Rebuilding America: Industry Priorities

[RN7]

1) Clean Water Supply
2) Food Production
3) Electricity Production
4) Fuel Production
5) Sanitation
6) Machinery and Tool Production
7) Ammunition Production
8) Long Range Radio
9) Metals
10) Chemicals/Salt

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'm pretty much in agreement with RN7 except that I'd place sanitation at position 3.

For most of us in the Western world, we are so used to clean water that any minor contaminants quickly make us sick. Sick people might only be ill for a few days or a week from bad water but that's days when they can't work and somebody has to care for them (so you're losing two people from the potential workforce).
Therefore I'd argue that clean water should always be priority number one but to keep it there, sanitation should be pretty high on the priority list as well.

Crops can grow with dirty water, some farm animals can deal with dirty water but put a dead sheep in the water supply and us Westerners will be getting the "stomach rumbles" in pretty short order.

[kalos72]

I put clean usable water and a decent food supply as top priorities for sure. But I honestly dont see food/water as being too hard to come by if your not going with the Howling Wilderness version of a dead America. Yes it would take effort and organization but it wouldn't be some Herculean effort...in my world anyways.

Fuel because you cant clear your land of marauders and Mexicans if you dont have fuel to run your Army on.

Coal for power, steam power, heating fuel, metal refining/forging.

Salt for food preservation primarily.

Concrete, block or brick production for new building construction.

Electronics repair/long range radio comms would probably be next. I do have two nuclear plants in my region after all.

Then ammo/weapon production to keep the Army "fed" if you will.

I do think it will be possible to keep modern aircraft flying, taking it to a one by one manufacturing process or perhaps like the DC Groups work on "US Recovery Plan" where you make two of each item to start to built a stock.

But I do like the idea of starting to build new P-51's and Flying Boxcar tech level airplanes like KFS did in the MP.

Railway clear/maintenance and repair.

Sailing Ship construction for world trade and exploration.

And all the while, Salvage. The world will have tons and tons of it...you just have to be the first to get at it.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Food? Maybe not.
But I think clean water for drinking and cooking will be much harder to come by. For several generations most Westerners have grown up with water from either a mains water supply or from bottled mineral/spring water. Once the supply stops, many people won't know where to look to replenish their supply.
Once the mains water supply stops due to lack of personnel, damaged infrastructure, lack of power etc. etc., most city folk are going to stress about where to get more.

While digging a well is (relatively) easy enough, most city folk don't know the first thing about where to dig a well or how to do even rudimentary cleaning of water other than boiling it. Now boiling is going to take care of a lot of the nasties in water but most individuals will never be able to clean large quantities in a short period of time, certainly not enough to keep a small community going at anything more than a subsistence level or water production.

[kalos72]

While I agree its a concern, there are many ways to provide clean water for a community.

If you have a fuel source, oil, coal, wood, methane, NG, you can run a simple desalination plant or just boil fresh water to clean it. If you have any chemical production chlorine will do wonderfully.

Rain catchment is also going to be a normal thing.

Simple sand bio filters would be common place as well. Plus some simple charcoal production and your set...



Today water is "hard to get" because there are 1000 laws and regulations about the process. If you simplify it to just, safe to drink, its much easier.

All that said, it would require an organized and intelligent central group/body to guide that development as the common person wont know about those methods much less to scale.

[bobcat]

remember this is after food, clean water, and some security are provided per the OP. now i did forget a few key concerns so allow me to adjust my list.

1. Chemical/Salt production
2. Metal refining/production
3. Fuel production
4. Electricity production
5. Medicine production/Sanitation
6. Arms manufacture
7. Coffee/Tea substitute
8. Machinery production
9. Agricultural cash crops
10. Trade/Commerce Infrastructure

[kalos72]

One question I have always had on the electricity, would you want to rebuild the typical "grid" type electrical infrastructure or perhaps something more local?

My guys seem to think the "grid" thing is probably too much to deal with and would want local power generation and distribution. Even to the point of each home generating its own by various methods.

Perhaps a local county seat with a decent size generating facility and power distribution from there.