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TLDR/Summary

• The threat: A catastrophic electricity loss (affecting 5%+ of global population for over a month) could be triggered by solar storms, cyberattacks, or high-altitude nuclear explosions—with minimal planning in place for such scenarios.
• The danger: These events would cripple supply chains, food production, and financial systems simultaneously, potentially halving food supplies even in resource-rich countries.
• Solutions exist: Resilient electrical systems can be built through system hardening, geographical distribution, micro-grids, and regulatory reforms—but require deliberate planning and investment.
• Basic resilience helps: Household stockpiles (2+ weeks of supplies) and social cohesion are critical for surviving medium-term outages, especially in urban areas.
• Public support: Survey evidence shows citizens want catastrophe planning and resilience investments; community exercises could generate widely-supported policies.
• Action needed now: 2025 is marking an age of increasing geopolitical instability and risk requiring urgent focus on things like infrastructure interdependencies, near-urban agriculture, and comprehensive resilience planning.
• Cross-cutting benefits: Preparing for one catastrophic scenario effectively prepares us for many others, creating multiple resilience benefits.
• Get involved: Multiple leverage points exist for action and input. In the Aotearoa New Zealand context this includes: DPMC’s Long-term Insights Briefing, the Infrastructure Commission’s Priorities Programme, various sector security strategies, and emergency planning processes (by NEMA).

What was the background and context to the webinar?

In 2023 our group published a report on Aotearoa New Zealand’s (NZ’s) vulnerability and resilience to a Northern Hemisphere nuclear war scenario. NZ is on the one hand a remote island nation with abundant resources, and in a sense resilient. But on the other hand, critical societal functions are very vulnerable to interruptions to trade and supply.

Many islands share this double-edged sword, and it is worth investing significant efforts in resilience to ensure not just the wellbeing of their populations, but the ability to export food excess in times of crisis, and to sustain hubs of functioning society should a terrible catastrophe strike the world.

With the aim of furthering deliberation and planning around these issues, we convened a webinar on Catastrophic Electricity Loss, potentially caused by a massive solar storm, cyberattack, or worryingly, a high-altitude nuclear explosion with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

In such scenarios there may be no external aid, for a long period, with crippled electrical supply affecting the flow of all goods and services.

NZ has little planning for such scenarios, although to its credit, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), has recently published a Space Weather Response Plan, and a Catastrophic Event Handbook.

However, these plans, by design, do not look beyond the early recovery phase, and do not address options for national investments in resilience upstream of any catastrophe. They also assume there is a functioning port and airport, and that international aid will come. These assumptions may not hold, and in fact need to be ensured through prior actions.

Existing international studies of catastrophic electricity loss detail a quick descent into national crisis, and the potential for a halving in food supply, even in highly food productive countries such as the US.

The dense interdependencies among utility systems mean that electricity could be hard to restore, and existing redundancies could be simultaneously impacted by actual hazards. There is plenty of scope for critical system redesign.

Existing vulnerability assessments are incomplete, with a focus on short-term needs like hospitals, rather than ‘slow’ processes affected by long-term outages, such as food production and processing, or shipping freight logistics. In some cases, analysis of payment systems has been left for future work.

2025 is no longer business as usual, we are entering an age of increased geopolitical instability and risk.

Survey evidence (eg, from the NZ and the UK) shows that the public wants catastrophe plans, and investments in national resilience. It is time to engage society more widely on these issues, provide options, and implement solutions.

What is catastrophic electricity loss?

Catastrophic electricity loss can be loosely defined as 5 percent or more of the world’s population not having electricity for more than a month. This could result from the causes listed above. Dr Simon Blouin, lead author of a study of food supply in the US following electricity failure explains in our recent interview (see 1:20 for definition of catastrophic electricity loss).

Who was on our webinar Panel?

Our webinar on Catastrophic Electricity Loss (26 Feb 2025) saw a great line up of experts on the panel:

What did the Panellists say?

The following briefly summarises selected key points made by our panellists during the event. Watch the YouTube video to see their comments in full and in-context.

Dr David Korowicz

• Catastrophic electricity loss is such a huge concern due to its impact on supply chains and the flow of goods and services.
• This impact is common to a range of risks (including events affecting liquid fuel supply for example). This means that if you prepare for one of these scenarios you have substantively prepared for all of them.
• This kind of event has critical implications for the financial system, and how people perceive money. This is because money has value based on our expectations of future production. If the future is highly uncertain, then the money system can collapse.
• Community exercises that walk-through catastrophe scenarios are both engaging to people, and useful for planning. Governments don’t have to be afraid of talking to people about these issues.
• The psychological notion of ‘scarcity’ is a big driver of behaviour. We need to work towards a mindset of ‘how can I help?’
• Other panellists concurred that policy that emerges from citizen assemblies and similar exercises is more likely to be widely supported.

Associate Professor Caroline Orchiston

• Both resilience and sustainability are important. Basic resilience at household and individual level can play a big role. We now recognise the importance of two weeks or more of personal emergency supplies.
• There are a range of people-focused solutions, and we should enable, support, and resource these resilience efforts at various levels of society.
• Inter-regional emergency management projects are showing great value in preparing for large-scale catastrophe and more resourcing of these would be useful.
• Caroline noted that there will be locations in NZ that are probably equipped to ride out even long disruptions or periods of isolation, where population density is low and there are many productive resources, but that urban areas will face different and more significant challenges.
• A general improvement in risk literacy would benefit NZ’s resilience.
• She also supported the need for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) and similar entities to be examining these catastrophic scenarios.

David Keat

• Drawing on his many years of experience as an engineer and executive in the energy sector David stated bluntly that electricity loss means energy loss.
• The supply of liquid fuel depends on electrical systems, and has cascading consequences, which he considered NZ possibly doesn’t fully understand.
• Failure scenarios are exercised in the commercial energy sector regularly to learn and understand what can go wrong and how to manage it. Regular catastrophe exercises are likely to be useful for governments and communities too.
• Furthermore, we can build resilient electrical systems, but this requires a conscious assessment of the scenarios of interest, hardening of systems, with redundancies, wide geographical distribution of key infrastructure, heterogeneous supply systems, and regulatory reform to encourage micro-grids and local electricity sharing. We need to avoid, mitigate, and ensure rapid recovery is possible.
• Wind, solar, and geothermal-based electrical systems north of Taupo are important. Diverse systems like this, with functional islanding, will be more resilient to catastrophic events.
• Additionally, if prevention of damage fails, then we need ways of doing things that don’t require electricity. David agreed this might include the capacity for hand pumping of liquid fuel, or generator-ready essential services.

Dr Florian Ulrich Jehn

• Described the findings of a German Government study, which painted a grim picture of extended electrical failure.
• Key lessons included the need for integrated decision-making, given the many firms and organisations controlling infrastructure. Additionally, stockpiling of supplies such as food shouldn’t be in single large storage facilities, because distribution is likely to be impaired. There is an important role for micro-grids, which could be repaired or restarted independently from national systems.
• Other countries, like NZ, should produce their own reports on this kind of scenario, accounting for contextual factors, for example Germany has a system of public wells for water supply resilience, and NZ could investigate similar facilities.
• Florian detailed the risk of large reductions in agricultural yields if conditions of electricity failure persist. This is due to reduction in production and supply of inputs such as fertiliser, irrigation, and liquid fuel for machinery.
• Alternative and supplementary food sources do exist though, for example seaweed production can be scaled up in low tech ways.
• The first step is to begin to think about these scenarios.

Dr Matt Boyd

• Suggested that any government or community exercises around electricity loss should include a pathway for their findings to inform infrastructure and resource investment decisions.
• He also noted the potential for near-urban agriculture to supply cities when transport systems have failed, but this kind of long-term solution requires land zoning changes and incentives for near-urban farms to grow optimal crops for providing dietary needs.
• Risk governance of potential global catastrophes needs to be made explicit in NZ, potentially through a national Chief Risk Officer, unconstrained by the legislative scope limitations of various agencies and with the ability to see ‘gaps’ in the risk and resilience system.
• The public needs a voice and should be offered options, do you want to invest in these resilience measures, or do you want these other efficiency measures?  

Audience engagement with the webinar

The audience posed questions to the Panel. These included questions around the role of finance and money post catastrophe, and how to get action on these issues.

Matt Boyd suggested that there are several leverage points for action, which include, but are certainly not limited to:

• People making submissions on DPMC’s forthcoming Long-term Insights Briefing, which looks set to cover global risks.
• The Infrastructure Commission’s Priorities Programme, which is accepting submissions – there is scope for community exercises to feed into this kind of process.
• NEMA looks set to iterate its Space Weather and Catastrophic Event plans, and feedback could help shape these.
• A National Fuel Security Study has just been completed, and there is an opportunity to provide input to any potential National Fuel Security Strategy.
• There is the opportunity to progress high priority research through the new Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform – Caroline Orchiston provided some details of this.

What did NEMA have to say on these issues?

In addition to hosting the live webinar, we also submitted some provocative questions on these issues to NEMA. These questions focused on 10 issues of NZ’s preparedness for extended power outages, addressing:

• Critical infrastructure interdependencies
• Emergency power generation and fuel distribution capabilities
• Supply chain vulnerabilities during extended outages
• Emergency communication systems
• Household preparedness requirements
• Power restoration priorities
• Space Weather Plan development and testing
• Grid resilience against various threats
• Infrastructure strategy given global supply chain challenges
• Pre-event resilience building for critical infrastructure

In response NEMA highlighted several ongoing initiatives to address extended power outage risks:

1. Infrastructure Interdependency Mapping: Collaboration with the New Zealand Lifelines Council to produce and update the National Vulnerability Assessment, providing “a unique strategic perspective of all infrastructure services as they act in combination.”
2. Emergency Communications: Multiple redundant systems including satellite communications, the National Warning System, radio communications, and Emergency Mobile Alerts.
3. Household Preparedness: Current guidance recommends “3 days or more days of supplies, a week if you can,” though NEMA acknowledges some situations may require several weeks of supplies.
4. Space Weather Planning: Development of the National Space Weather Response Plan, tested through a national-level tabletop exercise involving approximately 50 organisations.
5. Supply Chain Resilience: Active work with the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Sector and development of “a fuel database, including the status of generators, to identify vulnerabilities.”

Examples of some direct responses from NEMA:

“NEMA collaborates with, and invests in, the New Zealand Lifelines Council to produce and update the National Vulnerability Assessment. The report provides a unique strategic perspective of all infrastructure services as they act in combination to support the wellbeing of New Zealanders.”

“NEMA’s Catastrophic Planning Programme prioritised the logistics workstreams and established a National Logistics Working Group to better define this critical risk, educate and influence, and progress response arrangements.”

“From NEMA’s perspective, space weather preparations have been useful for collaboratively developing procedures and coordination arrangements, training and exercising, and broadening our understanding of cascading disruptions from power outages. The consequences of which will be managed by the hazard-agnostic Catastrophic Event Handbook, which considers severe and sustained electricity disruption.”

Who comprised the audience for this webinar?

Attendees were mostly based in NZ, but also Australia, the US, Ireland, and elsewhere. The audience consisted of individuals associated with the following:

• Government departments: including the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI), Maritime NZ, Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ), NEMA, and DPMC
• Regional councils
• Public health sector
• Consulting firms
• Researchers
• Individuals

Where can I find the reports/sources mentioned in this webinar?

• Catastrophic electricity loss blog by Matt Boyd
• Dr Simon Blouin interview video on US food supply chain
• Alana Weir et al.’s (2024) paper on infrastructure interdependencies in Taranaki
• German government study on the consequences of catastrophic electricity loss
• Florian Ulrich Jehn et al.’s research on the fragile state of industrial agriculture, and on seaweed for food
• Matt Boyd et al.’s research on near-urban agriculture for resilience and mitigating imported fuel dependency
• David Korowicz’s paper on global financial systemic collapse
• Alpine Fault 8 webpage
• NZ’s new 2025 National Fuel Security Study
• NEMA Catastrophic Event Handbook
• NEMA Space Weather Response Plan
• DPMC Building Resilience to Hazards long-term insights briefing topic

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