Gold - Digigold or coins?

MX5huggy

@Kondongo an EV is exactly what you want in those circumstances, with Vehicle to Load, Home or Grid capability you then have 60kWh power supply that can keep your gas boiler running, the lights on, heat a room, keep the freezer frozen etc. Getting low on power drive it to the next town charge it up another 3 to 5 days of power. 

Kondongo

MX5huggy said:

@Kondongo an EV is exactly what you want in those circumstances, with Vehicle to Load, Home or Grid capability you then have 60kWh power supply that can keep your gas boiler running, the lights on, heat a room, keep the freezer frozen etc. Getting low on power drive it to the next town charge it up another 3 to 5 days of power. 

Many thanks for the helpful suggestion. Yes, I've heard that too about V2L, and I think that might be an option for relatively brief outages. However, powering a house (albeit restricted to essentials) for extended periods (10 days in our case), would require a huge power draw beyond the capabilities of today’s V2L technology. This is very much a future feature - and one to look out for.  These V2L systems also require a transfer switch set-up in the house when used during outages (so as not to send current down the line and potential injury electricity workers).  Also, currently (no pun intended) our nearest charge point is a hilly 25 miles away and even if the few chargers there were vacant (not likely when there's a regional outage), that would be a hilly 25 mile drive home too to eat into the battery storage.  In rural situations, EVs at present don't make a lot of sense, although I can see how practical they might be in a more urban situation.

We actually invested in a Champion dual fuel inverter generator (with the compensation we received from NorthernPowerGrid), and a 19Kg container of propane which has a longer shelf life than petrol and can also be used to power stoves, etc.

We did lose the contents of our freezer (or rather we spent a few days eating as much of the contents as we could!), and we found in the winter our garage makes a useful, cost free pantry/fridge in winter with temperature typically below 5 degrees.  Traditionally, in this area, houses had a pantry on the northside, often cut into the bank behind the house to keep the contents cool.  Perhaps we'll see a return in housing designs incorporating some traditional, low tech, low energy consumption options

adindas

I personally would not touch high value items to be kept in home; those  could easily be cashed out. Keeping your coin gold at home, there is more things you will need to worry rather than your Gold Coins.

phillw

Kondongo said:
Yes, self-sufficiency is the bane of Globalist ambitions. 

Not really. Most people in the UK don't want to, or could not achieve self sufficiency. I'd avoid Russell Brand on every topic, he's funny to laugh at but he is an entertainer doing it for the money.

Building in resilience by stockpiling to avoid supply chain issues is one thing, but buying gold to mitigate against societal collapse is not logical (how would you give change?).

Being cut off is not a real risk for most people, but Solar PV, Wind Turbines, batteries and a backup generator would make sense if living remotely.

IMO the end of physical money can't come too soon, Aldi would have to come up with a better way of securing their trolleys.

born_again

Kondongo said: With our diesel fuelled car we were able to drive to and from his home with food deliveries, while an EV would have simply been a stranded piece of junk. cluttering the road and hampering access to emergency vehicles and the like.

How do you think that diesel fuel from the tank gets into your car?
Yep electric pumps. So while you will get a longer usage out of your diesel compared to a EV. If the power outage lasted longer, you may end up with your car parked at the side of the road as well.

Kondongo

born_again said:

Kondongo said: With our diesel fuelled car we were able to drive to and from his home with food deliveries, while an EV would have simply been a stranded piece of junk. cluttering the road and hampering access to emergency vehicles and the like.

How do you think that diesel fuel from the tank gets into your car?
Yep electric pumps. So while you will get a longer usage out of your diesel compared to a EV. If the power outage lasted longer, you may end up with your car parked at the side of the road as well.

How do you think that diesel fuel from the tank gets into your car? It doesn't take a lot of forethought to prepare for a range of life events, that might stifle those of more urban complacent mindedness.  I also recommend reading the Stoics as a starter.

Being independently (self-sufficiency?) minded, the garage in the next village along the dale, used a jenny to power their pumps, so unleaded petrol and diesel were available, plus LPG, albeit most folks around here keep a can or two (officially you're only allowed to store 20 litres of petrol/diesel, although you can store 1000s of litres of heating fuel oil next to it!).  Most of the dale were re-connected after a few days, while, as in our case it was 10 days, and some more isolated farms it was months (NorthernPowerGrid provided some with diesel generators).

For those enthusiastic about CBDC, and a cashless society, it was telling that the local Co-op couldn't open (the electric shutters were non-functional) and would have been useless even if it had as the electric tills were 'dead'. All of the frozen food rotted, and with no entry to the premises the Co-op wasn't even able to offer heated soup , etc. for those folks who had no cooking/heating options.  Other local independent shops did share their perishables, and were able to make that decision without having to refer back for permission to 'central-command' in London or elsewhere.

Indeed, most shops couldn't use their electric tills or switch, etc.  Those of us who had enough nouse to have cash in our wallets were 'quids-in', and our local newsagent gave credit to people he knew- where they could buy, among other things - batteries and candles if they hadn't the mindset to be adequately prepared beforehand. 

The notion that "IMO the end of physical money can't come too soon" is fine if you believe there won't ever be a national/international hack/breakdown of financial systems (aside from the surveillance and 'social credit scores' issues associated with CBDC).  However, why not have an 'analogue' back-up system just in case?   That would save the indignity have having to scurry around offering turnips for batteries because your Applepay is defunk and according to digital records and glitches you never had any credit anyway - where's your paperless evidence?

I'd rather have a few gold coins in my pocket than dead smart phones to trade, as even in tough, pre-industrial times, those people in society who lever a bit of power loved beautiful, rare, shiny things too.

On the idea of having back-up systems (stored gold, cash, turnips, zinc nails, etc) it's telling that Germany have now decided to recommission their coal power stations which they had previously had the foresight to mothball.  We could too - Oh hang on, we levelled  all of ours, apart from a couple still working, to the ground - shucks.  And with no foresight to store enough gas in the UK, and no significant stocks of coal (it's all imported), there's little redundancy in the system to weather blips.  Indeed, German, with it's "Green' Government, are now actually demolishing a functioning wind farm in-order to mine even the low-quality coal beneath it. https://spectator.com.au/2022/10/gale-force-hypocrisy-german-greens-kill-wind-farm-for-coal-mine/ 

As some wit recently wrote 'why not prepare for the collapse now, and avoid the rush"   It's reassuring to remember that reality always bats last.

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miss-tified

maybe have a look at the articles on www.theroyalmint.com to help you evaluate some choices