Okay, something I hadn't considered regarding renewable energy.

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While reading at Survivalblog, about man who just went through Irene and learned some things, and decided to share his new understanding. A man who had, if timidly due to his wife and her family, prepped. A man who thought it was all set. A man who learned better. Thank you, sir, for sharing. And thank goodness you survived without too many losses, and a great new gain.

While his story was horribly shocking, and answers much of why I sometimes sweat and roll before sleeping, it also taught me some things. A wife. I have to make sure any woman I bring on board IS on board. It isn't a maybe, she will haul the water or walk the plank. A little kink wouldn't hurt either, once in a while, either. (I'll figure out how to get a dancing pole installed, for love and her health, mind you.) and (Just saying.) Another thing I learned? Those stupid little things, those seeming insignificant details I am trying to fill in? Yeah, that's not bad except that it might be too slow. Especially with no wife and kids who really do need some of the money, currently. Except I need to have that a bit more coherently going forward. Then again, I have been buying some rather good stuff. While wool and silk socks, special "outdoorsman" skivvies, and a hatchet might not seem all that good, they are. But I need to figure out a more solid plan. I do spend much of my free money on some of this little stuff. But now to focus that, look to needs and potential needs in some kind of order. This part is quite difficult! Staying on such a plan is just as difficult. Oh, and lifestyle over survival. I really have to try and... bend that more toward survival. I might be able to allow them to come together, if that won't be quick or painless. Oh, and I am starting to take OPSEC more seriously, if I am going to have to learn much more regarding that and my internet usage. My guess is I have absolutely blown my OPSEC. On the good side, I have very little actually worth looting, for the most part... currently.

The other thing, and this is quite important, is that the type of renewable energy is not quite what I thought. What do I mean? When I started looking at the best system for my area, from reading this man's suggestion that solar was only good if you could dump a ton of money into it. D.C. sort of intimated 6k, and I think he did all his own work, so at least double that for an installed equivalent system, and that requires special appliances so it works. So, I ended up looking over a renewable energy database for my county. And what I learned from that is wind power is out, biomass is rated very well (though I don't think I could personally use that, though I need to know more), geothermal is highly rated here, solar is good (5.1-5.5 kWh/m2/day), but wind is very bad.

So, my choices for viable renewable energy for personal use are probably limited to geothermal (which seems to be used singularly for heating/cooling, but I honestly know nothing more than what was written in that database) and solar. Solar is only average here, on their charts. I don't know, I just keep wanting to dig and get as much knowledge as quickly as possible and begin making a plan to try and get that installed. Time is not on my side, nor is money, health, function, or anything. But... those things aren't the point. I need to figure out how to bull through. Now, I like a wood oven, for winter. And though I live near mountains, have you any idea what bringing three to seven cords of wood from the mountain to my home would be like on foot, even with horses? And all of that would have to then be chopped by hand, and it would probably be brought down as eight to ten foot lengths, so would first need to be sawed to 17" to 21" lengths, depending on the cook stove/wood stove used (though if I went that way, I would want to make those two things use the same length of cuts).

So, geothermal or wood? Is geothermal even affordable? More research. Wood burning devices would cost... say... $7k-$12k, plus installation adding, perhaps, another $3k-$5k depending on what they find while doing the work, or $1k-$2k if I could put my hands to it. But wood fired would not handle cooling. That would require a generator, probably propane, along with a 2k buried propane tank, which would give me just a bit each night to allow earlier sleep so I could get up and march into the mountains before the sun was up, or ride my bike to get water and haul 80 some pounds of water back home, which might add $3k to $8k, depending on burial costs, rental or purchase of tank (they might not rent a buried tank?), and such. Plus, I would need to get some appliances that ran on propane or they might not bother renting me such a large tank, if they do rent buried tanks?

Anyway, the moral of the story is, no matter what you do, it will be a little thing, or bunch of them, that begin turning into their own hurricane of disasters right when you don't need injury on insulting injury. Getting this right also means stepping up to manage, coordinate, purchase, install, upgrade as needed, and maintain such a wide variety of systems and subsystems that my head is swimming. No, no no. Not a problem. I went through this in engineering school almost every day. I... should I be honest? Yeah, okay... I enjoy this feeling. *wee!* This is were I work my best, in the shit of whatever sort, over my head, with a bag over my face, and something hitting or punching me. I can't even tell, I don't know, and I don't need to know. I don't take it personal, I just want to change the shit into a calm, without dieing, giving up, or losing so I can get on to my next, deeper or new horror.

Oh, by the way, there is a 30% federal tax credit and a 25% state tax credit (with a max of $2k per year on the state, though any excess over the max can be carried out for four years). A self-designed (and installed I think? You know how reading government garbledygook is?) system might actually qualify with less stringent requirements than professionally installed systems! That could... yeah, that might work. That might be enough of a carrot to get this eleph-mule off his... well... mule. S.O.B. While spending money isn't striking gold, if I can figure out and install an $18k system, for example (which includes solar, biomass, and or geothermal systems, my final cost would be, roughly, $8.1k (if the state rebate ($4.5k) would take three years (including the instant $2k from the install year, so two years once it was certified) to collect. The feds offer an immediate and full 30% rebate ($5.4k in this case). However, I am not sure if the rebates overlap, if one is pulled before the other is figured, or what? S.O.B. I can do that, and before long, if too I would have to just not pay off some bills as I had sort of hoped to do. Son of a gun. Maybe... You have no idea what having a dependable, solid, off-grid electric and heating/cooling rig set up would do for my bean. *RELIEF* And now, I have an inkling of a plan. Just a glimmer of a hope, almost palpable, playing at the edges of my psychic periphery like sugar plum dreams in the Christmastimes of my youth.

But it did get me thinking, looking, planning, and going. Then again, it was D.C. who kicked it all off, in the first place, along the way, and again just recently, in truth. Most recently by pointing to food and water transport (the bike and systems for it). Oh yes. I need a little guidance, a little nudge, a clue that isn't cryptic from time to time. Anyway, it is bed time.

[Note to all. Read D.C. and learn! I don't know how much time you have, but... Even Christ did not know some things. Though those with eyes to see and ears to hear have to know it is coming down. Read, watch, learn, ask, do. He or his site can at least get you started.]

Good night.