This is a question that all preppers should ask themselves and should prepare for. What will your local police do after a long-term SHTF grid-down situation? What will you do when they come for your supplies and gear?
Never Worry About Blood Pressure Again (How To Lower it Naturally)
In this video, I talk about how to treat “HIGH” blood pressure naturally at home and without prescription medications…
What Happens to Nuclear Power Plants After Global Disaster?
by Dr. Arthur T. Bradley
According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there are sixty-one active commercial nuclear plants spread across the United States. A question on the minds of many is what would happen to those plants if the nation experienced a widespread, long-lasting power outage?
Let me start by saying that there is a quite a bit of misinformation on the web about this subject, so my advice is to be careful about what you choose to believe.
Many of you may know that I have a background in science and engineering (Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering), so I believed that if I could talk with a knowledgeable person working in the nuclear power industry, I could get to the bottom of this question.
To find answers, I consulted Jim Hopson, the Manager of Public Relations at the Tennessee Valley Authority. As readers may point out, it was in Mr. Hopson’s interest to assure me that nuclear plants are safe, but to be fair, I found him to be forthright about the industry’s safeguards and vulnerabilities.
Probably the best place to start is with a basic discussion of how a nuclear power plant operates. There are two types of reactors in the U.S., boiling water reactors (BWRs) and pressurized water reactors (PWRs). For the purposes of our discussion, the differences in their operation aren’t terribly important. Nuclear reactors use an atomic process called fission to generate heat.
The heat is then used to create steam that turns large turbines to generate electricity. The steam is later condensed and returned in a closed-loop process within the reactor system.
The nuclear reaction itself is beyond the scope of this brief write up (and my expertise), but the gist is that an energetic neutron is absorbed by a uranium-235 nucleus, briefly turning it into a uranium-236 nucleus.
The uranium-236 then splits into lighter elements, releasing a large amount of energy. The physical system inside the reactor consists of tens of thousands of nuclear fuel rods placed into a water bath. The rods are essentially long metal tubes filled with ceramic nuclear pellets that are bundled together into larger assemblies. Trivia bit… a nuclear fuel pellet is about the size of a pencil eraser but equivalent in energy to one ton of coal.
The risks of nuclear power are many, but two stand above the rest. The first is that the fuel assemblies in the reactor might overheat. That would only occur if the fission process became uncontrolled or if the cooling system failed. Should overheating occur, the fuel rods’ zirconium cladding and nuclear materials could both melt, resulting in a nuclear sludge akin to molten lava. That slag would be so hot that it might melt through the bottom of the reinforced reactor.
Eventually, it would cool enough to harden, but not before it had spewed nuclear contaminants into the air. Melting zirconium also releases hydrogen, which could lead to an explosion that might actually expel the nuclear material into the surrounding area—think Fukushima.
The good news is that nuclear fission can be stopped in under one second through the insertion of control rods. Those control rods are automatically inserted near the fuel rods either by a hydraulic system or through the use of an electromagnetic deadman switch that activates when power is removed. That means that when the electrical grid goes down or an emergency shutdown is initiated, fission would automatically stop one second later.
That’s a good thing, but it doesn’t make the reactor inherently safe. Even without fission, the fuel rod assemblies remain incredibly hot, perhaps a thousand degrees C. If they were not actively cooled, pressure and temperatures would build in the reactor until something breaks—not good.
After three days of active cooling, however, the reactor would be thermally cool enough to open, should it be deemed necessary to remove the fuel rod assemblies.
The second major risk has to do with the cooling of the spent fuel rod assemblies. Nuclear fuel rod assemblies have a usable life on the order of 54-72 months (depending on reactor type). Every 18-24 months, the reactor is brought down and serviced. While it is down, the fuel rod assemblies are removed, and 1/3 of them are replaced with fresh assemblies.
Think of this like rotating cans of food in your emergency pantry. In the U.S., fuel rods are not refurbished like in other countries. Instead, they are carefully stored in giant pools of water laced with boric acid—imagine a swimming pool at your local YMCA that is 75-feet deep.
Those spent fuel rod assemblies are still incredibly radioactive, and they continue to generate heat. Water in the pool must, therefore, be circulated to keep them cool. How long must the fuel rods be cooled? According to Mr. Hopson, the answer is 5-7 years.
After that, the rods are cool enough to be removed and stored in reinforced concrete casks. Even then, the rods continue to be radioactive, but their heat output can be passively managed.
Nuclear plants obviously require electricity to operate their cooling pumps, not to mention their control systems. That power is normally tapped off of the electricity that the reactor generates. If the plant is offline, the power is provided by the electrical grid.
But what happens when the grid itself goes down? The short answer is that large on-site diesel generators automatically activate to provide electricity. And if those should fail, portable diesel generators, which are also on-site, can be connected. Recent standardization has also ensured that generators can be swapped between plants without the need to retrofit connectors.
There are also a couple of additional emergency systems that can be used specifically to cool the reactor. These include the turbine-driven-auxiliary-feedwater pump, which uses steam generated by the reactor to power a cooling turbine.
The pump requires an operator, but it runs completely without electricity. This system, however, is meant only for emergency cooling of the reactor during those critical first few days when the fuel rod assemblies are being brought down in temperature, not for long-term cooling.
And finally, in the worst case, most plants have a method of bringing in river or ocean water to flood the reactor. This typically damages the cooling system, but again, it helps to cool and cover the reactor core should all else fail. Unlike in other countries, permission from the federal government is not required to flood the reactor.
With backup systems to the backup systems, it would seem that there’s nothing to worry about, right? Under all but the direst of circumstances, I think that assessment is correct. However, one could imagine a scenario in which the grid was lost and the diesel generators ran out of fuel. Speaking of fuel, how much is actually stored onsite?
It depends on the plant, but at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, for example, there is enough fuel to run the emergency diesel generators for at least 42 days. I say at least because it would depend on exactly what was being powered.
Once the reactor was cooled down, a much smaller system, known as the Residual Heat Removal System, would be all that was required to keep the fuel assemblies cool, both in the reactor and the spent fuel rods pool.
The generators and onsite fuel supply could power that smaller cooling system for significantly longer than if they were powering the larger reactor cooling system. Even if we assumed a worst-case of forty-two days, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which that would not be enough time to bring in additional fuel either by land, water, or air.
Nonetheless, let’s push the question a little further. What would happen in the unlikely event that the diesel fuel was exhausted?
Even with the reactor having been successfully cooled, the biggest risk would continue to be overheating of the fuel rod assemblies, both in the reactor and the spent fuel rods pool. Without circulation, the heat from the fuel rod assemblies could boil the surrounding water, resulting in steam.
In turn, the water levels would drop, ultimately exposing the fuel rods to air. Once exposed to air, their temperatures would rise but not to the levels that would melt the zirconium cladding. Thankfully, that means that meltdown would not occur. The steam might well carry radioactive contaminants into the air, but there would be no release of hydrogen and, thus, no subsequent explosions.
The situation would certainly be dangerous to surrounding communities, but it wouldn’t be the nuclear Armageddon that many people worry about.
The bottom line is that in the event of a long-duration blackout, several things would need to occur. First, fission would need to be halted by the insertion of control rods, a process that takes less than one second. Next, the reactor would need to be cooled for at least three days using the large diesel engines to provide electrical power. After that, the fuel rods would be cool enough that the reactor could be opened, and the plant’s Residual Heat Removal System could be used to provide cooling.
That smaller system would need to operate for 5-7 years to ensure that the fuel rod assemblies, both in the reactor and in the spent fuel rods pool, didn’t overheat. Only then could the fuel rod assemblies be moved to concrete casks for dry storage and final dispositioning. During those 5-7 years, electricity in one form or another would be required.
If it was not maintained, radioactive contamination could be released into the air, but the temperatures of the fuel rods would not be high enough to cause a complete meltdown or the dangerous release of hydrogen.
The point of this article wasn’t to convince anyone that nuclear power generation is safe. I would argue that history has already proven that it comes with some very serious risks. Rather, it was to discuss the impact of a long-duration blackout.
Specifically, it focused on the safeguards that are currently in place, and more importantly, discussed the magnitude of the catastrophe that might result if we allowed those safeguards to fail.
Ways to Save Money on a Tight Budget
by Jim M
With the cost of everything going up and the future uncertain, stretching your resources and re-purposing items becomes more of a necessity. I am always looking for new ways to get the “max for the minimum.”
Some recent posts here reminded me of some of these things. My grandparents and parents were a young family when the great depression hit. What kinds of things did they do to make ends meet when things were expensive or scarce?
Unfortunately, many of them who went through this period in time are no longer with us. However, I remember a few things they did or heard of them doing, that now, looking back, were obviously brought about by the times they lived in. Even after times improved somewhat, some still stuck to certain ways of doing things. Old habits are hard to break.
Hunting and gardening were basically a given back then. Most everyone outside the city limits did one or both of this along with bartering services for goods. A little carpentry or plumbing work for a couple of chickens.
I remember my grandfather mixing his old used motor oil with a little bit of kerosene and spraying the underside and inner fender wells of his pick up truck just before winter. He claimed it helped protect the truck from incurring rust damage over the winter months. Getting more serviceable years out of the truck.
I am sure environmentalists would have a cow over this nowadays, but it was a way of taking something that didn’t appear to have any usefulness left, and yet, finding one more use for it. The county used to spray old used oil to keep the dust down on dirt roads during the spring and summer months. Don’t see that happening anymore.
My grandfather saved some wood ashes from his fireplace to sprinkle around his tomato plants in the garden. He claimed it brought more blooms, thus more tomatoes during the growing season.
My grandmother would take apples and make pie filling and apple sauce. She would then take the wasted apple skins and apple cores and boil them down in water to get enough juice to make apple jelly. Finally using the old boiled down skins and cores to slop the pigs along with other scraps.
That was really getting some serious mileage out of your apples. I am sure such things as corn cob jelly and jello came from the same kind of frugal thinking of, “If I could just find one more use for this material.” My grandmother never threw a tea bag out after only “one” use. She also used up every last bit of an orange. Eat the orange, use the zest of the skin in baking and boil the pithy part of the skin to give the kitchen a nice aroma.
I had uncles who made hard cider during prohibition and would play cards all night on the weekends. That was long before my time but seems they still knew how to have a good time even when things were tough. God bless them.
My parents had the 1970’s to deal with, huge interest rates on mortgages, gas lines, inflation, and crazy tax rates. My dad worked his hind end off and made pretty decent money. But by the time he paid for the weekly and monthly expenses, it sure didn’t seem that way.
Christmas was the time of year when me and my brothers would get new blue jeans. My mom would take the brand new jeans and wash them on a low load setting to get as much of the blue dye out of the new jeans. Before the washer would spin that water out, she would remove the new jeans and put any of our old faded jeans that still fit along with jean jackets in the dyed water to soak overnight. Gave old jeans and jackets a “little” darker blue look.
How about an old wire clothes hanger as an emergency exhaust hanger for your car. Works in a pinch to get the muffler from dragging on the road. Unfortunately, most clothes hangers they are making now are plastic.
A friend of mine has used old pinewood pallets to build cold frames. The wood was free and if you get a couple or a few years use out of it, all the better.
My brother-in-law reloads his own ammo.
Old newspapers can be used for a weed barrier in the garden, gift wrap and I would dare say make a good candidate for emergency toilet paper if cut or torn down into smaller sheets. So would old telephone book pages.
I have also seen some recipes on the net for making logs to burn made with old newspapers. We keep some around to start fires. Anyone remember the old Readers Digest Christmas Trees? They would fold the pages of a Readers Digest a certain way and spray paint and decorate them to look like a Christmas Tree.
I have the tank to an old shop vac that I use as a waste can next to my workbench in the basement. The motor is long gone but still found a use for the tank.
I have found that a simple tarp has many uses other than covering woodpiles. I have seen them used to stop a leaking roof until better weather comes along to address the problem properly. I have taken an old tarp that was starting to fray and cut a section out big enough to cover the windshield on my work car.
It sits out in the weather and this piece of tarp can be removed in the morning along with the frost. Now I don’t have to scrape ice or run the defroster for 10 minutes before I leave during the cold months.
Saves me some time and a little gas money too. Word to the wise. Don’t put it on the car when they are forecasting freezing rain. Not nearly as easy to remove. I am sure tarps can be used for a temporary shelter in a survival situation.
A couple of years ago, I saw a man on TV claiming that he shaved an entire year with just one disposable razor. AN ENTIRE YEAR! He claimed that leaving the razor wet after you use it is what dulls the razor. The water deteriorates the sharp edge on the blade.
This sounded crazy to me so I decided to try this out. I did not get the same results this guy did by far, however, I will get through this year using a total of 5 replacement blades on my razor. This is based on shaving twice a week, not every day. Get your whiskers soft with hot water, use a shot of liquid hand soap to lather up and shave as normal. I believe the actual cutting of the whiskers is what dulls the blade, not the water.
So getting the whiskers as soft as possible with hot water and the lubrication of the hand soap is what helps keep the razor sharper for longer. Why are replacement razor blades so expensive? Don’t they mass produce these things by the billions?
My boss has been bringing me in empty plastic jugs that contained cat litter. They have the 2 HDPE marking on the bottom. So far, I have used these to store rainwater that we use on our garden. The jugs he brings me hold about 2.6 gallons of liquid. I have even taken old motor oil to Walmart for collection in these jugs. I’m sure there are probably many other uses for these.
We use old baby food jars to store herbs we grew in the garden. The really small jars (2 or 4 ounces?) are really good for this. I also keep my hardware sorted and orderly at the workbench with the larger jars. Kids have used them to make endless crafts, too.
We reuse storage bags when possible.
I use some of the leaves that come down in the fall to pack in my basement window wells. The basement windows are a cheap, thin glass window. And they are below ground level thus the wells on the outside. I pack these wells as tight as I can with dried leaves during the winter.
It keeps heat from wicking out the thin glass, acting as an insulator and deadens the sound from outside. In the spring. I remove the leaves, bag them with the mulching mower and till them into the garden.
I even heard of people using dried tree leaves as insulation during the depression to keep the lower floor of their homes warm. Surrounding the house with a temporary snow-type fencing and filling the void between the house and the fence with dried tree leaves. Then removing the fence and leaves in the spring.
With each passing generation, we lose a little bit of useful knowledge and common sense that was gained by the times in which they lived. I’m not sure of the severity of what’s coming, but I feel some of what they did could serve us well in days ahead.
I am very interested in finding out what you, the readers, could share about what you do and what your relatives did many years ago to cope and survive in uncertain times and stretch what resources are available to the max.
How To Raise Baby Chickens: How To Get Hens To Adopt Mail Order or Feed Store Chicks
by Christine M
If you have ever raised day-old chicks from the feed store or by mail order you know that it is a hassle. You have to monitor them all the time, check the temperature of the brooder and in general be their mommy until they are old enough to go in with the adult birds. Not to mention heat lamps are notorious for starting fires!
In contrast, a mother hen does all that and more! She keeps the chicks at a perfect temperature all the time, babysits them to perfection, teaches them how to find food and what to eat, and defends them aggressively against any threat, including other chickens!
But what if you want to order certain chicken breeds without the hassle of having to raise the chicks. Is there another way?
Yes, there is! You can have one of your broody hens adopt the store-bought chicks as her own and raise them with her own hatched out eggs.
It’s not a guarantee that it will work every time but I have had great success with this method and had broody hens take over as mommy to day-old chicks from the store. This method takes a little work at first but cuts down on me having to raise chicks for months apart from the adult flock.
Preplanning is key here. And be prepared that you may have to take the chicks back and raise them yourself if they are rejected. First, you will need a broody hen from your own flock that has been happily sitting on her eggs for at least 10 days.
The 10 days will show you if she is serious about it. Try not to bother her or move her. It will upset her setting. Also, the best breeds I have found for adopting chicks are the calmer, less nervous breeds. So if you have several broody hens sitting pick the ones that you have noticed are the calmest.
Note: If you want a hen to adopt chicks that are not her own she HAS to have gone broody first. If you put chicks into a coop with a bunch of adult chickens they will be killed or harassed all the time.
First I do recommend that you try to get your broody hen into her own pen away from other chickens. Yes I know I just said not to move her, and rarely does a broody hen choose a good spot. The best way I have found to move a broody hen without causing her to give up her nest is to wait the 10 days and then move her at night with all her eggs and some of the bedding material from her nest to a secure place.
Having a good little area for her that is away from her flock sisters keeps the other hens from coming in and pestering her (they will come in and lay eggs in her nest thus mixing half-developed chicks with newly laid eggs) and also once her chicks are with her they will be safe from attack from adult chickens. She will get up from the nest once a day to eat, drink, and defecate and then hurry back to her nest, so provide food and water near her.
So here is how you get a broody hen to take other chicks:
First, the chicks you want to have adopted must be just hatched or very close to only a few days old. Not only does this make the hen more likely to take them, but when the chicks are too old won’t bond as easily with the hen and stay close to her protective body.
If you are ordering chicks for this purpose it is best to get a delivery date as close to your hen’s eggs hatching date as possible. This is entirely doable with most hatcheries as they have the ability to ship chicks all the time from spring through fall.
The first method and most effective:
Wait until her own chicks have hatched or at least a few have hatched out, it can take sometimes 3 days for all chicks to hatch from a clutch of eggs. So if she already has hatched out at least one chick wait till well after dark before you approach her. She still might fuss but will be much more likely to calm down right away.
Approach the hen as quietly as possible and try not to use any lights. Slip the chicks one at a time under the hen, If she starts getting too upset stop for a while, move away, and leave her be. Then try putting the rest under her after about an hour. Once you have got all the chicks under her leave her be. She should be clucking to them softly and getting them under her body for warmth.
Note: If a setting hen has a bunch of chicks that have hatched (or she has adopted) running around she may abandon the rest of the eggs in the nest yet to hatch to follow and protect them. If that happens you can brood them under another setting hen the rest of the way, or if you have an incubator use that to hatch them out.
Second Method:
Let your hen sit on eggs until she is very close to the hatch time and don’t worry if she abandons the eggs she has been sitting on once she has live chicks to look after. Use the same method as above. The only difference is that once she has accepted the new chicks take out the eggs she has been brooding and throw them away. I personally don’t like this method because I don’t like killing something that can live.
Third Method:
You can graft chicks onto a broody hen that has only been setting a few weeks, but it’s not as sure as letting her go the full 21 days. Follow the second method if you need to do this, such as your delivery date wasn’t as close as needed or the broody hen you intended to use gave up sitting and you have to use a different girl who hasn’t been setting as long.
After Grafting:
Check on the mom and chicks the next morning at dawn. You will know if she has adopted them because she won’t be attacking them and they will either be under her for warmth or close by scratching around for food. Make sure to have a chicken waterer and food available for them.
Check on your little family as frequently as possible without upsetting the hen too much for the first few days. You need to watch for rejected chicks. They will be often hiding in a corner so the hen won’t peck them.
If she rejects some or all of the chicks you will have to take them out and rear them yourself with a heat lamp. If you see the hen actively attacking the chicks then get them out immediately!
Chicks that are raised by a hen have many advantages over those raised in a brooder. They learn how to find food, when to run for cover, can be put in with the adult flock much sooner, and are more likely to become good mothers themselves.
Book Review: The Prepper’s Guide to Surviving The End of the World as We Know It – review by Joel Skousen
The latest book offered by M. D. Creekmore is called The Prepper’s Guide to Surviving The End of the World as We Know. This useful guide quickly and easily covers the full range of essentials in stockpiling and equipment from water, food, and tools to medicine, communications, and weapons.
It’s a 176-page book that is chock full of really good advice about the most important areas. A big benefit of such an accessible book is to get a quick overview of essential preparedness so you can see where you might have gaps in your own setup.
No single book can cover everything in complete detail so this “primer” includes recommended reference books in each topic–all of which appear to be practical, useful books for rounding out your reference library.
Within his guidelines are a few nuggets of in-depth reviews, like his personal experience with hand grain grinders and animal traps. We were glad to see he got water purification issue right: he first recommends filters and only reluctantly chemicals.
I would probably have done the medical section a bit differently, but at least, he does mention natural and alternative remedies and sources. Most people forget about preparing for dental problems and he mentions some good options there.
His comprehensive coverage of what makes a good Bug Out Bag is worth the price of the book alone, and comes complete with pictures of the type of gear he uses to prepare for a quick exit.
This is an excellent guide for everyone. He adds a lot of practical, tactical advice to his lists which is very valuable even if you are advanced in your preparations. It is nice to “compare notes” with other experts. The book is rooted in practical advice and is quite motivating because of the concise way he cuts through the clutter of unknowns.
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Highly recommended – Joel Skousen – worldaffairsbrief.com/