The news is full of stories on the possibility of winter blackouts as the energy crisis continues to hit home.

So I wrote a blog post exploring this.

When I posted the link to my blog post on the Twitter, I did get this response.

Would it be such a loss if people stopped studying for 3hrs and instead just sat, stared into a flickering candle and contemplated life for a bit? Isn't time to reflect part of the learning process anyway..?

But more importantly, what's your contingency plan for coffee making?

— e-Forswunk-LearningTechie (@eLearningTechie) October 6, 2022

I don’t disagree with people spending three hours staring at a flickering candle, but it would be nice if students had a choice about how to spend that three hours. It did though get me thinking, could I last three hours without coffee? Should I get a camping stove and use my stovetop espresso maker?

I also ordered a new power bank.

So, would the power just cut out? Well, I later read this from the Guardian: How would three-hour power cuts work if enacted in Great Britain? on how power cuts would work across England, Scotland and Wales.

People in England, Scotland and Wales are braced for the possibility of rolling power cuts this winter after a warning on Thursday from National Grid. The electricity and gas system operator has said households could face a series of three-hour power cuts

So how it would work is as follows:

… consumers in different parts of the country would be notified a day in advance of a three-hour block of time during which they would lose power. Households in different areas would then be cut off at different times or days, with the frequency rising depending on the severity of the supply shortage.

As a result if this is how it happens, then students probably would get notice that when they would lose power, that would given them time to charge up devices and download activities, resources and other content.

Of course the risk of this happening, according to the National Grid, is low, and dependent on a range of circumstances. Or another way of looking at, it will happen, and probably happen more often than is being reported. Or is that my just being a little too cynical?