We could be headed for heat catastrophes

Oct 03, 2023

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by Marshall Brain — June 9, 2023 .

Editor's note: Marshall Brain – futurist, inventor, NCSU professor, writer and creator of "How Stuff Works" is a contributor to WRAL TechWire. Brain takes a serious as well as entertaining look at a world of possibilities for Earth and the human race. He's also author of "The Doomsday Book: The Science Behind Humanity's Greatest Threats."

Note to readers: WRAL TechWire would like to hear from you about views expressed by our contributors. Please send email to: [email protected].

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RALEIGH – There was an alarming headline in the New York Times recently, warning that the heat in Phoenix could lead to thousands of deaths:

The article puts it this way:

"New research warns that nearly 800,000 residents would need emergency medical care for heat stroke and other illnesses in an extended power failure…. Phoenix, which is heavily reliant on air-conditioning to keep residents cool in the desert heat, would experience immense loss of life and illness if a citywide blackout during a heat wave lasted for two days, with power gradually restored over the next three days."

There are two parts to this doomsday scenario: 1) extreme heat, combined with 2) a failure in the power grid. The power failure means that the air conditioning in every home and office building would die, and people would quickly start overheating. See this video for details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJDkn-CrrqM

There are plenty of other cities that face this risk. Southwestern cities like Phoenix bake during the summer because of their desert environments. Cities in the deep south not only bake but can also have high humidity. And then there is the recent situation in Puerto Rico:

"The National Weather Service usually issues a heat advisory when the heat index reaches or exceeds 105 degrees Fahrenheit, ‘so when it's 125, that's incredibly dangerous,’ Morales said… Morales added that Puerto Rico is likely ‘not going to see the heat wave break’ unless something in the jet stream changes."

If the power grid in Puerto Rico were to fail during a heat wave like this, many people would be in trouble.

Why do people die in the heat? You might recall that in 2021, the Chung-Gerrish family (husband, wife, baby, and dog) all died while hiking in the Sierra National Forest. They died because temperatures rose to 109 degrees F (49 C) on the trail and they ran out of water:

"Extreme hyperthermia, or heatstroke, kills hundreds of people every year. Between 1979 and 2018, there were more than 11,000 heat-related deaths in the U.S. The condition occurs when the body's core temperature crosses a threshold where it's unable to cool itself by sweating. According to the Mayo Clinic, the breaking point is about 104 F. Without quick action to lower your body temperature (by finding shade or applying a cold towel, for example), heatstroke causes the brain and other vital organs to swell, which leads to permanent damage and death."

This video can give you more information about the family's situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8JI8MKnOss

If you live in a city that could overheat like this, it would be great if you could plan ahead to protect yourself and your family. What are your options? Let's look at several examples.

Your car probably has an air conditioner in it. You can get in your car, park it in the shade, idle the engine, and run the car's AC. Depending on the car, it will use roughly half a gallon of gas for every hour that it is idling. If you have 10 gallons of gas in the tank, this is 20-ish hours of idling time. You probably won't need the AC at night, so this would let you get through the crisis until the power comes back on.

Another option: you could potentially use the car to drive to a cooler area, or an area that is unaffected by the grid failure. The next city over might have plenty of power. You could get an air-conditioned hotel room or enter any air-conditioned building that is open to the public and you would be safe. The only problem here is the possibility that a million other people have the same idea, and it creates gigantic traffic jams.

The second option is to use a portable gasoline generator to create your own power during the power failure. Then you will want to buy a small window-mounted air conditioner that can cool one room, for example your bedroom. Plug this small air conditioner into the generator, maybe your refrigerator too to keep your food from spoiling, and you can ride out the heat wave in your bedroom until the grid comes back online.

Why do you need the window-mounted air conditioner? Because it is unlikely that a small portable generator will have enough power to operate a whole-house air conditioner. Even if it could, you will save a lot of gasoline by cooling only one room.

The minor problem with this idea is that you will need to keep gasoline on hand to run the generator. This generator will be burning about half a gallon of gasoline per hour, so you may want to have 10 or 20 gallons of gasoline on hand (e.g. stored in 5-gallon gasoline cans in the garage). This can become a hassle over time. Gasoline goes bad, so you need to keep rotating your supply of gasoline on a monthly basis.

One fix for this gasoline problem is to buy a larger and more permanent generator that runs using natural gas. These generators are much more expensive than portable gasoline generators but can have several important advantages: 1) they can start automatically, 2) they can power the whole house, and 3) they can run for long periods of time – as long as the natural gas keeps flowing.

If you own your own home, you could put solar panels on the roof and install a household battery system like the Tesla Powerwall. See this video to learn more about the batteries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLQkjcQDro

Between the solar panels plus the batteries, the cost is going to be $20,000+ for a system like this. The advantage is that you can run your house in a grid failure for long periods of time. In addition, as soon as you install a system like this, it will start saving you thousands of dollars per year on electricity. Eventually your system will likely pay for itself.

If you don't like option 1, 2 or 3, you could try something offbeat like this:

After two or three days of this you will be waterlogged and very tired of the bathtub, but you will still be alive.

As climate change gets worse and worse, the chances of extreme heat emergencies will get higher and higher. The chances of grid failure will also increase in these situations because the probability of overloading increases. If you live in a city that can overheat as described here, it is prudent to have a plan to ride out the emergency.