How much power is enough? Talking with Rick at work two months ago about preparation issues one point that threw us both was power for his house. Should he get a generator, solar panels, and if solar should he tie back into the grid, have batteries, and how much solar how big a generator. The question keeps unfolding as you look at it, the solution getting larger and larger until both of us threw up our hands and said, you can't do it.

So this morning I want to look at how much power we really need if push comes to shove, and if you're reading the links I'm putting up, you'll expect pushing and shoving to be not a distant thing for your children, but rather something you should understand now – but don't get me started on that.

So this morning, power. Over twenty years ago I was leaning on the counter of a motorcycle shop where I worked as manager of the parts department, and a customer and friend, Irv St. Onge stopped by. He was in his sixties at that time, and had an elegant look, rode an old pre-unit construction BMW motorcycle and often had a clear viewpoint that cut to the quick. I was complaining about having run my Honda 350cc four cylinder over the Cascade mountains to Bend, OR and back the previous day. I was saddened by the lack of horsepower and was telling Irv that I needed more power!
Irv made this point that day that I will never forget.
“You know Alan, I once in my youth walked from Sister's OR (just on the peak or east side of the Cascades) to Eugene. It was winter and I tried hitching but no one picked me up. It was so cold one night in the walk (it's 95 miles from Sisters to Eugene), I slept standing up in an outhouse and burned little pieces of toilet paper to keep even a little warm.
Later just some years ago, I made the same trip on a little Honda 50cc scooter, the C105 with the electric start, 1968 or 69 I think.” Irv paused and licked his lips with his finger as he often did when making a point.
“Well,” he said, “That little C105 was so slow people stopped to laugh at me, but I have to tell you, the difference between walking and riding slowly was a much much larger difference than between riding that little motorcycle and riding my BMW. The speed difference is only a little difference, but walking was close to dying.”
So it is with electrical power. A little makes a huge difference, and a lot just is nicer. Rick and I had been looking at the total load of a house, say 1500 kilowatts per month and trying to imagine how to replace it. You can't. It is not practical. A big generator is going to guzzle gas which would be available in short order. Solar would have to cover the roof and at current prices you could easily be talking $80,000 just to start. So it is so tempting just to say “ah fuck it.” Party on boys!
BUT wait, look at what you really need when the lights go out. What do you do right now when the electricity is interrupted for a short time? If you're like Rick and I, you look for a flashlight that might have good batteries in it, maybe light a candle (very romantic), see if you can find the FM walkman that was retired when you got your Ipod. You wait.
I suggest another approach for the average home owner. Take stock of the technologies that really are critical and not just nice. Power only those and do it with one solar panel, one used car battery and the cheapest charge controller you can find.
Make a list of what is critical you, and be brutal. My list is this, yours diffferent no doubt.
Cell phone charger
radio AM/FM
Small 12v camping refrigerator
12V light,
CB radio

Notice that there are no hair dryers, big screen TV's, water pumps, or electric heaters. No big refrigerator, no hot water heater. These may all be part of your day, and important to your enjoyment of a day, but you will not die without them, and in fact with a few other things around the house you can actually be quite comfortable during an extended outage. I have a small refrigerator because I'm a diabetic and need to keep my insulin precisely cold for long term storage (I have about 2 years worth on hand at all times). The cell phone charger just in case the cell towers still work, a light is obvious, a
CB radio in case the cell grids are not working, and a simple small AM/FM radio to find out what is happening in the world around me. This small sample system puts me in the know, connected to the world instead of sitting in the dark wondering what in the fuck is going on.

Your one panel, one battery, cheap charge controller and small inverter will power all of the items I have listed. What would a simple solar system cost for you to put up today while you still can buy a panel at any price. As we learned during this year with Katrina, solar panels are not made in the volume necessary for any large emergency and there are times when you simply cannot buy them at any price. .
1 big 75 watt 12v panel is today about $350.
A car battery, replace your car battery with a new one and use the old one for this system, $60.
Ebay for the cheapest solar charge controller you can find that will handle 3 amps – there are many because they were the "too small" ones that went in early RV's. -$35
An 300 or 400 watt inverter will cost you less that $75 at any GI Joes or Walmart..
Used extension cords and broken old jumper cables and a little time and you are done. If you do the Home Depot route you could probably spent $100 on wire and connectors and pretty battery boxes and screws to attach your panel to your roof. Most of this stuff I find for free at dumpsters and in my own junk drawer.
So you could put this up this weekend for about $625.00. Not the $20,000 – $40,000 inter tie system that has no batteries and there for is useless when the power grid fails. Yet this is where the money is for installers and builders so you won't find many people willing to come out and do this for you. However there are so many solar enthusiasts on the net that you can learn all you need to do this in a weekend.

All this gets you an extension cord that runs to where you want your rechargeable fridge, your radio, your cell phone charger and a light or two. To paraphrase Irv St. Onge, there is a bigger difference between nothing and a little something, than between something and a lot more of something.

It's a place to start, its a way to do something rather than nothing. And you can add too and upgrade without throwing any of it away. If you read my blog entry on getting the solar panel set up on the truck this week, realize that is a 24 year old solar panel that looks like shit – all brown and burnt, and still puts out 2 amps without fail, for free, every time the sun shines on it.

Act, because the more we all act to make ourselves independent of the “matrix” the more we put the thoughts in other people's heads too. We create change by changing our lives, first in small ways, then by shaking like a dog and shouting “I have a right to create my life my way!” Who knows who you will meet along the way in your change, freechickens are everywhere. OR of course, you can elect to do NOTHING like most people and I say to you - Party ON bro, life is short, eat dessert first, and leave me the fuck alone when you're sitting in the dark wondering who to blame this time!

You'll get to see some of the most fantastic knapping imaginable in the next week. Stay tuned.

I made the photos large enough so that you can see his incredible knapping skills. Phil will have his own page here on the website later this week and you'll be able to see the breadth of his work. He is an knapper who has very few peers in the world. It is not like gold or silver smithing, there are only a handful of people in the world who can do what you see on the left here today Below is a picture of my workspace here in the trailer at night. Sometimes I like to work with just the candles burning. It is such a soft light and lets me focus on the thoughts instead of my surroundings.

I studied and tried to adjust the squeak away but no luck so I took off the front wheel and removed the pad on the inside which seemed to be the culprit when I spun the wheel Easy as pie. Nothing bad looking so I put the brake pad back in. That is when I noticed that one of the caliper allen bolts was loose. That was the source of the squeak. Almost done (I wish).

Looks wrong doesn't it. The side away from the piston seems not tight to the body of the caliper like the otherside. Ok, ok, I went into the airstream, fired up the satellite and had the answer in a few minutes. Still it was difficult to get the pad under two little spring arms. I made a cardboard tool to hold their springs out of the way and it went right in. With the instructions from the net, I adjusted it and was on my way in minutes.

Left, I'm on the overpass (which the little Robin-Sabaru 4 stroke pulls up and over without me having to pedal) over I-10 in the center of Quartzsite. (Ok, I'm tired of typing Quartzsite, and no one here refers to it as anything but Q, so it's Q from now on, unless I see someone is confused). On the left you're looking toward Phoenix and on the right, well it could be anything but it is really the road to LA. Blythe lays thataway as I showed you yesterday.

Here is a perfect example of the problem of lunch time photography in the desert. It is toooo bright. I fought this picture to a draw in photoshop just to get any blue in the sky or have even vague faces. Too much son. (hah hah!- sorry). I met Gloria and David Herbert, owners of the Tumbleweed Cyber Cafe. If you're coming into Q, you go left in the middle of town on Main. They and Scott, and Otis and many others are at 1010 West Main street. (email them at: fallenrose@msn.com) Gloria and Dave have a completely mobile Diner, catering, restaurant on wheels. They set up several canopies and made indoor and outdoor dining areas. Scott treated me to a breakfast Burrito, and Dave made them so big that I had just a sandwich for supper. Good and big! I also picked up some info from Gloria on a dentist to do my crown down in Algodones, Mexico.

Dave has a telescoping mast that puts the antenna very high. He is providing Wifi to customers of his cafe and to surrounding vendors in the 1010 lot. Scott and he were doing an upgrade to a faster satellite modem when I left and headed back to the desert.

Left is the Dustyfoot compound. I catch the edge of it here, but it extends off to the left also. As my eyes and brain adjust to how to live here, this being my 2nd full 6 months and my 4th year to be here in the winter, I see that people who stay for a while make privacy in the middle of nowhere using canopies, buses, trucks and trailers to create safe and private areas. I think in the future if we are in any sort of displaced or crisis situation it would be well to remember the feeling of protection and comfort that just a few poles and vehicles provide. It also lets the wandering public know where your's begins and public ends. I'll try to be clearer on this in the future. I shot two pictures of Scott, owner and operater of Dustyfoot (http://www.dustyfoot.com) but my ancient camera errored out. I'll get a picture of him tomorrow, promise.