Post-Apocalyptic Prometheus

Once a base has been established and the need to live on the run has died down every member of your party will need to regain their humanity. The immediate needs are the basic needs of survival (food, water, shelter, and habitat) however once those are met there will be a call for some base level comforts. One of the most fundamental of these comforts is electricity. Depending on length of time since society has collapsed you will have several options. As a general rule at zomprep 'the apocalypse does not make experts' so if you have little electrical work in your past try and find a technician, engineer or anyone who did tinkering before the chaos in your group to do any work or repairs. Now lets cover some pros and cons.

The Grid

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As chaos reigns around may of the wooden poles will get knocked down or stations will go off line. And so this option becomes more and more unlikely as time goes on, but if possible it is an ideal situation. The benifits being that the amount you can draw is almost limitless and it takes no technical knowledge to use. Luckily there are some tips to finding a stronghold with reliable power from the walls.

The key to using this unlimited source of light and heat is scoping out a headquarters before the bedlam begins using a knowledge of the local system. The first concern is source of the power. If a local system is fed by coal or gas then the station will be off almost immediately. Solar and wind generation will continue running, but only available at certain times of day. If you have a nuclear plant in the area that can provide a constant power for around 500 days. Hydro will provide an ongoing supply throughout the day, but will dry up depending on season, however if you are near some of the larger reserves (i.e. Niagra Fall, Hoover Dam) or an area that has a large rain supply such as the pacific northwest then your supply may be unlimited.

Unforunately this only describes the source of the power, in addition to the generation this power needs to be delivered and the grid is an extremely complex system. If the supply is too high compared to the demand or a line makes contact with something it shouldn't the grid will protect itself by shutting pieces down. A majority of these protective actions, that aren't due to source problems, will be due to wooden poles being destroyed creating a contact between wires and the ground. The key to finding a line that will be live is being near a substation (the fenced off areas with giant electrical equipment in it) with metal poles bringing in a strong source of power and your headquarters fed almost directly out of that. Although its rare, these scenarios exist when a large industrial customers needs a direct feed from a reliable transmission line. These conditions don't capture the plethora of smaller issues that stop power from flowing to your new base, but will hopefully give you an idea of the minimum needs. If you find yourself lucky enough to find this scenario use it for everything you can such as checking radio transmissions, charging batteries, boiling water for showers as well sterilizing drinking water because it will not be available forever. Once its gone you will need to move onto one of the other power sources in this article.

On Site Generation

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 Those industrial customers I mentioned previously will also likely have some on-site backup. Quite often they will be large diesel generators and a variable level of fuel stored locally as well. The upsides of these generators are that they provide a large amount of power and are completely independent from the outside world, at least untill you need to scavange for more fuel. The downside for these will be the need for quite a bit of expertise as you will need someone well versed in both the mechanical needs as well as electrical. There is also the very large problem of noise as these generate quite a bit of it, which might as well be a dinner bell for all the ghouls in the area. The use of such devices will need to be scheduled to maximize fuel usage and minimize time of noise production. 

If there is no industrial size generator there may be a smaller personal size generator available. These have many benifits such as being a bit more portable, less noise, less technical experience needed and have use a standard gasoline as fuel so you can siphon out fuel from most cars. The drawbacks to these are that they are less efficient and there will very likely be a minimal fuel reserve on hand. Also there will be no exhaust system for these built in, so they will need to be used in a ventilated area. Although the portability may tempt people into dragging these around or trying to bring one back to base, I would only suggest trying to acquite one from an offsite location once the supply raids get to a more advanced level.

Finally there is the option of a human powered generator. They are simple in concept unfortunately they create very little energy and take a good amount of mechanical ability to put together(here is some faq about bike generators http://scienceshareware.com/bicycle-generator-faq.htm). The benefits are numerous however, as they are quiet, no fuel storage needed, no exhaust concerns and it provides some ability for physical excercice to keepy everyone in shape for raids and the possibility of evacuating the facility in case of a breach.

Better than a membership to Ballys

Batteries and Storage

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Regardless of which of these methods for the delivery of power you may have available, the key will be to use them efficiently. To do this storage of energy will be needed, unfortunately storage of electrical energy does not come easy. If the place you have comandeered for a base has batteries on site with a charger consider youself lucky, otherwise you will need to create a battery system. This can be done by taking the batteries out of any automobiles left around and wiring them together to achieve the needed voltage.

If batteries are not an option then you can store the energy in several other ways. For instance if you happen to be in a cold area and want warmth for the night, then while solar is working use it to heat clay bricks and keep them imsulated untill night time, or if you have an ive machine or heat pump you can create ice to keep food from spoiling while as long as possible. Feel free to get creative with pump storage or compressed gas storage to spin a tubine at a later time. The take away information is that when electricity is being generated either use it or lost it.