would not be hard to strap a generator to a water wheel.
An interesting topic. I've often wondered about the implications of a widespread disaster like this, but for perhaps a different reason. To illustrate what I mean... Did one person invent the wheel? Or was it something everyone suddenly thought up? My guess it is was one guy (let's call him Og) despite the fact that once it was invented, everyone else did a face-palm and said, "Why didn't I think of that?" Pure invention—dreaming stuff up out of thin air at a time when the very idea for the invention doesn't yet exist—seems to be something that only a handful of people from any given generation is capable of. How many other of the bits and pieces we've cobbled together to create the wide variety of gizmos and technological wonders followed this same pattern? One person makes the mental leap to a new idea and everyone else climbs aboard. I mean really, how many of us are capable of dreaming up a totally new concept? Does it take an Einstein to come up with first-of-its-kind technology or can anyone do it? And I'm not talking about someone who sees some bit of technology and realizes s/he can improve on it... like the transistor, which was an improvement on the vacuum tube. And the idea for the vacuum tube came from wondering what else could be done with the light bulb if I'm not mistaken. No, I'm talking about the guy who first experienced that cliché: the light bulb going on over his head (Humphrey Davy, if you're wondering). Davy was the guy who first wondered if this new-fangled thing called electricity could be used to light up a room. But maybe that wasn't such a leap for Davy considering that lightning had been lighting up the sky since the dawn of time, so bringing it indoors wasn't as big a leap as one might think. But if he hadn't thought of it, was there another genius around at the time who might have or would Alessandro Volta's voltaic piles have only been used to make things spin? And perhaps even inventing the wheel (inventor: Og) was pretty much the same. Og saw that trees were round and also that when they were knocked over by lightning—or a rogue elephant—and stripped of all its limbs (to be used for firewood) those trees rolled. And from there, it was a matter of inventing the saw (probably Og's great-great-great grandson, Muc-muc... genius runs in families, after all, right?) to make them more manageable and the first wheel was born. Up until the invention of the saw, they had to drag whole trees around to stick under things so they'd move. The whole process from observing the roundness of trees and how they rolled to the invention of the saw (and making the connection that trees could be sliced up and used for wheels) could have taken thousands of years. Hell, somewhere in there, somebody had to invent the axle as well. At this point—or a lot of other points in history—we look around and see all this technology from wheels to computers to spaceships and most of us wouldn't have a clue how to make most of these things with whatever raw materials were lying around. Even making a wheel round enough to last more than a mile or two before it fell apart might be beyond most people's capabilities. And if none of it existed for us to see, how obvious would any of it be? How many of us could think these things up with nothing driving us to invent except the desire to solve a problem? Once invented, everything becomes more-or-less obvious and most people can learn how to use these things, even if they couldn't have invented them to begin with. And the fact that we can learn to drive a car, run a computer, switch on a light, or use a shovel without resorting to reading the manual, somehow, gives us the impression that the basis for a previously-unknown technology couldn't be that hard to come up with. All this to say that if the average person can't invent a fundamentally new technology, it would IMHO take at least one genius to bring about a post-disaster industrial revolution. And for this genius to have the time to think about more than food, shelter and raising a family, he'd have to have leisure time and immediately after opening the bunker, that might be hard to come by, especially if the asteroid impact brought about the onset of something more or less equal to nuclear winter. Everyone's going to be learning to farm (if it's even warm enough to do so), to hunt (if there are any animals to hunt), to make their own clothes (again, they'll need animals or plants which may not be available), build shelters (unless they continue to live in the bunkers) and generally figuring out how to survive. And this would go on for hundreds if not thousands of years. By the time anyone had enough leisure time to head in the direction of being a genius and inventing a new industrial revolution, our technology will be a dim memory and might even be no more than mythology by then. No one's going to be able to read or write because those things weren't important enough to bother with. Knowledge would have been passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation rather than in written form. And that means, IMO, that any industrial revolution is going to be a long time coming.
Anybody here ever killed, cleaned, skinned, butchered and preserved an animal? Bet the number that know where to start might be rather small. It is at the anus, and be careful not to nick it.
As long as you remember that just one watt requires raising 635 pounds one foot in one second, yes you can generate electricity from any source of motive power.
That depends what you are skinning and cleaning - with rabbits I generally start just below the sternum cut right round radially and then pull the skin off in two parts before paunching them in the gut and pulling all the internal gubbins out, with pigeons i don't even bother i just use a sharp knife to take the breast meat off and discard the rest of the carcase in the field. I'm a country boy so all this stuff comes naturally, but even if it didn't its easy enough to read up on in books
Yup, a fellow country boy. Your method is true for squirrels and other small mammals as well. I was thinking of deer and the bigger ones.
Nope, suburban boy here, but I do cure and smoke my own bacon. Which is admittedly the easy part of your sequence, but nevertheless an important and delicious one
Gutting an animal is easy, nothing a fairly smart person couldn't learn by trial and error after only a few tries. I'm a country boy moved suburban, so I've done it, but not in years. I think I'd probably accidentally cut the innards the first time on a new animal, but wouldn't the next time.
The answer to this depends on how centralized your energy system is. With large nuclear or fossil fuelled power plants you'll have problems. But many places in the world, the energy production is much more decentralized, and TPB in Europe are working to increase this. Norway as a case: 99 % hydro power, mainly larger dams and power plants, but also plenty of smaller plants. A substantial number of farms have generators in a local river or water fall. When the grid fails, most of the larger hydro plants have to shut down, because of problems with frequency and stability, but there are several villages (on islands, or in isolated fjords) with mid sized hydro plants who can disconnect from the main grid, and run even is the rest of the county is down. Solar panels are getting more common, and experience from mountain cabins show they will survive ice, snow, and harsh climates for 30-40 years with almost no degradation. You would probably not be able to make new ones in your world, but scavenging for old ones could be worthwhile. Further south in Europe they have plenty of smaller and larger CHP generators. These can run of anything you can burn, from garbage to wood or biomethane. The scariest part for me would be the changes to ocean currents. With no gulf stream or North Atlantic Drift, and a generally colder climate, the glaciers might extend southwards, and if you get to the tipping point you'll get a new ice age. Then of course you have the whole "iceball earth" theory. And the tsunami would be devastating, if the meteor hits the sea. TLDR: in a city, you are fucked. Rural populations will probably be able to generate electricity, but will die due to cold and lack of food.
