How long would the Earth last if the sun became a black hole?

[Chronos]

You're neglecting that some people already live in artificial environments that would survive the apocalypse. Iceland, for instance, already gets all of their power from geothermal, everything is insulated, and they grow food using artificial light (and the amount of plants needed to feed a colony of humans is also the amount needed to produce oxygen for them).

[Mastikator]

You're neglecting that some people already live in artificial environments that would survive the apocalypse. Iceland, for instance, already gets all of their power from geothermal, everything is insulated, and they grow food using artificial light (and the amount of plants needed to feed a colony of humans is also the amount needed to produce oxygen for them).

True, and they're surrounded by ocean so it gets colder slower. But that just means they survive maybe a month longer. After a year you'd need a space suit because the atmosphere has solidified and there's not enough space suits in Iceland to go around. It's going to get colder than Pluto.

[Radar]

You're neglecting that some people already live in artificial environments that would survive the apocalypse. Iceland, for instance, already gets all of their power from geothermal, everything is insulated, and they grow food using artificial light (and the amount of plants needed to feed a colony of humans is also the amount needed to produce oxygen for them).

1. All that is still above-ground and unprepared for extreme cold. There are few if any underground facilities to use there.
2. No country is self-sufficient. All the geothermal power plant and hydroponic gardens? They rely on equipment imported from elsewhere. Take a look at any given product and it will turn out that the supply chain spans over many countries all over the world: minerals mined at one place, refined at another, different parts produced at specialized factories and finally assembled at yet another factory.

[halfeye]

The best prepared place at this point in time would be Antarctica, and that isn't prepared.

The human race would require at least one population of over 100 to survive. Twp populations of 50, or one population of 90 and another of 10 wouldn't do. The surface would be a wasteland like the moon, but worse, travelling thousands of miles would be impossible.

The materials we currently use wouldn't work, steel would be at least as fragile as glass is now, plkastics would disintegrate, water ice wouldn't be much better than steel, the building materials to use out in the world would be nitrogen and oxygen, and maybe alloys of those and other elements that are currently gases.

Vacuum is a decent insulator, and there would be a lot of that available, I have no idea what the thermal conductivity of the gases as solids are like.

[Psyren]

XKCD What If covered this for the Moon, and there was a brief blurb in there about the Sun scenario:

https://what-if.xkcd.com/129/

[DavidSh]

Nuclear submarines would be good for about three months, when the food runs out. Air and fresh water are generated from the seawater using the power from the reactor, which should long outlast the food. Unless the oceans freeze down to the maximum operating depth first.