Originally Posted by cooker
Those techniques may be very valuable in the post-peak-energy world, but they need to be subjected to cost benefit analysis. Hydroponics involves growing food in sand or water (or other media) and adding nutrients, and those nutrients have to come from somewhere. If harvesting those nutrients means depleting resources elsewhere, it may not make sense to do it. The freezer can protect a lot of food from being wasted and save a lot of human energy and lots of material that might have gone into pickling or canning food to preserve it, but the freezer also soaks up a lot of energy to keep it cold.
There are lots of options out there, ever heard of manure tea
it is a great liquid fertilizer
As far as freezers go take a look at the
Sunfrost freezers. IIRC they can actually be run of solar panels. I am not saying any of this stuff is easy or cheap, but it sure beats the alternative of starving to death or waiting for someone else to take care of you. I was in the Mobile, AL area after Katrina went thru, what was amazing to me was the amount of *****ing and moaning going on about the lack of some items. You would go to a fast food restaurant and the menu would be very limited, mainly due to delivery issues, people would be getting mad at the restaurant employees, as tho they had anything to do with it.
I always travel with emergency rations in my truck, and keep a pretty good backstock of canned and frozen goods at home. You never know when you may need them. The other thing that amazed me was the idiots lining up after Hurricane Wilma went thru Florida, the storm hadn't even cleared the east coast and they were already complaining about lack of water, ice and basic supplies...HELLO! didn't you watch the news?
I consider my self a survior and while I don't and won't take it to the extremes some people do, I am going to make the best of whatever situation I am in and prepare for it the best I can. Even canning something takes energy...I don't mind raw vegetables, but they aren't going to be available year round as Roody has already pointed out. I think from an economic view a study of what happened in many of the Russian states after the collapse of the Soviet Government is a good example of what we have to look forward to.
Aaron
