Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Laine asked, “Say, before we talk too much grand strategy, can you tell me how you’re keeping the refinery operational?”

“With a bit of Yankee ingenuity,” L. Roy laughed. “The staff here is excellent. You’ve got to understand that most modern refineries run a ‘closed-loop’ twenty-four-hour-a-day continuous operation. The alternative to continuous ops is ‘batch’ operations. Batch ops are usually confined to a specific grade of product, like diesel, and any operation waste is tanked. In the old days they simply pumped this waste in a nearby ditch or, if they were really ‘green,’ they put it in a clay-lined open holding pond.

“To run a continuous op, you of course need continuous feedstock that can meet the minimum ‘throughput’ and tankage for product storage for final distribution. The tricky thing is that all aspects have to be balanced to avoid stopping any of the process, whether that is feedstock delivery, throughput, or product distribution. Any bottleneck can upset the process. On the other hand, a batch op depends on a set volume of material for a set amount of yield for specific production runs and is not a reliable candidate for cogeneration due to its ‘up-and-down’ nature. You need to have around 150 pounds of steam pressure.

“So we opted to run continuously, by mothballing three of our four units. The one unit that we are running has a co-gen plant, just in case the local utility power has a hiccup. And that power can even back-feed, just in case their power plant goes down and it needs to be restarted.” After taking a noisy breath, Martin went on, “It’s a bit of a scramble, keeping enough feedstock coming in, but we’re working the kinks out.”

Laine nodded.

Martin folded his hands across his chest, and said: “I suppose you’re interested in my background too. Here’s the essentials: I spent twelve years in the Army, Signal Corps, mainly doing strategic long-haul communications systems, plus some tactical systems. In my time overseas, I saw a lot of Third World countries that were failed states. What I saw in Kosovo and in the ‘-stans’ colored my perspective on the current Crunch. Here it is in a nutshell: I think people here in the Four Corners are vastly underestimating the impact that the big cities to the south and north of us are going to have on us. Our neighbors think that we’re in a safe, isolated area, but we’re really not.”

Laine nodded in agreement, and L. Roy went on: “We’re incredibly lucky here to still have electricity. Most of the country is in the dark, and because of it, they’re rapidly descending into anarchy. Food is the other key resource, and here in the Southwest, water is scarce to grow crops. Most non-farming communities are at risk because they simply don’t have enough calories stored to get them through any kind of crisis. But storage is no more than limited capital to allow people the time to grow more food. Food production requires land, water, and the requisite experience. On a large scale, it also takes fuel. The carrying capacity of the U.S. using traditional non-petroleum farming techniques will be just a fraction of what most people think it would be. Also, most areas of the U.S., especially the cities, don’t have anywhere near enough farmable land to go back to some kind of agrarian pattern. Without public infrastructure and modern transportation, we’re going to experience a huge die-off caused mostly by starvation.”

Laine added: “I agree. And for those left, I think it’ll come down to the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have-nots.’ The psychologists call that the ‘we/they paradigm.’”

“Right! In a total collapse without immediate restoration of the power grid and the economic web, basically everyone who lives in a city is doomed unless they can take over some kind of farmland. Those that live in areas without enough farmland will be have-nots. Period. I don’t care how much food that survivalists have stored in their basements. It will run out someday. In the long term, it’s grow food and raise livestock-or die.”