Peak Oil: Futility of Cellular Phone Utility

Rising demand combined with reduced energy supply around the time of Peak Oil will likely result in electrical grid failure and intervals of punctuated power. As a consequence, the love affair we all appear to have with mobile phones looks set to change; there may no longer be guaranteed access and limited use imposed.

Public utilities

…It is not difficult to see how the various utilities have become reliant upon each other. The move from state controlled utilities to privatised utilities has been a widespread trend over the last 20 years that has seen the loss of private mobile radio networks that allowed the power utilities to communicate autonomously to be replaced by mobile/cellular telephony. The public communications networks are dependent on their power supply which is dependent, in turn, when wide-scale long lasting power failures occur, upon the communications to coordinate the power failures repair; a vicious circle.

Sanders Research Associates (free registration required)