Letter Re: Solar Power, Wind Power, 4WD Electric Vehicle, Wood Fired Brick Ovens

James,
I am new to SurvivalBlog but I thought that I would share my experience and thoughts with everyone. I have a totally off the grid ranch that is powered by wind and solar. We have more electricity than we can use with a 40 kilowatt (KW) battery bank, 2 KW of photovoltaics and 1.4 KW of wind power.

First I highly recommend a hybrid system, solar and wind. Usually when the sun isn’t shinning, the wind is blowing, especially when a storm is blowing in. My batteries are usually full by 1100 hours in the summer and 1200 hours in the winter. The rest of the power is wasted. The inverters can be programmed for a diversion load such as a water heater or air heater. I have decided to get a 4WD electric vehicle to dump the extra power into. The unit I have decided on is the Bad Boy Buggy . It is used for hunting in the south because it is totally quiet. It has a 27 mile range. There is no fuel to store and it would be excellent for silent patrolling as well as chores around the ranch. I plan on storing extra batteries.

There was recently an post on wood-fired brick ovens. I got my plans from www.ovencrafters.net. They have it all figured out and you can get as many as 12 baking batches from one firing. You can bake bread, cook pizza, roasts and turkey as well. They are also fun and look cool.

There is a fairly new solar water pump out which is made by Grundfos. It is called the SQ Flex. It can run on solar, wind or generator or any combination of the three. You can pump water when its dark when the wind is blowing.

There are a lot of wind machines out there. I have found that many come and go. The two [brands] that have always been there are Bergey Wind Power and Southwest Wind Power. These guys have great customer support. I have one of each. Storing spare parts is no problem. The SQ Flex pump is designed to work with one of the Southwest Wind Power machines. Thanks for all the great info you provide. – PED

Letter Re: From Russia With Love

It is quite strange heading for the letter to the site like yours, isn’t it? But it is really so.
My name is Andrei, I am Russian living in the suburbs of Moscow, Russia. I do have a lot of fun reading your great site. Of course, circumstances in Moscow, Russia and Moscow, Idaho, differ significantly, but there is a lot of the same stuff we must take care of if we are going to survive, be it in Western hemisphere or not.
Surprisingly, actually there are no local web sites like yours while your site is a great source of knowledge and reach experience. Thanks a lot for all your great efforts!
I would say that things are changing here, in Russia, quickly and dramatically. Thank God, we are not “commies” anymore (frankly to say, we have never been true and blue ones). To me, I have prepared a huge axe—it never misses fire—just in case I will ever see one of them at the doorstep of my house 😉 . While politicians may do their monkey business, ordinary people—in any country—have to take care of themselves mostly on their own.
As I have mentioned, circumstances of everyday life differ a lot in our countries, but I also find a lot of common things relating to survival. Since I have built my house—few Russians live in houses, vast majority live in apartment buildings—I am going to implement American experience for the benefit of me and my family. In addition to it, we are Latter-day Saints, and our Church teaches us a lot about family preparedness. So, I have a lot of work to do!
Let me express my thanks again. Sorry for my English, and please let me know if I can be of any help for your great site. I would gladly participate in the “10 Cent Challenge” if it will be technically possible. I’d even go beyond this figure.
FYI: My occupation is translation supervisor. By know I can also supervise a building of a cottage, including development of all corresponding engineering systems, from electric to sewage system. I hope that it will help me some day 🙂 With best wishes, – Andrei

Letter Re: Analysis of Poll Data: List Your Top Five Survival Fiction Books and Top Five Survival Movies

Jim:
I was bored, so I compiled the “raw data” that you recently provided in SurvivalBlog:

TOP 3 SURVIVAL BOOKS (# of votes)
Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse by JWR (10)
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (6)
Lucifer’s Hammer by Niven & Pournelle (5)

HONORABLE MENTIONS (3 votes)
Lights Out by David Crawford
Earth Abides by George Stewart
Malevil by Robert Merle
Wolf and Iron by Gordon Dickson
Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein

TOP 3 SURVIVAL MOVIES
Red Dawn (6)
Panic In Year Zero (5)
The Postman (4)

HONORABLE MENTIONS (3 votes)
Threads
The Road Warrior
Testament

Regards, – GDS in PRK

Odds ‘n Sods:

JLM sent us the link to this Washington Post article: Switching To Biofuels Could Cost Lots of Green

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MWR flagged this article: Drought now covering more than one-third of the continental USA.

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CountryTek e-mailed us with a reference to a piece about a method discovered by MIT researchers for the wireless transmission of electrical power via materials resonance. His comment: “So far, they’ve been able to power a 60 watt bulb from about seven feet away. This non-technical article doesn’t talk about transmission efficiency, but the implications are huge.”

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

p>"Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction can open an already crowded and busy mind to the wonders of possibility never before fathomed." – SurvivalBlog reader "Cowboy255"

Letter Re: Greenspan, Gold, and the Safe Store of Value

Dear Mr. Rawles,
Regarding the use of gold as a store of value, it’s important to realize that gold often functions as a fiat currency. It does have intrinsic value for jewelry, electronics, rust-proofing, and some chemistry applications but the vast majority of its value comes from the shared expectation that people will accept it as being valuable in the future. The only difference from fiat dollars is that it’s harder – but not impossible – to increase or decrease the gold monetary supply, and that supply isn’t controlled by any government.
In a disaster situation things get even worse, because if the lights are out you probably don’t need gold for jewelry, electronics, or chemistry, and there are less conspicuous ways to rust-proof things than to gold plate them. The only significant value of gold in that situation will be the expectation that others will value it in the future – it will be a pure fiat currency. Contrast that to prison currencies like cigarettes, which hold truly intrinsic value but are still used as money for trading.
I’m not saying that it definitely won’t be useful – fiat currencies have worked fairly well since the late 1960s and there’s no reason to believe that gold cannot function as an unregulated fiat currency. However, all the preparedness sites I’ve read appear to see gold as having intrinsic value, where in fact only usable items and resources have truly intrinsic value. (Food, ammo, coal, whatever)
I know personally that given the choice between trading MREs for gold versus trading for bullets, I’d have a heck of a lot more use for the bullets – regardless of now or after a crash.
Thank you for the time you spend maintaining your site. When my own personal finances aren’t so dire I certainly intend to buy your books. Sincerely, – Daniel

JWR Replies: I agree that gold will have only marginal utility for barter during an economic collapse. It will only come into its own in the recovery phase. Gold can act as a “time machine”, preserving your buying power from now until the far side of a currency collapse. (When it presumably could be converted into a new, stable currency.) But don’t expect it to do you much good in the middle of a crisis. (You are right that common caliber ammunition will be a preferred barter item.) I ‘ve always considered silver preferable to gold for barter, for the reasons outlined in my novel “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse”–most notably that gold coins are too compact a form of wealth for efficient barter. Silver dimes and quarters are much more practical.

From #1 Son: Proposed Expansion of Designated Wilderness Areas a Cause for Concern

The House of Representatives is currently considering H.R. 1975, the “Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.” This is of interest to survivalists because it will be converting a huge amount of public land into “designated wilderness areas.”
The affected land currently has roads and is open to public use. However, if the wilderness area expansion passes then public access use will be severely restricted. Many of you own or would like property with forest service land adjoining or nearby. With the act, all roads will be blocked off or removed, and hunting and wood cutting will be illegal. You will even need a “wilderness permit” every time you go camping or backpacking in these areas.
The act will affect more than 28,000,000 acres (45,000 square miles) in the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. The area is more than half of the size of Idaho!
This act will severely affect our rights to public land, by removing access and restricting our activities.
Please write and/or call to the members of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands and your state’s congressmen. It is currently waiting for subcommittee debate, so there is only a small number of congressmen that we need to reach right now. Please write to them, even if it is only a short note. This bill is still in it’s infancy, where it can be fairly easily defeated.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.” – Satchel Paige

Letter Re: What if I Can’t Leave WTSHTF?

Mr. Rawles:
I have been reading your blog for some time. I have found it quiet interesting and informative. I’m a former combat vet and security professional for most of the 1990s. I moved back to North Carolina and started a company. I was raised by parents and grandparents that were survivalist long before the term became popular. I have made extensive preparations for the upcoming events that will befall the United States . I read the [blog] site and I think about us folks that do live in the east, a lot will be in a sad shape. I have huge amounts of water, food, and fuel stored. I’m not talking about weeks worth but several years worth. I believe that folks that have taken the time and spent the money to prepare should hopefully try to hold up with people of like minds. All of our supplies and improvements have been done very quietly and surely not publicized, [since] most people would think we were weird or crazy. The idea of bugging out is unacceptable to me because I have a wife and two sons that are 6 and 7. We surely do not want to be refugees! I believe that the biggest problem for us will be the clans and gangs that will leave the cities (Winston Salem, Charlotte , Greensboro, and Raleigh ) and migrate to the countryside. These people live inside of city limits where their water, sewer, and social needs are taken care of, when the Schumer hits the fan, these folks will be moving to the countryside to prey upon anyone they can. I figure these roving gangs will terrorize the countryside until people start to band together and kill them. I also see the average everyday needs that people just don’t think about. I’m not talking about water, food, and shelter. I’m talking about basic needs like shoes, clothing, and coats for the winters. Can you imagine what a pair of Danner boots would be worth? I think a lot of time as we prepare, the little things are forgotten. I think that a person can never have too much food, water, ammo, firearms, fuel, shoes, clothes, and blankets. If you don’t need them, they can always be traded.

Thanks again for a great site, the book “Patriots”, your prior military service, and for the eagerness to teach and help folks get educated about the things they truly need. Sincerely, – Andy

Letter Re: Greenspan, Gold, and the Safe Store of Value

James,
While I am sure that this has been covered here before, it demands review. I was searching for information on a “safe store of value” and I came across the following. On or about 1966, Alan Greenspan wrote a lucid note entitled, “Gold and Economic Freedom.” Greenspan’s essay ends with, “This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.” Awesome verbiage, for a change, from the Maestro. As a related follow-on, Gary North provided great commentary given Greenspan’s answers to Dr. Paul’s questions in 2005. In his replies to Dr. Paul, Greenspan, called on the Gold carpet, stumbles in a way that only he can. Summary: 1966, Gold is golden. 2005, What, me worry? Perhaps on a tangent, or for a biographer, how did Dr. Greenspan’s net worth change over that time period?

I urge readers to read the complete 1966 essay. It is short and unusually clear. The description of the events leading up to the Great Depression in light of today’s conditions is quite informative. I even learned that my initial search was completely in vain. Greenspan said, “In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value [emphasis added]. If there were, the government [emphasis added] would have to make its holding illegal [emphasis added], as was done in the case of gold.”

So, there is no safe store of value [in dollars]. Easy, I went out and bought more quality ammunition. Then I picked up Boston’s Gun Bible and continued reading. James, thanks again for your hard work. – The DFer

Three Letters Re: Surplus Interceptor Body Armor (IBA)

James,
I noticed the letter you posted about the man who bought his interceptor armor from eBay. Much of the Interceptor [Body] Armor on the market is stolen property.
Many times it was stolen through supply [channels] and that is one of the reasons so many troops had to buy their own.
On many of the tactical forums you have to be able to produce proof that you bought the interceptor armor legally.
The interceptor armor itself is outdated. It is very heavy and bulky. Dragonskin is also not available to civilians. You have to have a end user certificate to even get the stuff. Thanks for the great site. – Meerkat, Murfreesboro Tennessee

Dear Jim:
Dr. Richard makes a critical point about avoiding defective Zylon vests on eBay, but I must add some cautions to his suggestion about buying used Interceptor armor. For the sake of full disclosure, here at BulletProofME.com we are about to advertise a $500 special on our brand-new Interceptor Outer Tactical Vests on SurvivalBlog. But the following information is factually verifiable for any skeptics.
Beware of Stolen Interceptor Armor
Unless the armor was bought with private funds, it is U.S. government property and should have been turned in by the user. The Army criminal investigations unit has been aggressively confiscating undocumented armor from both military and non-military personnel, and prosecuting dealers who knowingly bought stolen armor. This has been such a problem, we simply won’t buy Interceptor armor without verification of it’s title – just like a car.
Beware of Damaged SAPI hard plates
Unless it has been abused, there shouldn’t be a problem with the protection level of the aramid (i.e., Kevlar) soft ballistic panels in the Interceptor. Aramid does not degrade noticeably just from age.
Be very, very careful with SAPI Rifle Plates
These Small Arms Protective Inserts (SAPIs) are made out of boron carbide and are more fragile than Ceramic Rifle Plates. Some will have hairline cracks not visible unless X-rayed. Even just improper packaging for shipping can leave them damaged (I swear a lot of the delivery drivers are former shot putters, the way they throw packages around! )
Also, unless it is an Enhanced model (E-SAPI) it is not full AP protection like Level IV Ceramic Rifle Plates, the original SAPI mil spec called for M-16 and AK-47 threats to be stopped – but not AP rounds.
Finally, regarding the “better” Dragon Skin. Well, Pinnacle has an impressive public relations machine, but they have only had the vest certified to Level III standards (to stop .308 FMJ) by the NIJ (National Institute of Justice). If I really had a superior product that was being ignored by the Army, I’d have it Level IV certified (stopping .30-06 AP) and sell it to police customers – why hasn’t Dragon Skin done this? They only have a Level III certification on file.

We have customers in The Sandbox who bought Dragon Skin, but just couldn’t take the extra weight. Just like everything else, take the time to dig below the marketing hype and know what you are buying. Thanks, – Nick, Manager, BulletProofME.com Body Armor

 

James:
I am a new reader of the your blog. (About two months now) I even submitted a story [to the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest] about raising chickens for survival protein. It did not win, but hey it was fun to be published, and maybe it can help out someone else. Maybe I can try again next month I would love to have a copy of your book. It sounds good. And I am addicted to the blog. I read it almost every day.

The reason I read it is because I do most of these things any way but now I can learn to do it the right way. Thanks for all this great info. You may even see a few dollars in snail mail in a few weeks.

I was looking at the info about body armor and how some of the good stuff from Iraq is showing up on eBay. That got me thinking. Do you have any past info about body armor, what the rankings mean? What the ball park prices are and how to find used stuff. (I do love eBay) I think this would be a great Item to get a hold of but I need more info before I make any purchases. I looked over the web but all I can find is info from the sellers and some times I have trouble believing every thing the sales person tells me. Any info would be great. Thanks, – Korey

JWR Replies: A good description of the NIJ body armor protection standards numbers can be found in this primer. I have no idea about current auction pricing on IBA. Just be sure that what you buy comes with an original receipt or military Statement of Charges. (Items that are misplaced by soldiers are often paid for via Statement of Charges.)

Odds ‘n Sods:

“Yabba-dabba-do!” Hawaiian K. forwarded us a link about some transportation improvisation in Prague. (The intact bark makes me think that this was a prank rather than an economy measure.)

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Simon in England sent us this gem from the British press: a serving soldier (Private Christopher Trussler) has been charged with the illegal possession and sale of ammunition in late May. The private’s arrest followed “a three-month investigation.” His arrest followed an operation into the sale of 9mm ammunition in the Chichester area of West Sussex. The Metropolitan Police said the move followed a “proactive intelligence-led investigation into the supply of ammunition.” Detective Sergeant Neil Lennon of Operation Trident said: “The ammunition we believe this soldier was selling would have been compatible with a number of types of firearms. It would undoubtedly have the potential to have an extremely harmful effect on a number of communities, and Trident remains committed to tackling those who seek to profit from the misery of others.” So how much ammo did he have to sell? 21 rounds of 9mm. (About $2.50 USD worth.) And how much did that “three month investigation” cost the UK taxpayers? This incident is absurd and laughable, but the hoplophobic Brit officials are taking it oh-so seriously.

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More countries cut loose from the tarnished US Dollar: It started with China, in 2005. Then Iran and Venezuela followed suit. More recently, Kuwait and Syria have made similar moves. This week, Bloomberg.com reported that the UAE may be next. If this continues, I predict an “emperor, sans clothes” epiphanous global revaluation of the dollar, most likely this fall. My advice: Diversify out of dollars and into tangibles, pronto!