Preparedness for when

thriftwizard

A tiny SHTF moment here this morning - our latest batch of students arrived 2 hours early! Luckily the room was in good order, beds made up etc. (they've been travelling for 36 hours by the time they get here) but I hadn't made the hobnobs I like to welcome them with, or cleaned the loo, or sorted out something someone else was collecting. Pleased to report that we did cope reasonably well, although I suspect some harsh words have been stored up for later use...!

daz378

that solar kettle also seems a good idea.....but thats a purchase for the future. Charger , filtration bottle and then solar kettle are my next major prepping purchases........not cooking today might put my tescbobs
vouchers to a sunday meal.....handy living 5 min from shopping centre......enjoy your weekend

nuatha

Perplexed_Pineapple wrote: »

I've just been thinking about a solar set-up to run a laptop and come to the conclusion that there are very few good reasons for using limited power in a blackout for running a laptop. I'd miss surfing the net, but the internet would probably be down anyway, I could live without movies and games, there might be useful information in ebooks or downloaded documents but anything really useful should probably be in a hard copy and there's a lifetime's supply of useful and useless information on the bookshelves anyway. So the main reason for wanting to access information on a laptop at signficant energy expense would be portability - if you had to bug out it would be easier to carry a laptop than lots of books. But as we're discusing if we have motorised transport there are easier ways of generating electricity so the scenario where it would be useful would be if we reverted to older technology. So what we need is to design a donkey cart with built in solar panels

I like the idea of a solar power station on a donkey cart.
Late-ish 90s, there was a US professor type who crossed the States, while delivering lectures from a recumbent bike and trailer with all the electricals charged by solar power.
The basic tech has been around for a while and older laptops or netbooks would be ideal due to there lower power needs.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

For me the hardest deprivation if the power grid should fail would not be no lighting, we've got that covered, not be no heating, we've got that covered too nor even not being able to access information as I've got small...... well, medium library of books covering amost of the things I'd need to know, it WOULD be not being able to communicate with you guys, although I'd still know you were there and doing the same things as we were. I'd miss the support and the company and inventiveness and stoicism that is this thread, I'd miss the being able to toss ideas into the collective and ask questions and share the humour and that feeling of belonging which I have whenever I'm here. So I guess it's a big thank you to all of you and much hoping we NEVER lose the power supply!!!

Well said.
If we had rolling blackouts, we could hope to have intermittent net access and I'd hope this site would survive and we may be reduced to time delayed conversations but we'd still have access.
Failing that, if we still have a telephone network, I could see a return of the Bulletin Board Systems that predated easy web access.

Frugalsod

daz378 wrote: »

that solar kettle also seems a good idea.....but thats a purchase for the future. Charger , filtration bottle and then solar kettle are my next major prepping purchases........not cooking today might put my tescbobs
vouchers to a sunday meal.....handy living 5 min from shopping centre......enjoy your weekend

I decided to get one because at the moment it is sunny and so would be perfect to test and work out the foibles of such a system. I only get sun on my balcony till about 1 pm but could heat up several solar kettles to heat a days water for coffee etc. So that might actually mean less electricity usage which would go a short way towards recovering the cost, though I suspect that the payback rate might be in years. It might also be possible to reheat a soup so could be useful for that, though I suspect that heating water for sterilisation after it has been filtered and for adding to dehydrated meals might actually be its main uses in a SHTF situation. It has the advantage of not needing fuel and not giving the users position away like smoke would, both of which are SHTF pluses. It might also be useful when camping, as open fires are banned in many places.

daz378

Id like to think that the TPTB have some kind of plan for peak oil transition, the emergence albeit slowly of hybrid cars, for instance, but...how resilient is it? would it survive major economic, environmental disaster.....? therein lies the real danger

daz378

i havent even got a balcony , might get one for my dad who has a garden though...also meant to buy a sunnan lamp for him....thanks anyway didnt even know solar kettles existed

nuatha

daz378 wrote: »

Id like to think that the TPTB have some kind of plan for peak oil transition, the emergence albeit slowly of hybrid cars, for instance, but...how resilient is it? would it survive major economic, environmental disaster.....? therein lies the real danger

Given how far sighted they haven't been so far - energy generation for example, shut down the coal fired power station early, then have to extend nuclear beyond their design life and still have projected shortfalls over the next 5 years - I presume TPTB are incompetent, short sighted and have no interest beyond securing their place in the next general election. What's worse is that I'm generally an optimist - there are a lot of people who have even less faith that I do.
They currently seem to be pinning their faith on fracking as a way out of the looming energy crisis. Before that it was new oil fields, and the next one is likely to be Fire Ice.
Globally governments are still subsidising fossil fuels to the tune of $2 trillion, our own government has announced no further subsidies for renewables if they win the next election - hardly future planning.

Frugalsod

nuatha wrote: »

Given how far sighted they haven't been so far - energy generation for example, shut down the coal fired power station early, then have to extend nuclear beyond their design life and still have projected shortfalls over the next 5 years - I presume TPTB are incompetent, short sighted and have no interest beyond securing their place in the next general election. What's worse is that I'm generally an optimist - there are a lot of people who have even less faith that I do.
They currently seem to be pinning their faith on fracking as a way out of the looming energy crisis. Before that it was new oil fields, and the next one is likely to be Fire Ice.
Globally governments are still subsidising fossil fuels to the tune of $2 trillion, our own government has announced no further subsidies for renewables if they win the next election - hardly future planning.

I agree with you.

They are not planning ahead, even the energy companies are not thinking that far ahead. They have failed to discover significant oil fields for decades and their share of the oil market is collapsing. They are not even making enough to cover developing fields that they know about already. Saudi Arabia has been lying about its capacity and reserves for years. They are no longer the swing producer any longer and cannot be relied on to expand supply if necessary. It is widely believed that they are currently running at maximum capacity already.

Fracking has so many problems associated with it that I doubt that it will be viable beyond 2020 anyway. It is dependant on lots of cheap money to finance it, and if interest rates rise then it will not be viable unless energy prices rise even more. The government are lying to use if they think it will give us energy independence for 40 years. In the US while fracking has been going for about a decade the numbers of wells required are enormous. Then it requires loads of water and lax regulation re the returning fluid that it could make it unprofitable if they have to comply with regulations. In fact fracking is already peaking in terms of output in many areas and in the biggest field in California they have had to downgrade the amounts of recoverable oil by as much as 99%. Also the recovery rate from a well falls by more than 70% after the first year.

Fire Ice as it is called is plentiful but might simply disappear if the sea temperatures rises too high. It will simply boil away exacerbating climate change. There is a lot in Siberia frozen under the permafrost, which if that melts could cause climate collapse.

What we need to do is to tax carbon fuels really heavily and use the carbon tax proceeds to pay for energy savings efficiency grants but that was what the Green levy was doing and the government slashed that.

Frugalsod

I am looking at first aid kits and would like some feedback on these please. Not sure of whether to get or to create my own from scratch.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000T9LRUY

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000R2FM86

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0015NMPVS

[Deleted User]

It rather depends on what you want it for (BOB, camping, vehicle or home use), how many you are likely to need to treat (do you live alone, or have a large family?), the type of injuries you anticipate treating, your level of 1st Aid skill, and of course, the depth of your wallet.