Thats it! You guys are freakin me out. My new EDC is a large steel box with a chain draggin on the ground. That way at least my cell phone and GPS will be safe....oh wait, nevermind.

I am betting all the cash machines will work fine but the banks will have lost all their data about which accounts had any money in them.

Gee, $7,000 seems like a lot just to run a refrigerator. How about something like this instead:

Alternative to solar/electric refrigerator

I see several advantages here, the biggest one being that you can use any relative heat source to run this sort of unit with. With some minor modifications, you could even run this thing using a wood fire, bunker oil, coal, whatever you can find and burn. You could even make a cheapo solar collector that would run this thing, which is going to cost far less than PV arrays and batteries.

I like flexibility and thrift.

Here's something coming soon that kinda knocks pv out the door.

Alternative solar refrigeration

$7,000 is pretty expensive but again that figure has to be balanced over the lifetime of the kit in question. Assuming a 20 years operational lifetime means an annualised cost of $350 per year.

A typical chest freezer of around 8 cubic feet (energy A+ rated) would cost me around £350 or $600, with its energy consuption stated at 223 kWhr/year or 610 Whr/day or about $100 per year in electricity running costs.

looking again at the http://www.sundanzer.com/PDF/residential_system_sizing.pdf energy usage table this would assume an ambient temperature of 76F assuming similar insulation properties.

The $7000 figure was based on the 100F ambient so if the conventional on grid freezer was used in a continual 100F temperature the energy consumption would I suspect be around double that so a 450-500 KWh/year figure would be more typical. i.e. its electricity costs would be $200 per year to run. The difference being $150 per year in addition to the operational cost of the grid tied freezer over that 20 year operational period.

You could see that additional cost of $150/year over the 20 year period as an insurance policy against grid failure and the consequences of no refrigeration facilities. The solar PV and battery system can also of course be used for additional emergency measures because the $7000 PV refrigeration system can also be used to power other devices in the event of an emergency or long term grid failure which takes higher priority over domestic refrigeration.

I figure I can get an entire solar system for my entire house for 15k or less.

$7k for a fridge setup is nearly half my entire house solar setup, and I get to keep my original fridge too!

Federal 30% rebate for going solar, and then 2.5$/watt rebate for my panels for grid-tie and I`m getting a lot closer to that $7k figure for my ENTIRE house L O L.

That is extremely interesting - thanks for the link.

Reading of such innovations always gives me hope. Technological advances that improve survival off the grid are not only terrific for those worried about the potential for the grid to go down but it is revolutionary for those in areas of the world that never had a grid to begin with.


:-)

I've read the book and have to give it a thumbs down. First off, the author's grammar is pretty awful, which tells me he doesn't have a lot of writing experience and/or schooling.

I thought the idea was excellent, but his setting and subplots were entirely cliche'. They've all been done before. This book is simply Patriots or Lights Out set in a different place, with all the cheesy dialogue included. I'd love to see it set in a larger city, and focus more on the specific daily struggles of the people.

I guess the only thing I actually liked was that not ALL of the good guys won, including the main character. I won't go any further so I don't spoil it for anyone.

I found that article (Looking for Jim's new wife) appalling, and even sent an email saying just that. Maybe the guy doesn't want a new wife. Maybe he wants a young blonde trophy wife. Maybe he wants to mourn for a year or 2 first.

Maybe I run with an odd crowd, but I know of three families where terminally ill wives found replacement-wives for their husbands. Strangly, I don't know of any opposite cases.

Different strokes and all that...

-Blast