I'm a bit confused about the premise behind the new NBC series, REVOLUTION

From Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_(TV_series)

Setting

Revolution takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. Fifteen years earlier, an unknown phenomenon permanently disabled all advanced technology on the planet, ranging from computers and electronics to car engines, jet engines, and batteries. People were forced to adapt to a world without technology, and due to the collapse of public order, many areas are ruled by warlords and militias. The series focuses on the Matheson family, who possess an item that is the key to not only finding out what happened fifteen years ago, but also a possible way to reverse its effects. However, they must elude various enemy groups who want to possess that power for themselves.


Not knowing what killed technology in the first place, let's propose that a global EMP was responsible for turning everything off. Yet shouldn't a fifteen span of time allow for people to manufacture simple electrical generators? Wouldn't a rudimentary copper wire wrapped, spinning magnet generator produce some electricity?

Or am I missing something here? Is there some kind of global dampening field that's preventing the tiny electrons from doing their thing?

If so, that's going to create some interesting questions:

Does this dampening field affect lightning?

Does this dampening field affect bio-electrical functions? If it does, how could it not affect our nervous systems, animals that generate bio-electrical fields, animals that are sensitive to bio-electrical fields and et cetera?

Does this dampening field affect the planet's electro-magnetic field, the very thing that protects us all from cosmic and solar radiation? If it does, why are there still people living on this planet fifteen years after the event?

What about underground facilities and underwater self-generated vehicles, like nuclear subs?

Wouldn't nuclear plants all over the world go into meltdown mode, flooding the atmosphere with deadly residual radiation and rendering the area around these plants completely uninhabitable?

What about gas driven non-electrical appliances?

Solar powered devices?

Wind generated devices?

Does this "disabling all technology" theme seem too far-fetched, given the implications involved in other arenas, to you as well?

I'm no physicist, but none it makes any sense to me at all.

I cross posted this in TV Entertainment