A lot of people preparing for serious problems down the line tend to lean toward the more primitive ways of doing things, like lighting your home, traveling, growing food, ect... Little House On The Prairie, in other words.
I do not hold with that view. Yes, it is important to know how to do things the old fashioned way. However, we get things done today much more efficiently, over all. We can get more work done in a day than they could have dreamed of doing a hundred years ago. They worked harder and got less done back then.
The old ways seem to hark back to a simpler way of life, and so it does. You grow your food and if you fail, you starve. You put in the work to get firewood to heat your home or you freeze. If you get hurt and can't get the work done, you suffer. See, simple.
Today, we have electricity and petroleum fuel. Our life is much, much easier because of the access we have to power. We can cook our food without hours of prep time spent getting a wood stove hot. We can literally travel across the whole country in a vehicle in under a week rather than months with horses. We can hold thousands of books in an electronic reader rather than stored on shelves holding paperback or hardbound books, meaning we can take our survival library with us should we bug out. We can light our homes with the flick of a switch rather than rely on lanterns. We can use power tools to build things we need quickly rather than spending many times the effort and time required for hand tools. We can communicate in real time with someone thousands of miles away via internet, phone, and HAM radios.
We should strive hard to make sure we can make our own power if the systems we rely upon fail, in my opinion. We have options. We should be exploring them. At the very least, we should be investing in deep cycle batteries to make battery banks for our homes right now. You can plug them in to charge them while the grid is up and if the power goes out, you've got another day or two of electricity while you wait for the power company to begin providing again. Also, if you've already got a battery bank you will be ready to capture electricity as you begin purchasing energy production equipment a little at a time. Over time, you should be able to go off the grid if you keep at it.
Solar panels and windmills are an option. I'm not talking about spending huge amounts of money to power everything in your home. Just enough to charge a modest battery bank or recharge small, portable electronics. But solar and wind are not ideal. If the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, no power for you. And I've found no way to turn wind and solar into fuels to run your vehicle, at least at the home user level which is what we're concerned with, here. I'm not saying to forget about setting them up, just that they have their downsides. I would not rely completely on them. Instead, I would use them in combination with other energy production technologies.
In my opinion, wood gasification is ideal for preparedness. Wood gas can be captured and stored at the home producer level. Wood gas can run an internal combustion engine, which would allow you to drive a vehicle and/or run a generator if the power goes out or gasoline/diesel is unavailable for an extended period of time. This means the ability to run your vehicles and power your home/recharge your battery bank. All from wood, something we can get a lot of in CO.
Another option to take a serious look at is the thermal electric generators (TEG's or Peltier generators) on the market and for sale right now. They tend to run a bit cheaper than solar and they can operate with just about any sufficient heat source, including fire. This means you can make electricity at night as well. Another thing that might be possible with TEG's is using a Fresnel lens to provide the heat source during sunny days. (Fresnel lens is a giant magnifying glass) Fresnel lenses are pretty cheap to purchase. You can even get them for free out of old big screen TV's that are free on craigslist. You have to haul the TV away, but you save a few hundred dollars on a Fresnel lens by doing so for the previous owner. If you are running a wood gasifier, you can put the TEG on it and produce electricity while you produce and capture wood gas for later use in a vehicle or generator.
For people who raise livestock, methane is another fuel worth checking into. Methane can be captured and stored for later use. Methane can run engines as well. If you can make methane, you can drive and power your home.
Anyway, do a little research and consider preparing to make your own energy should the systems collapse around us. It will be important during a time like that. You'll be glad you did if shtf or teotwawki strikes, or even if it doesn't.
