Buy an Inverter!

Christians, and those who are interested in end time prophecy, should go and buy Tim McHyde's impressive book - time is short IMHO.
http://www.escapeallthese...
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*** God bless Ron Paul ***
* Ron Paul For President *

...we'd all be better off liberating ourselves from the tryanny of 'energy consumption' and we don't even know it.

Case in point: Last winter we got hit with a snow storm that knocked out the power for 5 days. Here in Western Washington that doesn't happen very often so most people in our area were not at all prepared for this. This first day people joked that we were just 'camping'. The second day people were cold and hungry and the lack of *news* about the power stared to wear on everyone. By the third day people were freaking out. By the fourth day people stuck in the snow, without 4WD, were putting signs in their yards that simply read, "Help". People started to get it together and combine efforts to help each other, supply runs, sharing what all we had, etc. On the evening of the fourth night a neighbor, warming himself by our cozy fire, hot cup of steaming Joe in his hand, said, "I know I was panicking at first but...Screw the P.U.D. (power company)! This is the closest *I* have been to actually LIVING in a long, long time."

The next day the power came back on and I sorta wished it hadn't. :)

My brother-in-law does whole house wind-powered systems in California and he is setting me up right now. I can not WAIT to make the phone call to the power company to say, Unhook me now. It's gonna be fabulous. I never got over Enron (my rates sky-rocketed because of that) and have been sending in my payments in folded up articles about Nikolas Tesla so sticking it to 'em is gonna feel soooo nice. This is a joy I want EVERYONE to experience for themselves. WE DON'T NEED THOSE JERKS! My bro-in law and I want to start a non-profit that gets people off the grid for as little cash outlay as possible. We'd be advisors and designers of homemade systems. I have a dream. :)

Greetings from sunny FL. Thought of this article when reading posts for solar solutions: Don't know why we don't have more solar panels on rooftops here. Seems like a no-brainer.

http://www.palmbeachdaily...

sorry but when your trillions of dollars indebt.. and the assets you do own are not enough to pay off that debt... YOU ARE BROKE! 500 TRILLION in derivatives.. 60 Trillion in private, state local and federal Debt! if everything were to be sold off.. there is not enough money to pay it off!... Your article is great tho thanks!

Alas, Babylon by Frank, and it has a lot of ideas for something like this, although the story in the book was a town that survived a nuclear war without fallout, and shows how they survived. It isn't a gloom and doom book, but one that shows the human spirit in overcoming.

I just have to comment that your post reminds me of how pathetically dependent we humans have become on our modern technology. Our reliance on electricity and fuels, which cannot be generated and refined without complex machinery, is particularly open to mockery.

I hope I'm not hated for saying this, but I sometimes almost wish there would be a total collapse, so we Americans would be forced to rediscover our old frontier hardiness. But even then I think only a small minority would choose the simple path of self-reliance. The majority would spend the bulk of their energy trying to maintain the decaying machinery of their lost future. The days of the wood stove and the icehouse are unthinkably archaic for most people.

I'm also reminded of an old Yul Brynner movie, The Ultimate Warrior, where the most valuable thing -- literally -- was the vegetable seeds that a band of survivors planted on the tops of buildings in post-apocalyptic New York City.

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Liberty for Dummies

One little power inverter plugged into your car's cigarette lighter or power point isn't going to power much more than your portable boom box. Surely not your 'fridge or furnace.

You need a real AC generator that runs on gasoline, like a portable Coleman 5500 watt unit or larger that puts out 220 volts. You can backfeed your power panel with a double pole 220 breaker and run the fridge, heater, sump pump, lights, etc.

NOTE: If you do just please make sure to isolate your power panel by shutting off the main. Otherwise you could kill an innocent an unsuspecting lineman up on the pole.

Put some Sta-Bil in the gas, will last a long time as long as you have some starting fluid handy to fire it up. The gas in my generator was about five years old with Sta-Bil. The gas wouldn't fire up the engine but the starting fluid would, and then the gas burned just fine.

And remember, this is a temporary solution, not a long term thing. I did it just last weekend due to a five hour power outage following freak weather and rain, to keep my basement from flooding.

Using an AC generator to get gas out of an underground tank is overkill.
Maybe if the station is still conducting business, but if it's been abandoned, a small 12v pump and a pair of bolt cutters is all you'll need. But gasoline doesn't last very long, so hope that the unrest doesn't either. Most metro stations will simply be commandeered by the military. Best to buy a motorcycle with an oversized tank and stash 20 or so gallons somewhere.

with only one source of natural resource....that tree in your backyard. Learn proper wood handling techniques, such as identification, chopping, and burning efficiently. OPEC can't control it, the gov't can't tax it, and it's pretty much unlimited.....just learn how to use it.

Also, distillers for water.

Either solar or electric.

I run both my Mercedes...and a home generator off waste cooking oil...nobodys gonna make me shiver in the dark...

Now...time to go reload more ammo...

Dave

Teaching Flying...and talking Ron Paul...and Liberty!

And metals, like they put in your bodies to break you into hydrogen.

"Walls are stronger than the men that defend them."

Ghegis Khan

You can throw a few solar panels up on your roof for a fairly low price.
Add battery backup and when the power goes out you will have little problem running the basics.
These days the panels are so heavily subsidised that the government (both state and federal) picks up more than half the cost and with the mandates kicking in to produce more solar energy, the subsidies will grow even greater.
I dont agree with subsidies, but since I am going to be forced to pay for them, than I damn well am going to take advantage of them.
Your inverter idea relies on the need for gasoline, which is a BIG if IMO.
My thinking is that gas supplies will be the first to become erratic.
Look to the carribean for examples of how they will keep us huddled masses in the dark