How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It - James Wesley Rawles [44]
Running a Laptop from a Jump Pack in a Short-Term Emergency
An inverter of proper size can run a laptop computer. A laptop can be powered by a jump pack with a twelve-VDC power port. The jump box can be recharged by a hand-crank twelve-VDC generator. In a short-term disaster, during which phone or wireless service is still up, this can allow you to stay connected for business and Internet access. In my experience, running a laptop (and/or charging a cell phone) from a twelve-VDC car adapter (DC-to-DC) plugged into your jump pack is far more efficient than using an AC inverter and then a DC power-cube transformer. That way you are just changing one DC voltage to another DC voltage—instead of a DC-to-AC-and-transformed-back-to-DC proposition, which is very inefficient.
To keep your jump pack charged, a hand-crank generator does, indeed, work—even one MacGyvered from an electric-drill motor. But I’ve found that is labor intensive and time consuming. I’m more a fan of photovoltaic power panels, such as the small panels available from Northern Tool and Equipment. Jump-pack variants are available with either 110 VAC (U.S./Canada) or 220 VAC (UK) utility power charging cords.
Natural Sources of Power
You should consider buying a retreat property with its own source of fuel: A natural gas well or a surface coal seam on the property would be fantastic (although of course quite rare), but at the very least consider buying land with a good stand of hardwood timber. To supplement your PV system, you might start shopping for a large yet easy-to-maintain steam engine with a power takeoff to run a generator and to handle other stationary-engine tasks. Another option is buying is a steep parcel of land with a fairly large creek running through it, for a penstock-fed Pelton-wheel micro-hydro generator. These are offered by several makers.
Wind-Power Generators
Because of their high maintenance and the risks associated with tower climbing, I generally don’t recommend wind turbines. But if you live in a very windy area with lots of cloud cover, a wind generator might be a viable option.
Small wind generators are generally more trouble than they are worth. They tend to fail in high winds, usually in the dead of winter. If a wind generator’s automatic prop-feathering mechanism or its tail-vane-flipping mechanism fail, a generator can run over speed during high wind gusts and tear itself apart. This happens with alarming frequency. Who wants to climb a tower and work with hand tools to swap brushes or other parts at a time like that? For the past twenty-five years, the cost per watt for PV panels has come down steadily, but meanwhile both the cost per watt and the reliability of wind generators have remained about the same. Also consider the safety factor: Raising or lowering any large wind generator from a tower is a tricky operation. In the present day, I would recommend hiring a crane company to do so. In the event of TEOTWAWKI, when no mechanized help would be available, you would have to do it yourself, and that could be a real risk. And of course there is the OPSEC factor if there are any public roads with line of sight to your property, which could be an issue if you are trying to lie low.
If you do decide to buy a wind generator, I recommend the Hornet series, from a company called Hydrogen Appliances (www.hydrogenappliances.com/Hornet1000.html). Essentially, the company took a standard wind generator and beefed it up. They just built everything another 20 to 50 percent thicker, wider, etc., than they had to. These generators are little beasts. For any maintenance issues that might come up (which is rare), the best bet is to install them