The Neutron Jammer?

[Mafty]

So just how much damage did the Neutron Jammers do to the Earth? It's stated they caused an energy crisis and mass starvation, and stayed on earth till after the war. However when we see the earth in SEED(and they cover numerous contents) there dosent seem to be a lack of energy in any of the cities. Are these cities powered by alterntive sources? Or does ZAFT remove the Jammers from occupied territory?

[John-Luck Pickerd]

Was there a mass-starvation? I recall it was pretty much just a refugee camp in Africa when the show mentioned starvation. Instead some country(Eurasia I guess?) have people freezing to death, according to some big shot Alliance officer.

As for damage, what we see on the show is pretty much what we know, without getting into speculations. There are cities that have descended to anarchy, energy crisis leading to deaths, food production must be impacted but the extent is not 100% clear. I recall Seed stated that hundreds of thousands have died, but cant really remember where so dont quote me on it.

But I honestly don't think the effect was really THAT bad, especially considering how fast Alliance pump out warmachines. Each ship, MS, tank etc. takes ALOT of energy in their production. If Earth is practically shut down then no way Alliance could throw numbers at Zaft like they did on the show; they run out of ships before Zaft do.

Is it that impossible that infrastructure could still be powered by renewable sources, even just barely? A post-fuel crisis Earth in Seed must have plenty of that right?

[Mafty]

Agreed the Neutron Jammers would only shut down nuclear powered energy, not other sources(Clearly ORB must use an alternative source). Now that I think of it we don't really see that much of Earth in SEED that isn't Alliance/Zaft military bases(ie we only see the Zaft base in Australia, Josh-A in Alaska, Victoria in Southern Africa) , The only cities we see are some in North Africa(Which may be powered differently than the Southern region which as episode 1 tells us has a refugee crisis and food shortages), and Orb itself. Its only in the sequel series that we see different parts of North America, Europe, Asia and South America(albeit only in Stargazer). By that point the Neutron Jammers have been removed so its possible we're seeing regions that were more heavily affected in the first war. As for the bases it wouldn't surprise me if Zaft or the EA focused on supplying energy toward their own bases at the expense of the local civilian population.

[Seto Kaiba]

What little I was able to find about the degree of disruption on Earth caused by the neutron jammers was that the actual disruption was severe but short-lived as Earth's governments switched from nuclear fission power plants to primarily solar power assisted by gas turbine generators.

[azrael]

ORB survived by switching to geothermal energy production from the active volcanoes. But yes, most nations survived by switching to non-nuclear forms of energy production.