Andy Goodell wrote: > 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.
Done as a hack job, yes - this is difficult and dangerous. Done at the factory, with 220 in and 220 out, it would be easy and sane. Similarly, connecting 220 from the car to your house's power is no different than what you'd do with a generator. Plus, you get transportation at much lower cost, with a lot less gasoline. I also think you're underestimating the cost of battery backup, both financially and environmentally. > 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. I agree that this wasn't considered a problem in 1890. If you lived in the sticks, you simply managed your own heat. Electricity wasn't an option. Today, when we expect electricity to be available, it's a problem. Of course, there's another simple if expensive answer to keeping the power on despite the weather, and that's buried lines and/or redundancy. > 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? Probably because the people who keep talking about "real solutions" do an incredibly lousy job of selling them to people who they treat as if they're in a perverse alien culture... Bridging that is a tougher problem than claiming that there is a better simpler answer. 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
