I think a lot of people think that 18 months means that the crops would be harvested and trucked to the supermarkets, refineries running, the auto repair shops supplied and open again, etc, immediately after the 18 months, but I don’t think it works that way.
I wonder how long it would be before we could get food and medicine and gasoline, and jobs, and money, again?
My guess is there wouldn’t be a need for AS MUCH food after 18 months.
Good question. The answer would depend on how long the grid was out and when the outage occurred.
A three month outage over a winter in the north or a summer outage anywhere would be a disaster. No heat in the winter because forced air furnaces do not work without electricity running the fan. Fuel oil will not get delivered. So, expect a lot of deaths from freezing or heat.
A far greater threat would come from a lack of food. Urban groceries have a three day supply of food and even Walmart's logistics would not allow them to supply all their stores in a total power outage. Water and sewer plants would also have a tough time without electricity.
So, a general, widespread, extended power outage would result in millions of deaths in urban areas. I haven't given that ultimate number a lot of thought but a 50-95% death rate doesn't seem unreasonable.
If you can survive the first three months, you might be okay. As the systems came back on line there would be far fewer mouths to feed, especially in the urban areas.
Well, I have seen estimates of a 90% mortality within the first year. The survivors probably wouldn't be capable of putting the full system back together nor could they properly control or protect the vast reaches of a depopulated America sans transportation, communication, and technology. Darkest Africa would be an improvement by comparison.
No doubt the Chinese and Russians would be happy to move in, carve the empty territories and vast natural resources up to their own liking, fix some of the infrastructure, and establish their own colonies without the original inhabitants - or their few pesky and poorly armed survivors.
But... let's talk about something more important - like a "fair wage" for women, "free" medical care, Gay "rights," and amnesty for tens of millions of uneducated and parasitic immigrants most of whom don't speak English or give a tinker's damn about the Constitution except how they can milk the system for a free pay check.
In other words, don't worry about the elephant in the room. Instead, concentrate on those little glittery things way over there in the other direction...