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frustrated_staff t1_itnjv0l wrote

Reply to comment by larsattacks94 in eli5: how long would power stay on if the power company abandoned their post? by larsattacks94

In that case, it's probably a gas plant, and...depending on its supply and whether or not anything has gone wrong, those can (generally) keep going for years without intervention. On the other hand, no supply = no power AND anything goes wrong = no power

So...it's probably not the plant operators leaving that caused the outage, especially since the grid is hyper-connected. It's probably a lack of fuel supply, from the refineries abandoning their posts...at least, if it's based in reality

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musk1266 t1_itoby3u wrote

Most gas plants require hydrogen to cool their generators, if the supply of hydrogen runs out then the plants shut down automatically, or worse. Typically hydrogen is provided in a trailer that is dropped off every couple weeks. Speaking from experience a plant that runs on a hydrogen trailer would probably shut down in 2 days if nobody was around to put new hydrogen cylinders into service.

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