All in one solution

[SunEagle]

[QUOTE=J.P.M.;n363745]

Life is a set of choices. Mak'em and live (or not) with the results. Pay your money, take your choice.

"It's the end of the world as we know it".

[Drael6464]

[QUOTE=SunEagle;n363787]

"It's the end of the world as we know it".

That's not improbable objectively. Almost inevitable. The end of the world as we know it, I mean XD

The US, and the EU as a whole, is not far from the debt to gdp ratio that Greece had, when they defaulted on their repayments and the IMF demanded austerity, and now sit in depression. Should the banks ever close under such conditions, there would be no government money for a bail out unlike the great depression or the recession.

If it happened to a major country like the US, it would be dominos. The lowered wealth would trigger lowered GDP in other countries, repeating the process over and over like newspaper catching fire, with basically no one able to service the debt, to borrow money, to bail themselves out, or stimulate, or recover the banks. From the most in debt, right down to the least.

Essentially modern finance is a game of music chairs. The banks never have all your money. You tend not to own all of your stuff. The government doesn't tend to pay for its whole budget, and the ones who filter money down to them, don't have all their cash at hand either - like the banks, its invested. It's ultimately growth based on debt, and holdings which are never in practice very fluid - which in principle, is always unsustainable/unstable in the long term. All whilst the background players horde gold and actual commodities, like china, and the banking families.
It might not be for twenty years but it seems fairly much a given.

Making a choice however, I think I can do that pretty well! I tend to be the sort that tries to optimise - consider deeply, make the best choices. But insofar as generator versus solar, I'm pretty set on solar. I'm kind of glad I have had some experience of earthquakes and power crises etc in a way. It makes me want to live closer to myself. Closer to the world. Further from abstraction. And some other experiences I've had too.

Maybe I'll be **** at it. But growth is always good.

[SunEagle]

[QUOTE=Drael6464;n363832]

That's not improbable objectively. Almost inevitable. The end of the world as we know it, I mean XD

The US, and the EU as a whole, is not far from the debt to gdp ratio that Greece had, when they defaulted on their repayments and the IMF demanded austerity, and now sit in depression. Should the banks ever close under such conditions, there would be no government money for a bail out unlike the great depression or the recession.

If it happened to a major country like the US, it would be dominos. The lowered wealth would trigger lowered GDP in other countries, repeating the process over and over like newspaper catching fire, with basically no one able to service the debt, to borrow money, to bail themselves out, or stimulate, or recover the banks. From the most in debt, right down to the least.

Essentially modern finance is a game of music chairs. The banks never have all your money. You tend not to own all of your stuff. The government doesn't tend to pay for its whole budget, and the ones who filter money down to them, don't have all their cash at hand either - like the banks, its invested. It's ultimately growth based on debt, and holdings which are never in practice very fluid - which in principle, is always unsustainable/unstable in the long term. All whilst the background players horde gold and actual commodities, like china, and the banking families.
It might not be for twenty years but it seems fairly much a given.

Making a choice however, I think I can do that pretty well! I tend to be the sort that tries to optimise - consider deeply, make the best choices. But insofar as generator versus solar, I'm pretty set on solar. I'm kind of glad I have had some experience of earthquakes and power crises etc in a way. It makes me want to live closer to myself. Closer to the world. Further from abstraction. And some other experiences I've had too.

Maybe I'll be **** at it. But growth is always good.

I was being sarcastic with my statement. But yes there is always the chance of the world changing along with the comfortable lifestyle we have gotten use to.

The difference with me is that I do not plan on trying to survive a major catastrophe that includes no grid for a year or more. Both my wife and I rely on medications that will be hard to find and more than likely shorten what little life I have left.

IMO generating my own power is not high on my list of things needed to survive. For that matter being able to generate my own power creates a target on my back for someone that will do everything they can to steal it from me.

But to each their own when it comes to survival and how to live through it.

[J.P.M.]

[QUOTE=SunEagle;n363842]

But to each their own when it comes to survival and how to live through it.

How do you not live through survival ?

[Drael6464]

[QUOTE=SunEagle;n363842]

I was being sarcastic with my statement. But yes there is always the chance of the world changing along with the comfortable lifestyle we have gotten use to.

The difference with me is that I do not plan on trying to survive a major catastrophe that includes no grid for a year or more. Both my wife and I rely on medications that will be hard to find and more than likely shorten what little life I have left.

IMO generating my own power is not high on my list of things needed to survive. For that matter being able to generate my own power creates a target on my back for someone that will do everything they can to steal it from me.

But to each their own when it comes to survival and how to live through it.

A lot of people are in that situation, including some of my family and most drugs don't have good plant substitutes. Even people who aren't sick have the issue of antibiotics, and infection.

[jflorey2]

[QUOTE=SunEagle;n363787]

"It's the end of the world as we know it"

. . . and I feel fine.

[kb58]

... For that matter being able to generate my own power creates a target on my back for someone that will do everything they can to steal it from me...

Yup, if the entire neighborhood is dark except for one house, with bright lights, music, and the smell of BBQ, yeah, it's going to draw attention, and probably not in a good way. Sometimes, showing off "look how well prepared we are" can backfire, but I'm getting off-topic.

[Mike90250]

Over the past few winters, I have generally seen 10% of normal PV production on cloudy days. My 3Kw array putting out sometimes less than 300w @ noon

[Drael6464]

Yup, if the entire neighborhood is dark except for one house, with bright lights, music, and the smell of BBQ, yeah, it's going to draw attention, and probably not in a good way. Sometimes, showing off "look how well prepared we are" can backfire, but I'm getting off-topic.

Well if your living in a neighbourhood, that'd be one of your problems in a infrastructure collapse situation. Lights on or off, your going to get people at your door.
On the other hand, people went farm to farm during the great depression looking for work. If you had agriculture and farming going on, it might even be handy having desperate people. So even that's situational. Where I live, city folk, the kinds who don't have their own food, tend to also not have their own guns because of licensing laws. You can't own guns for self-protection, only hunting.

In that kind of situation, you need a community anyway, people who will keep the peace, and hold threats at bay. In that scenario, you'd probably be sharing your power with others in your group. Storing their food, charging their radios etc. Primitive communism.

But yeah, having the only power in a suburban area, isn't exactly camouflage. Especially if your actually using something brighter than candles at night.

[Drael6464]

Over the past few winters, I have generally seen 10% of normal PV production on cloudy days. My 3Kw array putting out sometimes less than 300w @ noon

Yeah, that was my concern. 10%, that's low. Thanks for that info, that's really helpful for a noob!

I spoke to the goal zero people, and with a dump load before the battery, it's perfect viable to use a wind turbine. Their 3000 model comes with two charge controllers MPPT for solar, and PWM for the Anderson power pole. The 400, and 1400 models come with a cheap add on, that adds the MPPT controller.

So I can put in a little 300W turbine, and two 400W panels, just using a separate controller for both. The turbine I'm looking at is rated at 11 m/s, and 7-8 m/s across the 24 hour period is pretty common even in summer. I know that's not effecient, but it's a camping battery, so I'm not going to have use for anything much higher. So I am hoping that will bridge the gap. Of course, there's cabling loss, and the inefficiency of a PWM controller to add in there, so on one of those average winter days it might only be 80-100Watts? Just stabbing in the dark. I'll definitely need good wiring, so I can put it in a good wind gathering spot.

And if it's 10% for cloudy, that'll be less that 40W from the solar, and even less than that on dark arse stormy days.

I actually found a dual chest fridge/freezer, 98L designed for cars and RVs that runs @ 15 watt/hours average designed by an Australian company, dometic. It's designed entirely for efficiency, strong seals, special materials, fine tuned compressor. So that actually helps a lot - on low input days, I could just run that for quite awhile with 3 kwhrs of juice starting out.

Expensive fridge though. But that seems to be the key as much as anything, getting your devices/appliances to run as efficiently as humanly possible. Almost everything else I want to run is usb charged (torches, camping lanterns, radio, headlamp), except for the handheld ham radios, and they are charged via 12 DC. So if I keep all that kind stuff minimal I could have a week of power running off the "good days", and then just do the "expensive" optional stuff on the "good days", when the wind is strong, or the sun is beaming.