Preparedness for when

Karmacat

Just having a think while my cuppa tea brews ... this Malaysian flight (sorry to bring it up again). Does anybody else remember that Air France flight that also went down and wasn't heard of prior to whatever it was that caused it? There wasn't nearly the search for that one, that there is for this one.

So I'm trying to think about why (rather than carry on with my tax dark plans, for instance ). And I'm coming up with two things, one prepping related, the other not:
- the "not" first: China's one-child family. A lot of the younger Chinese people on that plane will have been the only child - all the hopes for the future rested on that child, and they've gone, in unknown circumstances. And thats unusual for China (for any of us) until this last generation - so the parents, the partners, are especially desperate for knowledge.
- the prepping related one: its a distraction from other news. Its all a bit bread and circuses, I don't trust it. *What* its distracting from, I'm not sure: Syria is still going bad, there's violence all across North Africa, though not on that scale, and heading up towards Turkey too now, Brazilians are objecting to the World Cup, economic news is problematic wherever you look, as the economic gains are funnelled away from ordinary people towards the very rich and super-rich.

I think the need to be prepared is getting a bit real

[Deleted User]

Hey FUDDLE I'm of the opinion that if the power supply becomes unreliable it will be so everywhere so the preps I make are primarily those that would allow us to stay home and have as good a life as we're able to. Of course we also have contingency plans for how to and where to if something happens that requires us to leave here and get to a place of safety but I think the problems we will encounter in the short term will be those that would mean we were safer here with our own belongings to use. I don't think anyone could prepare for every eventuality without becoming so scared of what ifs that they wouldn't be 'living' in the now, only looking anxiously in all directions to see what was coming their way. I've been thinking of lightweight BOB emergency food and to that end have this morning bought a couple of packs of cream crackers and two jars of peanut butter which with our sporks to spread would give us high protien energy food that is light and easily carried. I also got in a couple of packs of sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and some individually wrapped chocolate finger bars which should give us the 72 hours supplies that are recommended. I don't worry easily, I think we would be able to cope in many scenarios that didn't mean immediate personal danger so I'll stay finger on the world pulse and the local grapevine and do the best I can with what I have, just like you will pet, Lyn xxx.

Frugalsod

jk0 wrote: »

Karl Denninger is a big fan of thorium reactors, and from what he mentions about the possibility of using the waste products to produce diesel, they sound ideal:

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3350671

Why one earth aren't we developing these in the UK?

It is the lack of political will. With uranium based reactors they can get a steady supply of plutonium for weapons. That is not possible with Thorium.

Frugalsod

RAS wrote: »

Did anyone check out that programme last year in which they ask people in a cul de sac in NE Scotland to cut their energy consumption?

The aim was to get it down by 30% but most families acutally managed 50% reductions, with the family with the lowest usage previously managing the largest reduction.

Big savings came from draught proofing, round pipe inlets and outlets, joins between floors and walls, ceilings and walls etc.

It is actually very easy for most people to cut their usage quite considerably without a drop in living standards. High efficiency appliances can make a huge difference as well as not leaving things on standby. Most people are idiots if they have not massively insulated their homes. The payback rate is very high and the effective returns are far higher than can be achieved putting the same money on deposit. Draught excluders and loft insulation have very high rates of return. They can pay for themselves in only a couple of years.

westlothianlass

Hi all, day off today which is lovely.
I realise that the more preps I do, and the more knowledge I acquire (or books I squirrel away:D) the more confident i feel that we would be able to cope in difficult situations.
Which is a change as a few months ago I was feeling a bit out of control with all that is/was going on in the world, I suppose it's a reminder to myself to look at stuff closest to hand first of all, not rocket science I know but it's put a smile on my face
Right off to play in the kitchen,
WLL x

mardatha

RAS it is the wee things that we seem to miss eh? I have a bit in the bathroom where the pipes come in and the draught there is hellish. I keep stuffing poly bags in there but it doesnt really work and I dono what else to do with it. Gaps around skirtings are inevitable with laminate flooring - i wouldn't have that stuff in the house, its too bloody cold. Nice thick carpets are needed in this house!

Charis

Frugalsod wrote: »

It is actually very easy for most people to cut their usage quite considerably without a drop in living standards. High efficiency appliances can make a huge difference as well as not leaving things on standby. Most people are idiots if they have not massively insulated their homes. The payback rate is very high and the effective returns are far higher than can be achieved putting the same money on deposit. Draught excluders and loft insulation have very high rates of return. They can pay for themselves in only a couple of years.

It's not always possible to massively insulate some properties. A good friend lives in a stone cottage that's been added to over the years. It's high up and gets the full brunt of the east wind. The only way she can insulate the walls effectively is by losing 4" room space on every wall, cladding the outside is verboten, it would spoil the appearance so not allowed. Losing 4" on every wall in her kitchen would make it like a railway carriage. Many other properties in the area are classic black and white houses and cottages with thin walls that once again may only be insulated on the inside (planning regs) and are one skin of bricks with a skim of horsehair and plaster. Same problem with putting 4" on the inside of every wall - rooms impossibly small. And of course there are lots of 'barn conversions' that must be impossible to keep warm. Thanks Kevin McCloud and Channel 4.
Others who can't/won't insulate are renters, and also people who just can't afford to, for whatever reason. Even with a Warm Front grant I still had to find several hundred pounds towards a new boiler and insulation that was deemed necessary. I'm not sure the gov even do the Warm Front thing any more.

Frugalsod

mardatha wrote: »

We have tons and tons of coal under the ground. But it would need money to open up pits again and the miners are all older now. LOL story of the UK in a nutshell eh - chaos!

It would also be a lot more expensive. If you accept that climate change is a problem then 80% of what energy reserves we have in the ground will have to be left in the ground so that will end fracking, as it is simply not cost effective to get, no matter what the energy companies and the government says. With long term sea level rises now certain and large parts of the country doomed permanently we need to move to greener solutions faster for climate change reasons and for energy security.

Frugalsod

Charis wrote: »

It's not always possible to massively insulate some properties. A good friend lives in a stone cottage that's been added to over the years. It's high up and gets the full brunt of the east wind. The only way she can insulate the walls effectively is by losing 4" room space on every wall, cladding the outside is verboten, it would spoil the appearance so not allowed. Losing 4" on every wall in her kitchen would make it like a railway carriage. Many other properties in the area are classic black and white houses and cottages with thin walls that once again may only be insulated on the inside (planning regs) and are one skin of bricks with a skim of horsehair and plaster. Same problem with putting 4" on the inside of every wall - rooms impossibly small. And of course there are lots of 'barn conversions' that must be impossible to keep warm. Thanks Kevin McCloud and Channel 4.
Others who can't/won't insulate are renters, and also people who just can't afford to, for whatever reason. Even with a Warm Front grant I still had to find several hundred pounds towards a new boiler and insulation that was deemed necessary. I'm not sure the gov even do the Warm Front thing any more.

As a renter I know about the problems of insulating, especially when landlords are too cheap to insulate. As you mentioned the only way to insulate many homes is to make the rooms smaller by insulating inside. The fact that the rooms become smaller is down to poor planning years ago, many new homes are also too small to insulate properly and the building regs for efficient homes has been pushed back a number of times to appease builders. A passive haus design might be more expensive to build but the energy savings are large and permanent. Yet buyers are failing to factor in that.

Si_Clist

Frugalsod wrote: »

It is the lack of political will. With uranium based reactors they can get a steady supply of plutonium for weapons. That is not possible with Thorium.

Does anybody else remember reading in the papers that they were going to build something called a Nuclear Power Station, and once everybody was plugged into it, electricity was going to be so cheap that it wouldn't be economic to meter it? Every household would just pay a fiver a year or whatever?

Presumably that went the same way as the political party that was going to solve all the world's problems by means of yogic flying. I think they were also promising free spliffs for all if they got in, but maybe I imagined that ...