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Surely you could use a good old-fashioned diesel or gasoline powered generator?

Huh! .. Funny this topic has arisen .. A state wide power outage took place here 2 years ago .. I am in a rural region that took the brunt of it .. For 4 days we had nothing .. And when I say nothing .. I DO mean NOTHING .. In fact it was hard to even explain to others what it was really like .. No police .. No ambulance .. ATM’s gone .. NO access to your money what so ever .. Banks GONE .. When you ran out of fuel .. you were going not one foot further (unless you walked) .. No petrol stations .. No internet .. ANYTHING requiring a battery only lasted as long as the charge .. NO communication what so ever (chuck your mobile phone in the bin) .. NO shops open .. NO hot water .. in fact NO water at all .. (pumps required for that) ..You could only purchase if you had cash (ie: tinned food) .. And unless you had gas .. you were heating and /or cooking NOTHING .. KMart was the ONLY outlet allowing people to withdraw a “one off” $50 maximum from their bank accounts .. Anything in fridges or freezers lasted 3 days .. Our ONLY connection to the outside world was via radio and they couldn’t tell us what was going on because when their emergency backups failed .. they were in the dark too .. Plus they had NO communication ability either .. And a radio will only work while you have a supply of batteries .. Generators only lasted as long as you had fuel .. It was back to candles and when you ran out of them .. the nights were VERY long .. VERY dark and bloody cold .. It gave us ALL a very sobering glimpse of how truly interconnected everything REALLY is .. ANYTHING that required a plug was rendered absolutely USELESS .. What you had .. you had UNTIL it ran out .. Having spent many years in “far northern” cyclone country .. I was more prepped than most .. stocking up on gas but then again .. when that ran out .. the jig was up .. and it IS the end!! (as we understand it) .. The End!!

Uh! Oh! .. comments are vanishing .. Anyone else notice this? …

Redundancy is key, its about buying time, as your 1st line power sources WILL run out of fuel. Buying time will allow you to build context in order to develop the situation and create a plan, long term and short term.

1) Power: I suggest redundancy, a backup generator is most likely the 1st line, it would be fired up in the event of an outage (fuel is the obvious limitation, noise being the not so obvious). A portable solar system is best. I have one that powers my shop, when I want it to. It can easily be broken down and moved to another location (this is IMPORTANT). In my shop, I have a deep freezer that I converted to a refrigerator, with a simple thermostat swap available from Amazon. Deep freezers are MUCH more insulated, thus will draw less power to keep goods cold (horizontal is best as cold air doesn’t “spill out” as it does in a vertical unit). There are also some pretty cool inverters that are made specifically for you to connect your automobile to your home/camper/shelter (cargenerator dot com).

2) Communication: the only reason power is rated higher than communication, is because the one requires the other. HAM radios are best. I won’t go into all the details of their capability, but lets just say a simple unit can reach hundreds of miles if need be. Get your license, join a local club and practice the trade. You can have the best equipment, but if your not a skilled operator, it’s effectively useless. Not to encourage thievery, but most cell phone towers have solar backup systems, as do many components along rail lines. Chances are, any tower equipped with a HAM repeater, has some extra goodies too. For a great source on this, go to AmRRON, they have an awesome resources section. MESH networks are also something worth looking into. Without information, you are flying blind. Communication is a MUST!