Back Up Power?

The power grid is perhaps the most vulnerable place to attack on American soil. Power outages are often caused by squirrels, lightening, water, snow and ice, automobile accidents and even planned maintenance.

In my younger and less wise days I never worried about power outages. After all, “I am a man, a lone survivor and I dun need na stinkin power.” As I wised up I realized that much of our infrastructure had backup power redundancies in place. Many cell towers, internet service providers, and even cable backup power systems have both battery and generator back-up power systems. At the beginning of Covid-19; I purchased a Goal Zero Yeti 200X to provide backup power to not only my internet routers, but a means of charging cell phones and Ham Radio HT’s as well.

The Goal Zero Yeti 200x is the smallest of their Power Station line. However, it provides 187 watt hours of power, 6 outputs including USB, USB C, AC, DC and USB PD. Further it provides two inputs, USB PD and a charging port. In theory, the Goal Zero Yeti 200x can recharge a cell phone 16 times. I have personally run my two WIFI routers for 2 hours on the Yeti before power came back. I also took the Yeti 200x on my honeymoon trip and utilized it to charge many ham radios and for power in one hotel where there wasn’t a convenient place to charge my phone. I have also used the Goal Zero to recharge camera while attempting to take photos for this blog. I have no complaints in my experience with the Yeti 200x.  While the Yeti 200x lacks many of the power capabilities of larger power stations, it provides a nice portable power solution for electrical items.

One of the things we as preppers should think about is utilizing our preps. In the terms of the product like the Goal Zero Yeti 200x, if we do not have a use for it in our lives, how will we know it works when the time comes. For instance, if we don’t maintain the Goal Zero products it will slowly discharge to zero. Or if we buy a gun and then never practice with it, when the time comes will we have the skills necessary to use it? We all stock pile food, have we tasted the food to make sure it is edible to our taste buds? I could give countless examples; the point remains the same, we should use, test, and practice with our preps. When I start fires in my fireplace I use wood I have batoned, or cotton balls I have made as fire starter

Perhaps one of the most overlooked issues with generators in the Prepping Community is noise. Google how many generators were stolen during Hurricane Katrina or many other national disasters. Simply put these generators were located by noise. The Goal Zero offerings offer the ability to recharge silently by Solar panels. These solar panels can be placed on top of backyard pergolas or placed on the ground in the backyard with a cord running into the house to charge the power station. Unless someone was in your backyard they would not know you have means of making power making the probability of theft lower.

The power grid vulnerability is rivaled by the communications network as we experienced in the recent Nashville bombings that occurred on 12-25-2020. This bombing caused 9-1-1 and various other services to be non-functional. Further it caused a disruption in cellular service. This outage reaffirmed my desire to have emergency communications. This last statement will touch on another topic I am passionate about; GMRS and Ham radios in a much later blog.