Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Death Valley Dream Lapse

Some north pole stuff for safe keeping.

http://www.findlatitudeandlongitude.com/?loc=magnetic+north+pole

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml

http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/index.php?index=mission&lang=en

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tryohukPWM&feature=em-uploademail

http://geomag.usgs.gov/products/

http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/earth-magnetic-field-poles-flip-fast-121024.htm
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/poles/NP.xy

Monday, April 29, 2013

Thoughts on Water Rights and Backup plans by Lee Bellinger

SELF-RELIANCE AND RURAL LIVING –
KNOW YOUR WATER RIGHTS BEFORE YOU HEAD OUT TO THE COUNTRY

If this communication does not apply to you, my guess is that it could matter for someone you do know.

A growing number of people are at least thinking about the acquisition of a secure second home in the country, a rural retirement, or just establishing a bug-out hide-away. You'll need to master one life-critical issue that you've probably taken for granted until now – 24/7/365 access to ample clean water.

For a relatively small investment, you can pick up a piece of land and develop it over time into a fine home or fabulous retreat. For this issue of the Ready for Anything Report, I interviewed a savvy survivalist named Will Barlow to help you bring you up to speed fast on the vital issue of access to water in rural locations.

To Understand Water Rights, Ask These Probing Questions…

Follow these guidelines when talking to the local water authorities, real estate agents, and landowners:

Does "First in Time, First in Right" apply on this land?
Centuries-old water rights systems are in effect in many areas. The surface stream you see on a property may not belong to you for use. Some areas use what is known as the "First in Time, First in Right" rule. With this system water rights are based on appropriation date. It doesn't matter if water reaches you first – if a rancher downstream has water rights that are older than yours, he gets his water first. When there is a drought, water is distributed in limits to the first 1-20 owners and then, when more water is available, the 2nd 20 owners will receive water, and so on.
Is there a pre-existing well?
If there is a pre-existing well on the property, you most likely will qualify for a Domestic Well Permit if you need to replace that well. If not, you may want to call in a local consultant to explore water sources on the property. If you choose to drill a well, be very clear about the purpose of the permit. Permits vary among class of use – like for household purposes only, or if you are maintaining livestock, or establishing an agricultural farm.

The cost of drilling a well can be high, and it increases with depth. In southern Colorado, a 600-foot well with casing can cost about $14,000, and the pump itself can cost between $6,000-$12,000. You may wish to avoid these costs and risks by limiting your property search to those with established water resources and systems.

Description: Defend against mounting dangers.

Will I need a water permit, and do I have a water right?
There is a difference between surface rights and water rights. Work closely with your local authorities to learn how this applies to your property. These officials may seem bureaucratic, but if you work with them in a friendly manner, they are likely to respond in kind.
Have a cistern water system.
A cistern is a sealed underground receptacle designed to hold water. Twelve-hundred-gallons capacity is recommended. You can fill your cistern with your share of the local water when the water is running high. Then if a drought hits, you'll have water still on hand and available. It can also hold hauled water should you need it during times of drought.
Secure a back-up pump.
Your water resource is only as good as your ability to get it out of the ground. Consider securing a back-up pump. When the pump broke down on a small land parcel just outside La Veta, Colorado, the homeowners association had to scramble to arrange for hauled water from almost 2 hours away. You don't want to find yourself in such a situation, losing the self-reliance you worked hard to achieve.
Monitor the quality of the water source regularly.
If you relocate to a small rural community, see if you can find someone who is – or is willing to become – certified as a Water System Operator for Small Water Systems. In rural settings, very few officials have these qualifications. It can take days to weeks for an official to come check your water system or provide maintenance. The water system operator can take on such tasks as checking for bacteria and monitoring the production of the well (typically in gallons per minute) for the good of the community.

Take a Long-Term View

Protect Your Natural Water Supply.
Many people living in the city or suburbs are not even aware of how they get their water, but as their water sources begin to dry up, city planners start to look to rural land for more water. Consult with your Water Supply Commission to learn what policies are in place to protect your water rights from this type of risk.
Think Ahead.
Ask what the long-term plan is for the Water Supply System; learn where the vulnerable areas are and ask what the plans are to avoid them. For instance, a new water system facility can cost up to $800,000. Applications for Government Loans will need to be submitted and will take time to process and install.

Who will be responsible for seeing this through? Get to know your neighbors – you need each other to work together for self-reliance.

Friday, April 26, 2013

10 Essential Medical Herbs

Reproduced from
http://theweekendprepper.com/health/the-top-10-medicinal-herbs-for-your-prepper-garden/

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As a prepper, it is good to make a study of herbal medicine because you never know when you will be cut off from modern medical care. You should concentrate on building a herbal library so you can understand all that herbs and herbal formulations can do for you.
There are many great books on herbal medicine but one reference work that is indispensable is the PDR for Herbal Medicines. It is considered the bible of herbs. It gives details on all the latest research on each herb, its scientifically documented effects, its folk remedy effects and interactions with prescription drugs.
If you are buying just two books on herbal medicine, PDR for Herbal Medicines should definitely be one of them.
While it is impossible to make a comprehensive list of every useful herb that you should have, here is a list of medicinal plants that you can grow in most gardens that frequently show up in the top must have lists of healing herbs.
For our top 10 list of healing herbs, we will be looking at the properties of

Aloe Vera
Cayenne Pepper
Chamomile
Dandelion
Echinacea
Garlic
Peppermint
Sage
Tea Tree
Thyme

Aloe Vera
Aloe Vera is an extremely useful plant for treating you both externally and internally.
Externally, its juice is best known as a treatment for burns, including sunburns – helping to soothe the damaged skin. But it can also be used to help soothe the pain of all types of skin conditions from bug bites to dry skin from eczema.
The juice and also be drunk – allowing it to treat a variety of internal upsets – including digestive problems, colitis, constipation, poor appetite and many other digestive tract woes.
Cayenne Pepper
In addition to a favorite spice for chili and a good source of vitamin C, Cayenne Pepper has a variety of medicinal properties.
Some of the medicinal uses of Cayenne include an aid to digestion, used as a gargle for sore throats, as a control for internal and external bleeding and as a powerful stimulant.
Chamomile
Chamomile has a mild sedative effect. Most people are familiar with Chamomile in the form of Chamomile tea, which promotes better sleep. In addition to its calming properties, Chamomile can be used in warm compresses for ear and eye issues, help with indigestion, morning sickness, nervousness and a variety of nervous disorders.
Dandelion
Who would think that the hateful summer lawn weed Dandelion could be so good for you.
But it is.
In addition to using it in salads, it has a variety of positive medicinal effects. Just some of the things it is good for include being a cleansing tonic for the blood, improve liver function, normalize blood sugar levels, help calm a variety of gastric disorders and help alleviate the symptoms of gout.
Echinacea
Echinacea is a powerful herb. It helps strengthen the immune system – allowing you the ability to better fight against colds, sore throats, bronchitis, etc. It is also a powerful anti-inflammatory and useful for alleviating arthritis pains. It can also help clear the respiratory tract of mucus for certain conditions.
Garlic
In addition to being a wonderful cooking ingredient, garlic has remarkable health giving properties. Just some of the benefits derived from eating this tasty bulb include antibiotic properties, anti flu properties, pain reliever for toothaches and earaches as well as helping with joint pain.
Peppermint
Peppermint is a great digestive aid and has a variety of additional uses. It can help alleviate headaches, muscle spasms and cramps, used in compresses to relieve pain and help clear sinus infections. All in all, it is a very useful herb.
Sage
Sage has a wide variety of uses. As a tea, it can help alleviate depression. It can also be used as a means of cleaning teeth and dealing with bad breath. Placing sage in a bath can help reduce fevers, help with stomach troubles, flu symptoms and even as an external poultice to help wounds heal faster.
Tea Tree
Tea tree is a powerful antiseptic, useful to help with insect bites and cuts. It is also an anti fungal and has been shown to help with fungus conditions on the feet – such as athletes foot. It can also be used to treat cold sores, yeast infections and acne.
Thyme
Thyme is a powerful herb for treating common gastric symptoms such as colic and bad breath. It can also help with a variety of lung problems, sore throats, nasal drips, whooping cough and as a fever reduction agent.
The above list represents just an introductory glance at what these powerful and easy to grow herbs can do to keep you in tip top shape. You should research and record all the beneficial effects of common herbs that you can grow in your garden so that you will have your own home-grown pharmacy in times of emergency.
Also, be sure to invest time in researching herbal combinations. Often the power of herbal medicine can be multiplied by combining complimentary herbs to build a much more effective remedy from the combination as compared to the effects of the individual herbs.
Here are a few books that can further your education.

For even more great selections, check out the herbal medicine selections on Amazon.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Buffalo and other Critters - Glacier Ridge Animal Farm

Here is the farm I was thinking about. It is about an hour north of you. Email on contact page.

I’m sure they are real tasty, probably grass fed start to finish.

30 lb buffalo might cost as much as the pig

http://www.glacierridgeanimalfarm.com/index.iml

Monday, April 22, 2013

Great site on how to do an Imu

http://www.grouprecipes.com/119225/hawaiian-imu.html
Last Sunday was Father’s day in Samoa so some of us decided to get together and do a Hawaiian imu; think Hawaiian Luau. Obviously, this is not the kind of thing you do for a small gathering. We had about 30 people and I reckon that’s minimum. Read more

hawaiian
imu
pig
kalua
luau
slow-cook
more...

Ingredients

Stuff you’ll need:
• 1 Pit about 3’ long by 2.5’ wide by 1.5 ‘ deep; adjust for size of pig.
• Enough softball size lava stones to make at least 2 layers in the bottom of the pit, a few more is good. You can use fire bricks but stack them crooked so they heat well.
• A fair mound of good hardwood; enough to burn for about two hours. You can use BBQ briquettes but you’ll need a bunch. The stones need to be almost white hot.
• Last Sunday’s newspaper.
• A can of BBQ starting fluid; kerosene works fine.
• 1 large or 2 small banana trees; cut into strips, see pic. If you can’t get these you can use wet sisal bags. The banana stumps are full of water and make steam.
• LOTS (as in a whole bunch) of banana and ti leaves; see pics. If these don’t grow where you are you can usually get them an Asian markets. You can also use wet corn husks.
• A long handled shovel.
• 1 good bush knife (machete).
• Two old bed sheets or a poly tarp. We don’t want any plastic in ours so we use the sheets.
• A good size piece of chicken wire. This needs to be at least 4’W by6’ L. See pics.
• Several crates of good beer and a couple casks of wine. This is optional but just barely. Last Sunday we made up a big batch of sangria, see Sangria De Sydney
Ingredients:
• 1 whole pig. Less than 20lbs is a waste of time.
• Small chickens or cornish Game Hens, prepped; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• Small fish, tilapia, trout, etc., prepped ; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil. You can use chunks of a big fish if you must.
• Octopus or squid, cleaned and cut into chunks; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• lobster or crabs, whole; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• A few good sausages, kielbasa, Portuguese, etc. ; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• Breadfruit, skinned; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• Taro, scraped; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• Green banana, peeled; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil with a bit of coconut cream added.
• Taro leaves, cleaned, tips and stems removed; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil; 6 or so leaves per packet with some coconut cream added. This is luau.
• potatoes and/or sweet potatoes; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• Artichokes; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• Corn on the cob; wrapped in banana or ti leaves or foil.
• Reckon you get the idea. Anything that can be steamed will do. A little madness here.

How to make it

The imu, phase 1:
1. Dig the pit. We make ours square sided and that works best.
2. Assemble all the” stuff you’ll need”.
3. Ball up the pages of last Sunday’s newspaper and toss them into the pit.
4. Put about 2/3 of your wood on the news paper and then stack your stones on the wood See Photo. You can add the rest of the wood as needed to keep the fire going for at least two hours.
5. Pour the BBQ starter fluid over the lot and light the thing up. We normally do this about midnight. Don’t get in a hurry about the fire. The rocks do need to be REALLY HOT or the thing won’t work
6. Go have a beer and get the food ready to go into the imu.
The food:
1. The pig is easy. The villagers did most of the work for us and your butcher will do that for you See Photo. Cut a slit from the anus up to the rib cage and from the top of the rib cage up to the chin. Rub the beasty inside and out with coarse salt and line the cavities with ti or banana leaves. Keep moist.
2. All the other stuff you decide to put in the imu should be portioned out into serving size packets and wrapped in fresh, green banana or ti leaves See Photo . These are usually secured with bamboo skewers. If you can’t get enough banana or ti leaves wet corn husks will work and as a last resort you can use foil. The breadfruit, taro and potatoes, etc. Do not need to be wrapped but they come out better if they are. You can add a bit, or a lot, of peepee (coconut cream) to any of the veggies but the taro leaves and green banana really need it.
The imu Phase 2:
1. Okay, the fire has burned down and the stones are hotter than the gates of Hades & everything that is going in the imu is close at hand. See Photo
2. Take a few stones out of the pit to go into the cavities of the pig and even out the rest.
3. Place a few layers of banana and/or ti leaves on the stones. Make sure these go all the way to the edge of the pit.
4. Place two layers of banana stump strips on the leaves See Photo. Make sure these go all the way to the edge of the pit. If you just can’t get these you can use wet burlap sacks, or like that.
5. Put the chicken wire over the pit and press down to fit. This makes getting all the stuff out of the pit, once it’s cooked, easier.
6. Add a layer or two of banana and/or ti leaves.
7. Put the hot stones in the leaf lined cavities of the pig. Use the shovel.
8. Lower the pig into the pit belly side up; you can turn it over when you take it out, if that’s important to you. You do need to move right along here as the stones are cooling.
9. Add all the other goodies you’ve decided to cook around the pig.
10. Add another layer, or three, of banana and or ti leaves See Photo. Make sure these go all the way to the edge of the pit.
11. Fold the edges of the chicken wire over the whole shebang.
12. Cover this with the old bed sheets. You can use a poly tarp but we don’t want any plastic in our imu so we use old sheets.
13. Cover this with the dirt you dug out of the pit to begin with. Make sure your dirt layer is as thick as possible to hold in the heat See Photo. You can cover this lot with burlap sacks, a tarp or cardboard boxes to help hold in the heat, optional.
14. If you’re like us, it’s about 3:00 AM and time for the last beer and a bit of sleep. Don’t forget to put more beer on ice for the imu opening.
15. It’s about noon and the smell coming from the imu has your gastric juices flowing nicely. Things will be cooked in about 6 hours, depending on how much you put in and how hot the stones are but we usually leave it longer and if you do it right the food never burns. You could start early in the AM and be eating in the afternoon, if you’re in a hurry.
16. Get as much dirt off the imu as you can. Things have cooled down a bit so you can use your hands for the last little bit.
17. Off with the sheets and the leaves.
18. You can take the packets of food out of the imu one at a time if you like and then use the chicken wire to hoist out the pig. You will need a suitable platter or plank to hold the pig.
19. Remove the stones from the cavities.
20. You can take the pork off the bone if you like but we let people help themselves. The meat is so tender that it just falls off the bone.
21. Unwrap the rest of the goodies and dig in.
Obviously, with a 70lb pig and all the other stuff that went into the imu we had more food left over than we ate. All of this keeps well in the fridge or freezer and you eat Hawaiian again next week. Is this better/different than pork roasted in an oven? Yep. As for condiments and such, I leave that up to you.

Rechargeable (small) batteries

Batteries...even the conventional lead acid have become "cheaper" in quality as cost of materials goes up. But for a safe, or especially a gun safe that NEEDS to open on command. You need the best, without "self discharge". All rechargeable exhibit some self discharge and my personal experience is the self discharge is complete discharge in 1 to 2 months. The article below proposes some rechargeable with 3 year "use" times.

I like rechargeables, because I know the lead acid throwaways are going into our groundwater and are costly. And I can charge the RC with PV solar.

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The Care and Charging of Your Rechargeable Batteries

The following is a guest article submitted by David Spero, publisher of the Code Green Prep website.

If you’re still buying, using, and storing single-use batteries, one or two at a time (or even several dozen at a time), and throwing them away as each one is depleted, you’re still living in the twentieth century.

New developments in rechargeable battery chemistries combined with massively improved ‘intelligent’ battery chargers have made rechargeable batteries much better and more affordable for almost every type of battery using electrical and electronic device.

Our mobile phones, tablets, and some other products use Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, and that’s a different type of battery entirely, but most other products, from remote controls to flashlights to clocks to thermometers and so on, throughout your household, are designed for either standard 1.5V batteries, such as AAA, AA, C or D types, or perhaps standard 9V batteries.

These types of batteries have interchangeable rechargeable batteries of the same shape and size, and similar voltage, and almost without exception, any device that uses standard sized single use batteries can use rechargeable batteries too.

For a prepper, concerned about the future, the ability to in effect compress a thousand or more batteries into each rechargeable battery is invaluable and essential.

Two Types of Rechargeable Batteries

The original rechargeable batteries were Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd) type, but in the 1990s they were largely superseded by Nickel-Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) type batteries. Both create 1.2 volts, but the Ni-MH batteries store more charge, can be recharged more times, and don’t have as severe a ‘memory effect’ issue that plagues Ni-Cd batteries. The memory effect is what happens if you only half use a battery’s charge, and/or partially recharge it up. After a few such experiences, the battery ‘forgets’ its total charge capacity and loses its unused capacity.

As good as they were, original Ni-MH batteries suffered one big weakness. Their rate of ‘self-discharge’ was very high. A charged battery, just sitting on the shelf and not connected to anything, would lose its power all by itself, with perhaps 10% of the power disappearing in the first day, and the balance over the next three to six months.

But a new technology – low self discharge – has revolutionized that issue and now Ni-MH batteries seem to be the clear winner in almost every application.

The Pluses and Minuses of Ni-Cd and Ni-Mh Technologies

Many people say that the newer Ni-Mh technology has replaced and obsoleted the older Ni-Cd technology. While that’s a reasonably fair description of what has happened, in actuality there are a very few remaining applications where Ni-Cd technology is superior.

Basically, if you have a device that draws a high rate of current, Ni-Cd batteries may be better. That’s why some of the highest tech airplanes still have Ni-Cd rather than Ni-Mh batteries, for example, and it is also why if you have a power drill, it also probably has a Ni-Cd battery.

But for most other medium and low current applications, Ni-Mh is invariably the better choice. These batteries can hold more charge in them and the latest technology Ni-Mh batteries can be recharged more times than is typical for Ni-Cd batteries. What’s not to like about that!

Not All Ni-Mh Batteries are the Same

So which are the ‘best’ Ni-Mh batteries to buy? That’s a key question, but its answer requires appreciating the different factors involved (of course you can skip down to where we answer the question if you wish!).

There are a couple of measures of how ‘good’ a battery is. The first is how much capacity it has – how much charge it can store. The second measure is how many times it can be recharged. Let’s consider both these issues.

Battery Capacity

Battery capacity is usually measured in mAh – milli Amp hours. A rating of, eg, 2500 mAh means that the battery can deliver current at the rate of 2500 mA (ie 2.5A) for one hour, or at a rate of 1000 mAh for 2.5 hours, or any other combination of amp rate and hours to come to the 2500 result when you multiple current rate by time it is drawn off.

Now there’s a simplification in the above statement. The amount of charge or current a battery can give off depends on the rate at which the current is being taken. A high rate of discharge will give a lesser total current capacity than a lower rate of discharge.

So, what rate of current discharge does a battery manufacturer use when rating their battery? Unfortunately, there is no universal standard, so it is possible that one AA battery, rated at 2300 mAh of capacity, might actually give less ‘real world’ current than a battery from a different manufacturer rated at 2200 mAh of capacity.

The only way you can accurately compare two batteries is to buy a supply of each and then test them in the appliances you wish to use them in and in that real world setting, decide which gives the better life.

In any event, with batteries that can be recharged hundreds and possibly thousands of times, the amount of charge per cycle isn’t of as great an importance as it is for a single-use battery. More capacity is always better than less capacity, but it isn’t the most overriding issue, as is indicated by the next point.

Self-Discharge Rates

This is a bit like scoring an ‘own goal’. Once you’ve charged up a Ni-Mh battery (or a Ni-Cd for that matter, too), the battery then starts losing its charge, all by itself, even when not connected up to anything. This is called its ‘self discharge’, and some batteries have much faster self discharge rates than others.

On the other hand, self discharge is no big deal if you are using the battery in an application where it will have all its charge drained out of it within a day or two anyway. But if you are, for example, using a Ni-Mh battery to power your wall clock, and are hoping for a year or more of life from the battery, then the self discharge rate will deplete the battery very much more quickly than the clock’s power consumption will, and so becomes an important factor.

To tie it in to the previous point about battery capacity, many Ni-MH batteries get ‘used up’ not by giving out their power to the device they are in, but by their rate of self discharge. The rate of self-discharge is therefore more important than the amount of charge (most of the time).

Unfortunately, you’ll not see any rating on most batteries for what their self discharge rate may be. Some batteries may be labeled as having ‘Low Self Discharge’ or something like that, and probably they are better than batteries that are totally silent on the subject. In addition, the Eneloop batteries made by Sanyo/Panasonic have enormously low self discharge rates, claiming to still have 75% of full power after three years of storage.

You don’t get nothing for nothing, however, and the low self discharge rate is reflected in a reduced battery charge capacity. Whereas modern state of the art Ni-MH batteries in an AA form factor, but with fast self-discharge rates, can store 2500 mAh and up to almost 3000 mAh of charge, the low self discharge rate batteries are more commonly found with capacities of about 1900 mAh.

If you have an application where you’ll use up all the battery’s charge in a day or two, then you don’t care about self-discharge rates, and instead want the largest capacity possible. An example of this might be to power walkie-talkies that you’re using every day during some sort of event.

But if you’ve a battery application where you use the battery only a very little, and normally would expect many months or even years between replacing batteries (for example, in a clock or a stand-by flashlight or a remote control) then the low self-discharge is a better choice.

For the prepper, low self-discharge is essential. It means we can charge up our batteries and have them good to go, any time the grid fails. Regular rechargeable batteries are likely to be nearly or fully discharged WTSHTF (or else need to be regularly recharged every week or so, to the point that by the time you need to use them, their recharge lives are almost used up, just from standby recharging. But low self discharge batteries only need to be topped up once every year or two (or even three) making them much better for our purposes.

Recharge Cycles

The third measure of a rechargeable battery is another very fundamental consideration. How many times you can you recharge it?

Can you guess what we’re about to say next? Alas, many manufacturers are silent on this measure too, and others adopt varying standards for determining how many times they say their battery can be recharged. Duracell simply says ‘These NiMh batteries can be charged hundreds of times’ – but does this mean two hundred or nine hundred?

To be fair to the manufacturers, the number of recharge cycles a battery will accept depends on many things such as the type of use it is getting, the temperature it is being used at, and the type of recharging it is being given, too, which is why we point out that your choice of charger is at least as important as your choice of battery (chargers are discussed a bit further on in this article).

Furthermore, a battery doesn’t just go stone cold dead after a certain number of recharges. All that happens is there is a steady degradation in the amount of storage capacity the battery has. At what point has this become unacceptably short? With rechargeable batteries freely available and inexpensive, many people consider that when the batteries have lost a third to a half their capacity, it is time to replace them. But if you are willing to accept less storage per charge, there’s no reason not to keep reusing and reusing them well beyond their rated life.

For preppers, there’s obviously another very important issue. We anticipate a time when replacements will not be freely available and inexpensive, and so it is essential that we can get as many recharge cycles out of our batteries as possible.

Alas, there’s no easy way to compare manufacturer claims for recharge cycles (do you really want to discharge and charge a battery potentially 1,000 times to see what happens?).

It seems though that the Eneloop batteries credibly claim to be capable of an unusually large number of recharge cycles – current products claim 1500 recharge cycles. We don’t know exactly how they make that claim, and although we wrote and asked them, they have not answered to explain.

The Best Batteries

Most of the time, the best batteries to buy are the Eneloop, or possibly one of the other ‘low self discharge’ rated Ni-MH batteries. Only if you’re going to be using your batteries in a demanding application such that they’ll use up their charge within a few days to a week or two do you need to give more importance to battery capacity than to the length of time the battery holds its charge.

Note that the Eneloop batteries these days come in two types – the long life ones with about 1900 mAh of capacity, and a shorter life but higher capacity one with about 2400 mAh of capacity and a slightly faster (but still outstanding) self discharge rate. The higher capacity batteries also accept fewer recharges.

The longest life Eneloop batteries cost slightly more than $2 each. You can recharge them 1500 times – maybe even more if you’re willing to accept the reduced storage capacity each time – so you are getting about six battery charges per cent of battery cost.

Or, to put it another way, an Eneloop battery costs four to five times as much as a single use alkaline battery. But you can use it 1500 times rather than once. The Eneloop battery is therefore about 300 times better value than the regular alkaline battery.

There’s one more vital component to the ‘best’ battery. It is only as good as its charger. And so…..

Recharging Your Batteries

The value you get from your rechargeable batteries is directly linked to the quality of your recharger.

You probably already know there’s a complex science associated with charging and maintaining lead acid type batteries (golf cart and car batteries), and that you can harm those batteries by incorrect charging, or overcharging, or by allowing them to discharge down to zero. So it should come as no surprise to learn that you can definitely harm your rechargeable batteries if you don’t optimize your charging procedures.

You can harm a battery by charging it too quickly, and you can harm a battery by overcharging it. Cheap chargers and fast chargers threaten to do either or possibly even both of these things to your valuable batteries. Do not economize on your charger(s).

A good charger will recondition and somewhat restore a battery, helping it to recover from neglect or severe depletion of charge, and will get the maximum possible life out of it – more recharge cycles and a slower reduction in capacity per recharge. A good charger can also give you real-time reporting on the capacity of the battery, and help you to understand which batteries are nearing the end of their lives and which are still in good shape. This is not just interesting but essential, because it means you can match up batteries of similar remaining capacity for your devices. It is not a good idea to have, eg, a 2500 mAh battery paired with a 1500 mAh battery – that means you’re only using 1500 of the 2500 mAh capacity of the better battery, or alternatively, you’re harming the lower capacity battery by over-discharging it. Better to have two batteries of each about 1500 mAh.

For example, I had a set of four batteries fail in a radio. Normally I’d need to throw them away and replace them with four new ones. But using an intelligent charger, I was able to test the four batteries and discovered three were still in good condition and one had failed. The charger saved me from throwing away three perfectly good batteries along with the one failed battery.

Good chargers have multiple sensors and complex electronic control circuitry to monitor the batteries you place in them. There is one clear ‘best of breed’ charger that we recommend – the La Crosse Technology Alpha Power Battery Charger, BC-1000. This is the successor to the BC-900 and has slightly better thermal sensors inside it, and is usually available on Amazon for about $60 (click the link to see the current pricing).

You can get generic chargers for $10 – $20, but these lack most or all of the features of these intelligent chargers, and risk harming your batteries and reducing the number of recharges they will accept. It is massively false economy to couple your investment in rechargeable batteries with an under-featured unintelligent charger.

If you wish to spend less than $60 on a charger, there are options almost as good as the BC-1000. There is a slightly less featured La Crosse charger with a lower maximum charge rate, the La Crosse BC-700, which is about $35. There is also a unit that is 98% identical to the BC1000, the AccuPower IQ-328 Battery Charger Analyzer Tester. The only two differences between this and the BC1000 are the price (the IQ-328 is cheaper, currently showing as $40 on Amazon) and whereas the BC1000 can independently do different things with each of the up to four batteries in its four positions, the IQ-328 does the same thing to all batteries. This is a very modest limitation, and if you can accept that limitation, you save $20.

On the other hand, the La Crosse BC-1000 unit comes complete with eight rechargeable batteries and four each C and D cell sleeves, which compensates for some of the dollar difference between it and the two lesser priced alternatives. It also has a convenient carry bag to keep everything in – something I find invaluable because it saves me from losing any of the parts (such as the power transformer that plugs into the wall); I can keep everything stored in the one bag.

We ended up getting three of the BC-1000 units. Two of them are our main ‘must have’ inventory, so we can recharge eight batteries at a time, at such times as we have power available to recharge them with. The third is our spare, for if/when one of the two in-use units fail.

The ability to use the La Crosse BC-1000 unit more flexibly so as to possibly be doing different things to each of the four batteries in it at any given time can be useful. Its greater charge rate can also be helpful if you’re in a hurry to recharge some batteries – or if you only have generator or other power on for a short while.

Note that the BC-1000 is powered from a 3V external power source, so if you’re running off a low voltage DC system instead of a regular mains AC system, you can run the BC-1000 from the low voltage DC supply (through an appropriate adapter, of course).

Summary

These days rechargeable batteries no longer suffer from any of the limitations that in the past made us reluctant to use them and are ideal, both for normal living, and definitely for after TEOTWAWKI.

The latest Eneloop style batteries have long shelf-life while fully charged, can be recharged 1500 times, and only cost four or five times what the cheapest AA alkaline battery would cost, making for an extraordinarily huge payback on their trivial up-front cost.

When coupled with an intelligent charger, Eneloop batteries should become the only type of battery you have in your house.

This article was provided by David Spero, publisher of the Code Green Prep website. If you’ve not visited it before, go check it out.

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