The Collapse X: Power

30 June 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

How much power do I use? What a delightfully specific (and rather odd) question to ask. But I will play along.

My appliances; Stove, Refrigerator, Water Heater, Water Pump (the microwave went out years ago when it died and was never replaced – who needs a drip coffee maker when you have an original aluminum percolating camp model and a French Press). Other than that, lights and the power to my computer and music player.

Power was one of the first things I made a serious effort on when we first closed on the place. The Refrigerator is a very old International Harvester (can you imagine such a thing still exists?) – a power drain for sure, but built like a tank (it lasted my grandparents and my uncle and may well outlast me). The Stove is something I use really only once or perhaps twice a day and the oven almost never – in summer I heat my coffee while in winter I use the woodstove to warm the water putting it in the French Press (it never seems to boil but it is certainly hot enough to make the coffee quite drinkable). In the summer I use a BBQ for as much of the cooking as can, both to conserve energy and keep the house cool (Did I tell you I tried my hand at making charcoal? Some other time perhaps; rather fascinating process).

The Water Heater and Water Pump run together: the more water I use, the more I have to use them. I have made do to this point without a clothes washer by availing myself of the local campground facilities (until that is gone, of course) so I have only a shower and dishes and drinking to account for. I have looked into very small cylinder clothes washers (I used on in Eastern Europe while I was there), but find that they are rather hard on clothes. For now, I will use what I have and make do with the bathtub when I have not.

I supplement where I can: solar panel for the computer battery and rechargeable nicad batteries, candles in the morning and evening, and the occasional use of the head lamp (although I quite despise the thing, to be honest: I look like a fool). The Winter makes the recharging a great deal more difficult (read almost impossible) but it is simply a matter of matching my life to the available light and acting accordingly. I have thought about kerosene lamps but the smell and the smoke bother me in such a small place.

I know how you think: yes, the candles have to come from somewhere and batteries eventually cannot be recharged. But that is really no different than the reality that, given our current trajectory, we are quite likely to have the lights go out as whole as well.

I have tried to test run this: in Winter (especially) I will make a run of one or two days where I “divorce” myself from power (I try to keep the items in refrigeration low before I do this). With the woodstove and its ability to heat, I keep myself going rather well: I have hot water for tea and coffee and slightly poached eggs and I have enough hot water (given time) to take a reasonable bath (yes, I understand that by using water I am “using” the pump. My counter would be with a manual handle I can do so anyway).

In any circumstances, the greatest issue is light (or the lack thereof). What I have found over time is that by minimizing generated lighting and living largely (if not mostly) by ambient light, I can manage my time appropriately – during the Winter Solstice, we have only about eight hours of daylight (for the Summer Solstice, by comparison, we have almost fifteen) and I have learned to pack in the activities during the day. By the time the sun goes down, I try to have activities that can be accomplished with the light of the fire and a single light source.

It is a matter of adaptation of course, but I am trying to adapt now before I have to.

Your Obedient Servant (currently still writing in the waning sunlight), Seneca