Comment by AyyEye
1 day ago
NW florida just had a hurricane. As I type this comment there are hundreds of thousands of people in the sunshine state that have no (grid scale) solar power. That from a heavily solar provider. All of my friends report that (largely) trees are down but houses and roofs are okay. Distributed solar would have a lot more people with working refrigerators and unspoiled food.
You don't even need distributed solar. A simple UPS is enough, either plugged in in front of the refrigerator or wired to the entire home via a transfer switch... and hell it's not that expensive. Battery stations capable of feeding a refrigerator for a day are less than a grand, if you don't want batteries a gas-powered generator is even cheaper.
Just how many natural disasters do Americans go through before realizing that?!
Hurricanes a much bigger natural disasters then you think. Several weeks without power isn't unheard of. The battery that runs your fridge for a day will be dead before the weather clears up enough that it is safe for workers to attempt to restore power.
These disasters are rare though for any one person - a few happen every year, but it will be years between you personally seeing a disaster. That is why generators sell out when there is a storm: even if you have a generator odds are it is rusted and won't work. It is a waste of money to buy a generator before you need it.
> Just how many natural disasters do Americans go through before realizing that?!
This is one of the most condescendingly-wrong posts I've ever seen on this site and you should be embarassed for writing it. The beginning was just typical hn hubris that I probably wouldn't have responded to, but that last jab at the end in the context of an active and ongoing emergency that you clearly know nothing about is completely insensitive and gross.
Having traveled to those areas many times to assist with recovery, slept in trucks for weeks, and made many friends in those areas: It's day four without power and that is not abnormal. Bigger storms you can go weeks without power. Batteries aren't gonna cut it.
And gas generators have a whole mess of problems.
- Gas doesn't store well. Your stored gas is gonna go bad. That means when you find out a hurricane is coming to your area you can spend your time either protecting your house or wait 3-6 hours in line to hopefully get some gas for your generator before it runs out. Maybe they are rationing to 5-10 gallons.
- They might not work after sitting for years, even when properly maintained (one of my friends had two and neither could get running even with help). Hurricane areas are humid: generators rust. If you don't use gas engines the seals dryrot. If you leave them sitting with gas in them the ethanol (sugar!) Separates out and gums it up, breaking your generator. If you stop using your generator in the wrong way then you'll break it (you need to run it dry, using/wasting all the gas in the tank).
Even if you score gas and your generator works that brings us to the next problem:
The gas stations can't pump gas if they have no power themselves. They also can't be refilled if the big gas tankers can't reach them due to trees blocking roads. Main roads become passable quickly, side roads might not work for weeks. Cell phones might be out for weeks (and modern 5g micro-sites will take even longer to get fully rebuilt across a whole county). If your close-by station can't get gas you can't just call around to fine somewhere that does. You can't just drive around either. Single lane roads mean going anywhere takes forever and you are actively hindering recovery efforts. There are still stations in florida unable to pump gas due to shortages or power loss. So your couple of gas cans got you through a couple of days, what now?
And gas generators have moving parts. They are complicated. Another friend there had theirs die the day after the hurricane. Shit happens.
There is a reason prevalence of gas geberators in hurricane areas is less than 5% (I probably hear one running for every 50 houses, but most run them only intermittently) and it isn't because they're just dumb hicks who aren't as smart as mschuster91.
Lastly, you need to know how to use one. Every time there's a hurricane someone puts it in their garage and poisons themself and their family to death. Should you know better? Yes. But everyone doesnt.
Then there's all the other ways you suddenly need to spend energy to survive: you need to boil water, sometimes for weeks (while you don't have power), you need gas for your chainsaw to clear roads/trees so that power and water can be brought back. You need to drive to get supplies. Wasting gas that could be used to recover from the disaster isn't wise.
Back on topic: A stack of solar panels that could plug into the same outlet as a fridge would be a godsend for a lot of people (while also storing better than a generator and being more compact -- so more can be trucked in after a disaster.)