"Lights Out" Ted Koppel

[Mountain trapper]

Most will likely never be able to produce all their own power, but I believe that being able to produce some is important. I’m not worried about running an AC but hope to cover most other things. One thing to think of is hot water dosent need electricity, you can use a rooftop reservoir to heat it all day, solar without the need for ‘juice. Cooking on a rocket stove dosent require lots of fuel. You can cool vegetables in a zeer pot to make them last longer. There are many things to learn with living without the grid.

Some good ideas Brent. The solar electric system that I installed will provide 100% of our electric needs, including the shop. During winter I expect the generator to kick in occasionally to supplement our electric needs. When I get the new well in I may need to add another solar array and additional batteries to the system. We have propane for cooking and water heat plus a flat top wood stove that can be used for cooking also.

 

[lonewolf]

i'm not personally bothered about electricity, I have lived without it and can do so again, just keep everything simple.
electricity has only been in UK houses since the early 1930s that's not even a century yet, many places even less than that, but every time there is a winter storm and a power cut you would think its the end of the world by some on the comments! I don't give much hope for the human race once the power goes down.

 

[Mountain trapper]

i'm not personally bothered about electricity, I have lived without it and can do so again, just keep everything simple.
electricity has only been in UK houses since the early 1930s that's not even a century yet, many places even less than that, but every time there is a winter storm and a power cut you would think its the end of the world by some on the comments! I don't give much hope for the human race once the power goes down.

I've lived without electricity too, but why bother when I can make my own? There's still many areas in the US that don't have commercial power available, and many more people are choosing to make their own power.
I do agree with you that the majority of people in city and urban areas won't handle the loss of power very well.

 

[Maverick]

Honestly, it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit if grid gone down and stayed down, though electricity is nice and make thing a little more comfortable but it doesn't change the fact it's not necessarily needed where I'm at.

 

[DrPrepper1]

I've lived without electricity too, but why bother when I can make my own? There's still many areas in the US that don't have commercial power available, and many more people are choosing to make their own power.
I do agree with you that the majority of people in city and urban areas won't handle the loss of power very well.

Life as we know it would come to a screeching halt where I live. I live around a lot of uppity people who think they are entitled and “deserve” certain treatment. Without something as basic as electricity, they would crumble and die in a couple of days.

 

[jimLE]

Only time I get uppity, or what ever. Is whenever someone won't lift a finger to prepare for a short term outage. By buying a flashlight n batteries.. I've had ppl say. Oh I have a candle. I bite my tongue, and think. Your older then me and don't you know how dangerous that is if you don't do that right. And fall asleep?.

 

[Brent S]

Life as we know it would come to a screeching halt where I live. I live around a lot of uppity people who think they are entitled and “deserve” certain treatment. Without something as basic as electricity, they would crumble and die in a couple of days.

I think life as we know it would change drastically across the whole country. Sure some would be fine, but the vast majority would suffer. The economy would collapse within three weeks.

 

[DrPrepper1]

Only time I get uppity, or what ever. Is whenever someone won't lift a finger to prepare for a short term outage. By buying a flashlight n batteries.. I've had ppl say. Oh I have a candle. I bite my tongue, and think. Your older then me and don't you know how dangerous that is if you don't do that right. And fall asleep?.

Some examples of uppity (too high toned) around here are:

1. Police go into a local high school to teach safety to kids and parents. The policeman uses the word "rape" in his presentation and one of the mom's was offended that he used the word (true story).
2. Local moms group on Facebook decided they weren't going to let their kids see the movie "Avengers Infinity Wars" because many of the superheros in the movie die (sort of) at the end. They thought it would be too traumatizing for the kids to witness the end of life of their favorite characters.
3. There was a debate about building a new high school football stadium and it was mentioned several times that our kids "deserve" a nice place to play football.
4. I had man come in to our office all depressed because his Porsche needed 25K in maintenance and repairs. He wasn't upset about the money because he admitted that he had that. He was disappointed because it only had 20 K miles on it and it already needed that much work ... the car is almost 20 years old..
5. Some kid took his parents BMW out to the local fast food place. He yelled and screamed (for no reason) at the car hop incredibly insulting things. Someone took a picture of the licence plate and posted on the Facebook city page to alert the parents of the kids behavior. There was a big uproar when the parents were insulted that this stranger did such a thing. They tried to turn it more on the stranger for posting rather than addressing their kids stupid behavior.

Yeah..if the lights ever go out on these people.... they are screwed.

 

[Brent S]

Some examples of uppity (too high toned) around here are:

1. Police go into a local high school to teach safety to kids and parents. The policeman uses the word "rape" in his presentation and one of the mom's was offended that he used the word (true story).
2. Local moms group on Facebook decided they weren't going to let their kids see the movie "Avengers Infinity Wars" because many of the superheros in the movie die (sort of) at the end. They thought it would be too traumatizing for the kids to witness the end of life of their favorite characters.
3. There was a debate about building a new high school football stadium and it was mentioned several times that our kids "deserve" a nice place to play football.
4. I had man come in to our office all depressed because his Porsche needed 25K in maintenance and repairs. He wasn't upset about the money because he admitted that he had that. He was disappointed because it only had 20 K miles on it and it already needed that much work ... the car is almost 20 years old..
5. Some kid took his parents BMW out to the local fast food place. He yelled and screamed (for no reason) at the car hop incredibly insulting things. Someone took a picture of the licence plate and posted on the Facebook city page to alert the parents of the kids behavior. There was a big uproar when the parents were insulted that this stranger did such a thing. They tried to turn it more on the stranger for posting rather than addressing their kids stupid behavior.

Yeah..if the lights ever go out on these people.... they are screwed.

I’ve got to admit, the stupidity of this made me smile!

 

[tmttactical]

The stupidity makes me smile too and prep all the harder. Stupid is not contagious but it is dangerous.

 

[lonewolf]

most people are stupid these days, common sense just isn't common anymore and there are too many snowflakes who get easily offended, well come SHTF being offended will be the least of it, these people don't have the brain power to survive.

 

[brandx]

I did read a long time ago that if the power grid goes down, that's the British power grid, no transformers or other parts are kept in stock, its down to the old "just in time" delivery method again, it would take about 3 months to order, make and ship each individual part, if more than just one has failed it would take 2 years to replace the entire system, that's 2 years without power, not only would the economy be down the pan by that time but about 90% of the population would have died of starvation, dehydration, disease and violence.

One of our Brit preppers had posted once that they had more people on the island than they could support, that is food produced in country to feed their own people. I think that was what was stated. Can't remember who or when though. But I remember being surprised and thought; gee that is really scary.

 

[lonewolf]

One of our Brit preppers had posted once that they had more people on the island than they could support, that is food produced in country to feed their own people. I think that was what was stated. Can't remember who or when though. But I remember being surprised and thought; gee that is really scary.

that was me!

 

[Maverick]

One of our Brit preppers had posted once that they had more people on the island than they could support, that is food produced in country to feed their own people. I think that was what was stated. Can't remember who or when though. But I remember being surprised and thought; gee that is really scary.

The problem, it takes fuel, power and technology to produce food for the masses, all it would take is for an disruption in fuel or power to prevent the US from feeding it's own people, Britain is in the same boat. Right now Britain produces about 80% of it's own food but that is shrinking, the UK exports about $67 billion in food forcing import needs, the US exports $166 billion in food but it produces way more than it needs unlike Britain, some data shows in 2050 Britain will produce only 54% of it's own food. Right now Britain is not food self sufficient even without exporting food.

 

[lonewolf]

it depends who you ask but Britain is about 68% self sufficient in food but that decreases year on year as land becomes less productive and we build more houses on green belt land, of the remainder about half is imported from Europe the rest from around the world.
I don't think Britain has ever been self sufficient, even in pre Roman times we were importing and exporting to the known world that's how the Romans knew we were here and they wanted what we had.
post SHTF where no imports are available we would only be able to feed a fraction of our population as most fertilisers and pesticides are imported.

 

[brandx]

The problem, it takes fuel, power and technology to produce food for the masses, all it would take is for an disruption in fuel or power to prevent the US from feeding it's own people, Britain is in the same boat. Right now Britain produces about 80% of it's own food but that is shrinking, the UK exports about $67 billion in food forcing import needs, the US exports $166 billion in food but it produces way more than it needs unlike Britain, some data shows in 2050 Britain will produce only 54% of it's own food. Right now Britain is not food self sufficient even without exporting food.

I wonder how many people there have the capability to raise their own, certainly not the city populations.

 

[brandx]

it depends who you ask but Britain is about 68% self sufficient in food but that decreases year on year as land becomes less productive and we build more houses on green belt land, of the remainder about half is imported from Europe the rest from around the world.
I don't think Britain has ever been self sufficient, even in pre Roman times we were importing and exporting to the known world that's how the Romans knew we were here and they wanted what we had.
post SHTF where no imports are available we would only be able to feed a fraction of our population as most fertilisers and pesticides are imported.

That is a heck of a predicament to consider being in.

 

[brandx]

that was me!

I was starting to sound like "Ford" couldn't exactly remember when, where, etc. LOL.

 

[lonewolf]

That is a heck of a predicament to consider being in.

like I said I don't think Britain has ever been 100% self sufficient, it will at least cut down the population to manageable levels, given the land acreage available we can only feed about 25% of the current population, that will decrease even further without imported fertilisers and pesticides as a lot of ground is mono cropped- the same crop in the same field year after year after year.

 

[brandx]

like I said I don't think Britain has ever been 100% self sufficient, it will at least cut down the population to manageable levels, given the land acreage available we can only feed about 25% of the current population, that will decrease even further without imported fertilisers and pesticides as a lot of ground is mono cropped- the same crop in the same field year after year after year.

You would think with less land there would be better management, crop rotation for one.

 

[lonewolf]

crop rotation was what happened in the 1960s when farms were smaller, these days with the larger farms its all about mono cropping with high use of imported fertilisers and pesticides.
the same crops are grown in the same fields year after year after year and the only way that is possible is by using lots of imported chemicals otherwise the land would be barren.
post SHTF a lot of land wont be useable as it will be infertile.
the mortality rate will be huge. possibly as much as 90% within the first year.

 

[brandx]

crop rotation was what happened in the 1960s when farms were smaller, these days with the larger farms its all about mono cropping with high use of imported fertilisers and pesticides.
the same crops are grown in the same fields year after year after year and the only way that is possible is by using lots of imported chemicals otherwise the land would be barren.
post SHTF a lot of land wont be useable as it will be infertile.
the mortality rate will be huge. possibly as much as 90% within the first year.

Terrifying.

 

[lonewolf]

its what farms have to do to make a living these days.

 

[Gazrok]

All the farms near me still do rotation. I know as I constantly see the different crops as I drive by. They are smaller though, probably like 10-200 acres (and the 200 one has half their land used for cattle).

 

[lonewolf]

a 100 acre farm was a big farm here in the 60s, my wife worked on many of them, but these days that would be classed as a hobby farm.
its all hill farming- livestock not arable- near me, you have to go about 20 miles to see crop farming, I pass them on my travels, we also have a lot of solar farms in this area.

 

[Doreena]

The book by a reputable source was both eye opening and terrifying. Pushed me from putting away a few things to much more...


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