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Remember Escape from LA? Snake turns off all the electricity? How really screwed with the enterprising, self prepared individual be?
The world? PLENTY! But for an individual? Can comfortable living for years be done off just mechanical, even if it is like Doc making ice tea in his blacksmith shop?
Be aware that steam powered mechanically connected systems had become pretty sophisticated by the early 1900s. Those weren't some kind of bubba in his garage, backyard mechanic systems. Most of those skills have been lost.
You want mechanical systems? Do you have a source for iron ore? Large amounts of coke or charcoal? Blacksmithing skills? That's just the beginning. Engineering skills to design the equipment? Do you have enough people to run all the steam powered systems? To operate valves and pulley systems?
Of course, if you have a steam engine, then you have power to run a generator.
Be aware that steam powered mechanically connected systems had become pretty sophisticated by the early 1900s. Those weren't some kind of bubba in his garage, backyard mechanic systems. Most of those skills have been lost.
You want mechanical systems? Do you have a source for iron ore? Large amounts of coke or charcoal? Blacksmithing skills? That's just the beginning. Engineering skills to design the equipment? Do you have enough people to run all the steam powered systems? To operate valves and pulley systems?
Of course, if you have a steam engine, then you have power to run a generator.
Reminds me of what I was told about loss of automatic boiler controls drills, when I asked that since they didn't have those controls in times before, why couldn't we revert to then......because the manual skills to run a boiler like that had been lost.
In any event, in our case, it is good to plan ahead and figure out the problems before you need the answers.
Reminds me of what I was told about loss of automatic boiler controls drills, when I asked that since they didn't have those controls in times before, why couldn't we revert to then......because the manual skills to run a boiler like that had been lost.
In any event, in our case, it is good to plan ahead and figure out the problems before you need the answers.
They Romans and Chinese had developed technologies and practices that were lost for centuries before humans re-learned them.
Just because we know something in the past is no guarantee we can just magically flip a switch and go back. It doesn't work that way.
Twenty years ago, I was looking at small steam engines, and thinking about connecting one to a 5kw generator. The downside was fuel. I can not chop firewood fast enough to feed one, 24/7.
Then I advanced to the idea of combining such a system with a household heating system. Just feed to firebox exhaust and the expelled steam into a household boiler so that you could heat your house.
But it would still require a continuous fuel supply of oil.
Depends on the level of technological sophistication you want to maintain. A water wheel running shafts with leather belts is how many old school machine shops worked. A water wheel can of course power a generator as well. If you want to run modern refrigerators and similar, you will need a more sophisticated system than you might think to maintain frequency.
You could consider a solar electric system with a battery, this would work for something like a decade after a SHTF event.
As previously mentioned, Mennonite and similar cultures, and hillbillies, have done without mains power for centuries.
The short film "Alone in the Wilderness" also presents some ways of living quite comfortably in Alaska without mains power.
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