Simon et al, I think this is an expensive way to do that however. For a few hundred you can get some deep cycle batteries, a charger, and an inverter. I'm guessing that attempting to connect a car to your home is a a good way to not only void your warranty but if you make the news you could probably get a friendly call from your insurance company dropping you from their policy.
From hearing what my parents went through recently with 6 days without power, and from growing up there and losing power for up to a week every few years, I can tell that technology is what got us to this perceived problem. Houses in that area with oil furnaces are much more appealing to most than wood stoves, yet when power goes out those who opted for the convenience of oil also opted out of the convenience of staying warm without electricity. Those who wanted the convenience of living in the suburbs also opted out of getting their power restored quicker. We could have spent our time and resources trying to find ways to improve our systems, but instead we now have hybrid cars, big oil furnaces, and energy star refrigerators. Oops! I haven't seen any bikes with MPG ratings, or iceboxes with energy star labels though. How come the real solutions are always hiding under our "solutions" for invented problems? Simon St.Laurent wrote: > This is true, but there are other potentially more useful tricks here. > > For an off-grid house, using the car as a generator could be a useful > backup in case of, say, solar panels covered in snow and a windmill that > isn't doing much. > > Even better, the house could charge its "backup generator", sending > extra energy to the car and reducing the need for gasoline. > > You're right that this combination of the two systems is fairly > irrational. At the same time, though, it points to much more > interesting prospects. > > (And I'd be a lot more interested in a Prius or similar car if it had > 220V inputs and outputs...) > > Thanks, > Simon St.Laurent > __________ _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
