“Grizzly checks in regarding your best power choice options when things go sideways.”
Fuels for Standby Generators (long term)
In order of preference for long term usage and storage.
1. Propane (LPG)
This is by far the best choice for standby generators for “when the lights go out”. Propane has no expiration date; does not lose potency or octane; doesn’t collect water from condensation which in turn can grow algae inside the tank leading to clogged filters and fuel lines; large propane tanks last indefinitely.
Cons:
Less efficient per gallon than diesel, especially in extreme cold.
2. Diesel
Diesel generators will burn less fuel than propane especially in extreme cold so you’ll get more hours of power per gallon.
Typically maintenance could be less frequent in a diesel generator vs propane but that’s very debatable with new diesel engines. What I see is new diesel engines are getting worse, requiring DEF (which has its own storage issues), are very sensitive to slightly dirty fuel, have regeneration issues that come along with all Tier 4 emissions requirements. While propane generators seem to be getting better with longer warranties and service intervals.
Older diesel engines (no Tier 4) are great and will serve you well for long term standby generator needs but the degradation of the fuel should be a major concern. There are numerous products to help preserve the fuel to minimize this degradation (PRI-D, some algaecides, Howe’s conditioner, etc) but when reliable power is needed several years down the road perhaps, or for many months of run time after the lights go out, worrying about the usefulness of what’s in the fuel tank is a chance I’m not willing to take.
3. Gasoline
Gas suffers from many of the same issues as diesel without any of the upsides, like longer run times.
Gasoline degrades even more quickly than diesel. Gasoline also poses a greater risk of fire than diesel because of its lower flash point.
The only upside of a gasoline powered generator is they are cheap and are easy to run for short term use. But any use for more than a few hours or over night, gasoline powered generators aren’t a good choice.
Natural gas is a horrible option because it requires dependence on a third party supplier that will probably not be operating after the lights go out. So we won’t really even go into that.
As always, it’s best to prepare as much as possible for a scenario where all generators will run out of fuel, because in all likelihood, they will. Because of this, try to also continue to store up hand tools and become familiar with the use and care of them; gain knowledge of canning and food preservation to avoid the need for freezers; develop water storage and other water sources to avoid dependence on a well pump; store up kerosene lanterns, fuel and wicks to avoid dependence on electric lighting. Get familiar with wood cookstoves and ovens and store up plenty of wood (which will also give you some experience with some hand tools!), to reduce dependency on electric stoves and ovens.
You’ll notice probably that I’ve not discussed solar. I have several solar generators and use them to charge batteries for power tools (yes I use those often and have a huge supply of batteries but they too will eventually die if the lights are out long enough).
I see these portable solar generators as fantastic renewable power sources for a freezer or two or any number of things to supplement the main standby generator to get more KW’s per gallon by reducing the load.
Full solar power ?
I’m not experienced in that field to want to discuss it, so I won’t. Perhaps it’s a very viable solution and worth looking into.
As always, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Keep faith in God that He wins in the end and will be with us no matter how dark the days may appear. Develop solid networks of like-minded people to help each other alleviate each others shortcomings. Good communities, neighborhoods or valleys of good people can do way more than any of us realize and I have a suspicion we just might find out how much we will need to do together.
“Our pal Grizzly came in from the woods with this one!”
Mornin Bill,
> This should be rolled into silver and other commodities as well. If this isn’t a legitimate RICO case, then all the other bullshit cases should be tossed. Grizzly
Judge Allows Claim That Large Investors Conspired To Drive Up Coal, Energy Costs
A lawsuit by Wyoming and 10 other states can continue against giant investment companies, on claims they conspired to drive up coal and energy costs. They used their pull as coal shareholders to push “a climate activist agenda,” Gov. Mark Gordon has said.
Wyoming and 10 other states’ claims that giant investment companies conspired to drive coal production down and drive prices up — increasing people’s energy costs — are at least plausible enough to keep a lawsuit alive, a judge has ruled.
Wyoming filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas in late November against Blackrock Inc., State Street Corp. and Vanguard Group Inc.
> I was driving up the creek today and was daydreaming about the stage hold ups that this part of WY is well known for. The gold miners of Deadwood had to deliver their earnings to the bank in Cheyenne down this valley road.
> I was thinking of the lone robbers, small gangs or larger collaborations that would qualify for RICO prosecution nowadays (selectively enforced albeit) that would force the stage to stop, kill the teamsters and make off with the gold.
> These days we could very easily be looking at the same threats the old stage drivers faced. As this Ponzi financial scheme continues to unravel before our eyes, there will come a day, sooner or later, where men intent on taking the gains earned from other’s hard work will be looking at us and our earnings. I try to keep these scribblings confined to preparedness subjects, but I think this qualifies.
> As stated, sooner or later collapse is coming and we who are prepared will undoubtedly be forced to protect our preparations and those in our care.
> So – in terms of preparedness, take time as soon as possible to review your security. Look at the avenues of approach. Look at this through the eyes of defending your castle or your fort. Where can you see well (OP – Observation Post in military jargon). Can you see the threat coming from a distance to bide more time? Can you communicate to your castle that a threat is coming? How will you do this? Can you then slow down the the threat without direct action? Avoid DA as much as possible at this stage until the threat is in a well prepared and pre-planned kill zone. Heavy fences, ditches, rubble?
> The goal here is to see the threat from as far a away as possible; communicate this threat, slow down and encumber the threat before the threat even knows they are had and funnel them to a vulnerable place without them realizing it.
> If these efforts don’t thwart their intentions, then be prepared to unleash hell on your threat. Violence of action, shock and awe – you pick the term but whatever term, have the firepower to repel the threat. Neutralize the threat and discourage the surviving marauders to look elsewhere for someone else’s hardworking gains.
> Don’t waste time with this. God only knows how much time there is before things like this are upon us.
It’s been a bit – my apologies. Springs are pretty slammed.
I was listening to Tucker Carlson interview Thomas Massie of KY the other day. Something caught my attention that led me to write this.
He mentioned in so many words that since he lives such a high level, self reliant existence, he’s not afraid of what the powers that be in the swamp can do to him.
Voilà- that’s it in a nutshell.
We live in good places or strive to; we have good water supply; we have sustainable fuel sources; we have long term food storage; we have sustainable fresh food supplies from gardens, orchards, bramble patches and livestock; we have tools that work all the time; we have sustainable power and are capable of doing fine without power; we have defendable homesteads and means to defend it; we have medicine, first aid skills and supplies, we can take care of ourselves.
So – what’s the ah-hah moment here?
When we live our lives like this, in the bosom of God’s bounty, we are impervious to bureaucrats and their ilk. What can anyone do to us? No matter if the power goes out, the stock “not a market” crashes, banks fail, China invades Taiwan, etc etc. our way of life barely feels a ripple.
To me that is the goal. None of us are probably there yet but what a magnificent goal to strive for. God has given us what we need. We only need to cultivate it and set priorities.
Keep up the good work. Yes, the eye on the prize is a life in union with God and we can live that life in a self-reliant way, one step at a time. Then we can share our knowledge and blessings with the ones we choose and filter out the garbage in our lives that is not productive or positive.
God bless. Keep making positive steps forward in areas of need.
It’s been a bit – my apologies. Springs are pretty slammed.
I was listening to Tucker Carlson interview Thomas Massie of KY the other day. Something caught my attention that led me to write this.
He mentioned in so many words that since he lives such a high level, self reliant existence, he’s not afraid of what the powers that be in the swamp can do to him.
Voilà- that’s it in a nutshell.
We live in good places or strive to; we have good water supply; we have sustainable fuel sources; we have long term food storage; we have sustainable fresh food supplies from gardens, orchards, bramble patches and livestock; we have tools that work all the time; we have sustainable power and are capable of doing fine without power; we have defendable homesteads and means to defend it; we have medicine, first aid skills and supplies, we can take care of ourselves.
So – what’s the ah-hah moment here?
When we live our lives like this, in the bosom of God’s bounty, we are impervious to bureaucrats and their ilk. What can anyone do to us? No matter if the power goes out, the stock “not a market” crashes, banks fail, China invades Taiwan, etc etc. our way of life barely feels a ripple.
To me that is the goal. None of us are probably there yet but what a magnificent goal to strive for. God has given us what we need. We only need to cultivate it and set priorities.
Keep up the good work. Yes, the eye on the prize is a life in union with God and we can live that life in a self-reliant way, one step at a time. Then we can share our knowledge and blessings with the ones we choose and filter out the garbage in our lives that is not productive or positive.
God bless. Keep making positive steps forward in areas of need.
“Grizzly checks in with his thoughts on a power outage”
Long Absence
First off, I apologize for the long absence. No excuses. Just nothing urgent was really brought up by anyone or came to mind through inspirations or external proddings.
Couple of things for this week.
There’s lots of chatter about cyber attacks occurring pre-election on comms or power grid. One wonders what the nationwide AT&T outage was all about last week?
Anyway, let’s run that scenario out for a bit – Power outage. Since a week or possibly two shouldn’t be a big deal for us, let’s stretch out to 1 month without power and some thoughts surrounding that.
Thirty days without power is a MAJOR event.
Within one week, we could expect a total societal breakdown. Grocery stores will be long since empty. Gas stations will be inoperable for weeks by now. Hospitals will be out of secondary power. Cities will be dark and inhabitants will be “dwelling in the valley of death” that David wrote about. Even most people that have done a pretty good job of preparing will be pushing their limits.
As always – first things first.
Water – we determined that 3 gallons per person per day is a realistic number. So a family of four will need 360 gallons in this period. Not horrible. We should have this covered. The tank below is what we suggested in January.
Food next. We should have this covered as well with a combination of freeze dried food, canned goods, freezer stock.
Along with keeping the freezer food though goes generators. We’ve discussed this as well but please have solar generators, gas generators, a whole house diesel or propane generator – or all of the above.
Cooking source – we’ve covered this to from propane camp chefs to Woodstoves, even jetboils for any overwatch situations where you may be eating where you’re living.
So – water, food, cooking, power sources – covered.
Lights – covered but depending on location, light discipline will be a major concern.
Biggest concern for me?
Societal collapse and need for around the clock guard duty. Even before these 7-10 million illegals that have come here the past 3 years it would be a huge concern, but now it’s critical level.
Here’s where good communities and teams of prepared families will be an absolute necessity. Within a week people will be starving, desperate to feed themselves and their kids, out of medicine, freaked out and panicked, and absolutely possible of doing anything to survive. Our places will be targets. We’ve discussed force multipliers such as night vision, thermals, early warning systems, etc. All these will need to be utilized. Comms within the group and loved ones will be important – radios, Garmins, Sat phones will be needed.
So – I think we’ve covered what we need to do. This might happen quickly when it happens. It will be hard to know if it’s s brief outage at first – there’s no way to know. This is always a concern. If we delay too long, thinking it was a short term event, we may be stuck where we are and our extended families and friends stuck where they are. I’m certain the emergency broadcasting we’ll be listening to on our radios will say that the power outages are regional and coming back on as repaired. I’m not sure I’ll buy this.
So. Keep filling in gaps and doing the best you can, thinking you may be stuck where you are and prepare as best you can. Good neighbors will be key in addition to our preparedness items.
The second thing to discuss today is for the Colorado residents receiving these reminders. There’s a bill coming soon to be voted on, sorry I forget the HB nomenclature. Basically it’s a semi-auto ban. Given the balance of power in both CO house and senate, it’s a pretty good bet that this will pass. So, if you are short on any AR platform battle rifles, I would add them to your arsenal ASAP. Also, as this bill also will ban transfer of ownership, I don’t believe they will be allowed to be transferred to a trust, so they aren’t forfeited upon your death. So, if your concerned about this, set up the trusts now and transfer ownership to this trusts. I have concerns about naming everything in a trust so personally I won’t do this but perhaps it’s more appealing to some of you.
That’s it – just a kind of review through the lens of a 30 day power outage. Just don’t get lax. Keep these thoughts in your head and follow your plan to become more prepared next week than we are this week.
God bless.
Keep your eyes on the horizon and your face in the wind.
“Grizzly checks in with his thoughts on a power outage”
Long Absence
First off, I apologize for the long absence. No excuses. Just nothing urgent was really brought up by anyone or came to mind through inspirations or external proddings.
Couple of things for this week.
There’s lots of chatter about cyber attacks occurring pre-election on comms or power grid. One wonders what the nationwide AT&T outage was all about last week?
Anyway, let’s run that scenario out for a bit – Power outage. Since a week or possibly two shouldn’t be a big deal for us, let’s stretch out to 1 month without power and some thoughts surrounding that.
Thirty days without power is a MAJOR event.
Within one week, we could expect a total societal breakdown. Grocery stores will be long since empty. Gas stations will be inoperable for weeks by now. Hospitals will be out of secondary power. Cities will be dark and inhabitants will be “dwelling in the valley of death” that David wrote about. Even most people that have done a pretty good job of preparing will be pushing their limits.
As always – first things first.
Water – we determined that 3 gallons per person per day is a realistic number. So a family of four will need 360 gallons in this period. Not horrible. We should have this covered. The tank below is what we suggested in January.
Food next. We should have this covered as well with a combination of freeze dried food, canned goods, freezer stock.
Along with keeping the freezer food though goes generators. We’ve discussed this as well but please have solar generators, gas generators, a whole house diesel or propane generator – or all of the above.
Cooking source – we’ve covered this to from propane camp chefs to Woodstoves, even jetboils for any overwatch situations where you may be eating where you’re living.
So – water, food, cooking, power sources – covered.
Lights – covered but depending on location, light discipline will be a major concern.
Biggest concern for me?
Societal collapse and need for around the clock guard duty. Even before these 7-10 million illegals that have come here the past 3 years it would be a huge concern, but now it’s critical level.
Here’s where good communities and teams of prepared families will be an absolute necessity. Within a week people will be starving, desperate to feed themselves and their kids, out of medicine, freaked out and panicked, and absolutely possible of doing anything to survive. Our places will be targets. We’ve discussed force multipliers such as night vision, thermals, early warning systems, etc. All these will need to be utilized. Comms within the group and loved ones will be important – radios, Garmins, Sat phones will be needed.
So – I think we’ve covered what we need to do. This might happen quickly when it happens. It will be hard to know if it’s s brief outage at first – there’s no way to know. This is always a concern. If we delay too long, thinking it was a short term event, we may be stuck where we are and our extended families and friends stuck where they are. I’m certain the emergency broadcasting we’ll be listening to on our radios will say that the power outages are regional and coming back on as repaired. I’m not sure I’ll buy this.
So. Keep filling in gaps and doing the best you can, thinking you may be stuck where you are and prepare as best you can. Good neighbors will be key in addition to our preparedness items.
The second thing to discuss today is for the Colorado residents receiving these reminders. There’s a bill coming soon to be voted on, sorry I forget the HB nomenclature. Basically it’s a semi-auto ban. Given the balance of power in both CO house and senate, it’s a pretty good bet that this will pass. So, if you are short on any AR platform battle rifles, I would add them to your arsenal ASAP. Also, as this bill also will ban transfer of ownership, I don’t believe they will be allowed to be transferred to a trust, so they aren’t forfeited upon your death. So, if your concerned about this, set up the trusts now and transfer ownership to this trusts. I have concerns about naming everything in a trust so personally I won’t do this but perhaps it’s more appealing to some of you.
That’s it – just a kind of review through the lens of a 30 day power outage. Just don’t get lax. Keep these thoughts in your head and follow your plan to become more prepared next week than we are this week.
God bless.
Keep your eyes on the horizon and your face in the wind.
BillHolter.com 