arkane
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Post by arkane on Mar 5, 2015 22:54:00 GMT 10
I am concerned about many many things, the list is near endless! I keep my ears and eyes open as well as my mind! I have prepped for most things! I have a plan or three to cover most things! Until recently my weakest point was finance, in the last two months that has changed much I have also improved my health but there is still a long way to go there!
Top few on my list of possibles are weather induced famine, pandemic, financial meltdown and islamic jihad! With so very few politicians actually understanding what the problem is most are making it worse!
I see a world wide jihad a distinct possibility in the next few years. It is possible for it to escalate to world war in just weeks!
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peter1942
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Post by peter1942 on Mar 6, 2015 8:20:06 GMT 10
I humbly apologise!
What was the question?
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Frank
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Post by Frank on Mar 6, 2015 8:44:56 GMT 10
Apology humbly accepted.
The question and topic of the thread was "what are you preparing for?"
Anything in particular? is off-grid just a lifestyle choice you enjoy?
You are obviously a knowledgeable bloke peter, so if you feel like sharing why you do what you do it would be good, if not, no stress.
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Post by newcastleprepper on Mar 6, 2015 8:57:27 GMT 10
Some very good points for prepping here and all of them valid, for me however my reasons for prepping are the stereo typical reason sorry to provide for and defend my family if needed, to be able to lead my family into the bush and know I can keep them safe should civilisation not be safe for any reason. I think the main cause for this will be the closing of shops like woolworths and Coles causing a food shortage resulting in kaos in the most populated areas. The 2 main reasons this could happen would be in my eyes war or economic peril. If a major war broke out we would go into a state of support the troops leaving the rest of the country on food rations, history has shown this in the past and shown the general public bearly got enough to survive. If there is a collapse of the economy I think the major shops we rely on would feel the squeeze rather quickly and close leaving only the corner shop and they are almost none existent so would be drastically under stocked, even the backyard veggie garden would no longer be sacred as the starving would eat you and your dog to get to it. I don't feel anywhere Accsessesable by car will be safe either as the most number of half assed prepers will be in these areas in such numbers they will be striped dry to quickly and you will be left to far out to use your food rations and stuck in an area with out enough food to survive, I also think it would be much wiser to bug out with others/group, many hands make light work and if you want any comfort in your chosen camp you will need more skills than just 1 person is likely to poses, farming hunting gathering finding water making traps patrolling your area to ensure there is nobody about to attack your homestead to take your food, making weapons to hunt or defend, for many of us tend to,our pets ( dogs are hunters and can be apart of your preps as long as they are obedient) tend to livestock should you be lucky enough to have any find fire wood, for many babysit.... All this and more needs to be done most days and is a lot for 1-4 people to do, however with a group each job is made bigger with every mouth/body you have to feed/provide for but each job can be delegated to whose skills suit the job, this makes the overall goal of surviving much easier physically and mentally (yes mentally as the less you have to or the more help you get the less stress you will be under and your mental health is as important as your physical health when trying to survive after shtf)
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Post by graynomad on Mar 6, 2015 10:42:02 GMT 10
Yes it's pretty well agreed I think that a group is better in most respects, but very hard to set up pre SHTF and almost impossible post SHTF. Well actualy probably quite easy post SHTF but you would not be able to be selective, until you had a decent number of people you would welcome just about anybody and that would almost certainly cause friction and breakup before long.
IMO you need to meet people now and start forming relationships, not just around the campfire with a beer (although that's a good start) but under situations of some hardship and duress. As to how you acheive that I have no idea but I know I have a few mates I have walked with many times, in a few emails we can organize a walk through say Karijini national park in June, there are no issues with compatibility or each person's ability, we've been there and done that on many walks from high country to desert under many conditions.
OTOH I've accepted "new" people on a walk and regretted it because they just didn't fit in or were not prepared, for example I nearly lost a couple to hypo up in Kosi once because a blizzard came in and they only had $10 spray jackets and jeans. My bad for not checking first as the nominal leader, but the point is with known people I wouldn't have to. (BTW we got them into a tent to warm up, next day they walked out and we continued the trek).
And then there's the added problem of a group BOL, I don't even know where to start there, right now I don't really want 30 people living on my land, post SHTF I would probably be very grateful for their presence.
Because of all this I can see the attraction in the lone wolf approach, just get your own shit together and job done. And for a select few that's quite valid I think, but not for most people.
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shinester
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Post by shinester on Mar 6, 2015 10:51:57 GMT 10
Preparing for? The unknown.
I do think some things are more likely than others, such as; economic crash - likely - marginal danger to life, change in lifestyle in the short term and eventual recovery with a new paradigm. plague - unlikely - extreme danger to life, massive changes in society, supply and after 3-6 months returning of trade and peace. CME - unlikely - low risk of life danger, massive changes in society structure with knocked out power grid for 6-24 months.
Overall, the reason I prep is to take care of food/water and security if I need to in the future. That is, it's insurance to 2 things that might cause death that I am responsible for in my life. Nobody else is. I imagine that I will die of old age never having to use those preps and that would make me very happy.
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bce1
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Post by bce1 on Mar 6, 2015 20:23:49 GMT 10
With so very few politicians actually understanding what the problem is most are making it worse I think you would be surprised at how much politicians and senior executive level types actually understand and realise about the global situation. ive developed a sideline in helping with the medical aspects of "business continuity" and without trying to sound cloak and dagger, I genuinely think you would be surprised at the level of understanding and preparedness. There is a multi-national which has an emergency response centre in a semi-rural area outside a major urban Australian City which is essentially a "retreat". And if they are worried we should be too!!!
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bce1
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Post by bce1 on Mar 6, 2015 20:33:37 GMT 10
Personally as I said in my introduction post I'm worried about peak everything - oil, food, resources and credit. The combination will be devastating - my view is that 100% it will happen in the next 20-30 years - the question is when - we have elements of it now, but it waxes and wanes a bit. When the perfect storm occurs it will happen quickly over a couple of months to a year in my opinion. It could be tomorrow or could be in 30 years. Climate change (and I think it is happening, but I don't buy the anthropogenic arguments) will impact on the above problems negatively. If you cannot grow your subsistence veges due to a temperature change your not going to let your family die quietly are you.
I also don't discount CME or a meteor but the risk of that needs to be keep in context.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Mar 6, 2015 21:12:35 GMT 10
My major concern is of Economic Collapse and I therefore prep by:
growing our own plant (vegetables, fruits and cereal crops) and meat (chicken, duck, goose, pig, and sheep) futures; preserving the harvest (both plant and animal including honey from our hive); hunting for food both land, sea and river based and having ready access to areas that support that hunting thereof; learning (and having acquired) skills required to keep our small-holding running (fencing, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, animal husbandry, etc) maintaining the 'village' network at all times (bartering and friendship - access to raw milk, beef meat - and skills we haven't yet acquired).
Cheers,
Veg.
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peter1942
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Post by peter1942 on Mar 6, 2015 21:30:18 GMT 10
Thank you.
We have never really considered ourselves as preppers but we obviously fit the mould as we appear to live the life that many preppers would like to lead and we do so because we live in a rural area where we can be affected by floods and fires.
For me personally, growing vegetables and fruit and trying to be sustainable are just part of what I am and the skills that are involved I had to learn as just after the second war things were pretty tough and if you did not grow a percentage of your own food you went hungrier than you already were.
For us having food in our pantry, most of which we have grown and preserved, is a must as the majority of what is in the supermarkets today could not be considered nutritious or healthy. I have had the opportunity in my lifetime to do many things and for a number of years I worked in several areas of the food industry and that is the main reason why we make our own jams and preserve our own fruit. If you ask the employees of many of the main food processing companies about the food they produce they will amaze you with tales of food being produced that many of them will not consume.
I look at many of the younger people today who have very few to practically no skills and cannot see how they are going to survive in the future without continual government handouts paid for by those in the community that are trying to get ahead for themselves.
I also believe that within the next three to five years we will see a drastic shift in many of the worlds economies including Australia's and it will probably stem from an increase in the price of petroleum products and pressure put on the government as the budget continues to blow out due to a decrease in revenue and an increase in costs because of an overblown welfare system.
I will not back down from a comment that I have made on more than one occasion on this site and that is I believe that if you are serious about surviving any situation that involves a failure of the system as we know it you should already be living where, and the lifestyle, you believe you have the best chance of surviving that situation.
On a number of occasions so many contributors have stated that if so and so does hit the fan they are going to pack the bug out bag and go bush. What about families and friends they are going to leave behind to the mercy of others, what happens when peace and serenity once again reigns supreme, how on earth are they going to be able to return and have any sort of lifestyle or be trusted again?
Food and the production of it on a family sized scale is easy to achieve. In good years we are able to produce much more than we alone can consume or preserve. If a situation arose and we had ten or more family members come here for the duration it would only take one of them to give me a hand in the gardens and our food production would increase four to six times what I can achieve by myself. Others would be busy helping with other chores and this brings me back to the comments I have made in previous posts that I believe that it is easier to survive in groups than on ones own.
Over the past few years I have been altering the rainwater collection system from the roofs so that if ever we did have to go without electricity or petroleum products we could manually pump the water to the overhead tank that feeds the house and more and more of the garden areas are being fed by gravity instead of the use of pumps.
Among the items we always keep a good supply of is preserving equipment, jars, lids, plastic bags, labels, permanent markers and we also have an excellent range of suitable pots and pans to aid us in the making of them. I have been in many houses where most of the food is purchased prepackaged and often wonder how they occupants would survive if the shops closed even for several days.
I recently constructed several long drop toilets for use by family members when they come to stay several times a year to alleviate the pressure on our septic system and although I did not have a SHTF situation in mind when I built them they would come in very handy if one were to arise.
We do enjoy our off the grid lifestyle and in the 20 or so years we have been here we have seen a lot of people try it and a lot of them are now back in suburbia where they appear to love the traffic and neighbours that they can hear flush the toilet.
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Post by thereth on Mar 6, 2015 22:20:39 GMT 10
In regards to the toilets, I am actually very keen on some of the composting ones available now, you can have them either water free or very small amount (500mL) and from a sustainability perspective having that extra compost as well as less waste is never a bad thing
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Frank
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Post by Frank on Mar 7, 2015 7:47:22 GMT 10
Thanks for the responses everyone, its good food for thought to read why others do what they do and can serve as an eye opener to what else is out here.
For myself, not much has changed since my previous post. Preparing for day-to-day issues is still our number 1 priority such as fires, storms, short term power outages or if there are supermarket re-supply issues we are covered for a while. We are slowly moving toward a more sustainable lifestyle, taking it bit by bit and learning more as we go. Moving to our new property, the only service connected is the electricity reducing our dependence on the system but there was no garden to speak of, so that needs to be our next project
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Post by Fractus on Mar 7, 2015 7:49:28 GMT 10
I am preparing for the inevitable future. Summed up by a discussion we had here at home about "why is Australia so well off, both financially and in political non violence". We discussed how long it can go on for. We don't know any more than our brilliant e-cono-mistfits. I think the most likely result in the medium term will be very expensive fuel and food combined with very low employment. Causing social restructure that will be unpleasant to all of the haves like me. I have a job, cars, land, food, and worldly goods far beyond my needs. When this happens I want survive with my family and thrive. There are lots of bit of info about Cuba and what happened there. Not as dramatic or well known as Bosnia and Argentina because of their famous survivalists. But was not a war or hyper inflation. There are all the other threats, and most of them are covered by preparing for main concern. Allthough I am not even started for a total meltdown shtf end of times. Trully I think you need to have an island that is already setup.
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VegHead
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Post by VegHead on Mar 7, 2015 9:48:38 GMT 10
I would like to add support to peter1942's post.
Firstly, we too would have not called ourselves preppers. When we decided that our lives were not going in any direction that was favourable to us we left paid employment forever and moved to the country to begin a life of subsistence farming, our 'resilient life'. It has taken us a few years to get to where we are now but the journey still leaves us speechless at times. We have no plans to bug out per se, but we do have a major bushfire evac plan in place. Our very small farm supports us in vegetables, fruits, and meats (we do our own butchering, too) all year round with weekly surplus for neighbours and Legacy people. We preserve the harvests, save the seed, grow our own stock feeds, cut wood for the wood stove, harvest all our water, nourish the soils, care for our environment ... but most importantly reliance on outside sources is very, very small.
All our meat futures have their own sustainability inherently built in. That is, the chickens are supported by a rooster or two, the sheep by their ram, the ducks and geese similar (piglets are supplied by a local farm, but that was to theme of an earlier post). The bees live in Top Bar bee hives and as such these are a simple DIY build and swarms are mostly present when required. We try and model our lives around closed-loop systems: nothing leaves the property (if possible) and the farm is supported with very minimal inputs from outside. Our food and our life support systems (shelter, cooking, etc) are already in place, supporting us (and others) with the skills already gained (and gaining) to support such an existence.
Petroleum issues would cause us problems in the short term, but we have back-ups in place. For example, I have a tractor with a rotary hoe. No fuel? Get the broad fork out and do the same work by hand. Sure it's hard work but that work is not insurmountable once the skill in using such tools is attained. Water pumps need electricity (fresh and bore) so we get out the hand pumps or use gravity. The bore supplies the sewage flushing water so we would go to the composting toilet (which is in the planning stage to be built btw). Transport? Still have a pair of legs plus an electric assisted bicycle, plus the means to make bio diesel and ethanol although truly I wouldn't bother as both require electricity to make!
Although I no longer have a paid job we do not have our hand out to the government, but this creates a new paradigm in that I do not pay much tax so many would say that I am a burden on society. I say phooey to this, I've paid my dues don't you worry about that. I do live off a very small pension, however, but this was earned through the DFRDB system and I do pay a small amount of tax on this also.
If the grid goes down we can get around that too. No, we are not off-grid but our home is supplied by grid-connected PV arrays and our hot water is also solar. I the grid goes down we move over to our Aladdin lamps and wind-up torches for lighting, hot water would be supplied by the wood stove as would all our heating and cooking needs (plus there's always the fire pit option outside).
Most people in our area know how we live and why, and in a SHTF scenario the old joke of “we’d be coming to you” is actually a comfort to hear: these other rural people also have valuable skills, labour, and contacts that can all be utilised post-SHTF and still one of the best ways to network out here is to simply ask .... many contacts and life-long friends have come out of this.
peter1942 said ”I will not back down from a comment that I have made on more than one occasion on this site and that is I believe that if you are serious about surviving any situation that involves a failure of the system as we know it you should already be living where, and the lifestyle, you believe you have the best chance of surviving that situation.”
So thanks for that statement peter and we’re glad you won’t back down from it ... as it sums up quite simply why we gave away our consumer-addicted world, moved to where we now reside and venture forth on the life path that we have chosen to lead.
Good cheer,
Veg.
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Post by Fractus on Mar 7, 2015 10:36:29 GMT 10
Peter and veg have the lifestyle I am very slowly heading towards. Sadly very few people can do it relative to the number of people in Aust. And definitely best to be living it now. However, We do put life boats on ships but we don't always live in them. Some people cannot have anything more than a life boat. To maybe get by for long enough to sink in sustainable roots. Very far from ideal but better than having no torch, food, fuel water and the long list of items on every prepper website. I read some where here that if you have seeds and stuff, don't grow it now as it will attract theives etc. maybe it would but no more than a hot water service that may contain the last drops of water in an area. As I have said before plant a seed and see how long it takes to get food. Specially if it is winter. If you planted a big heap right now. You would still need 360 cans of food per person to eat will you waited for spring to get here and then another 360 pp when your lessons were learned. The skills peter and veg have are not learnt in 6 months. I can say as an average joe on the more sustainable road, I am finding many many things are so difficult that I want to scream at the mildew, dead chooks and bloody green grubs. Then I sometime sit back and thank them for reminding me it is not ever going to be easy and really easy is not interesting. I am not talking about shtf, more about life in general.
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arkane
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Post by arkane on Mar 7, 2015 17:26:53 GMT 10
So in a world wide financial collapse what countries as a whole can actually feed themselves?? No money to pay for food imports and no one giving credit!
Australia grows far more than it needs so if we had no foreign trade we might have a few production and transport problems but the food would be there, enough for home consumption anyway!
What about our neighbours??
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peter1942
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Post by peter1942 on Mar 7, 2015 20:22:17 GMT 10
Not so sure about Australia being able to feed itself as most of the broad acre crops grown here such as grains and legumes are fed to animals in the hope of getting a better return dollar wise. It takes approximately 15 kilos of grain to get one kilo of meat in return as well as a lot of water for the animal to drink and a hell of a lot is used in the processing of it. On top of that is the transportation and refrigeration and if we do/are heading for an economic downturn energy prices will go up meaning that standards of living will drop.
At the present time there is an enormous quantity of food being imported into Australia and my own point of view is that much of it is of dubious quality. One only has to read the labels on the food products in the supermarkets to get some understanding of what the government is allowing the supermarkets to bring into Australia just so they can keep their shareholders happy.
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peter1942
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Post by peter1942 on Mar 8, 2015 21:09:49 GMT 10
Just a point that I would like to bring up that I do believe is relevant to this discussion.
A number of people are setting aside food that will let them survive in a post SHTF situation but I sometimes worry about the foods that are being stored.
Food that is packaged in cans such as sweet corn, carrots, peas, beans in my opinion is usually fairly good to excellent quality and this is apparent when you open the can and see the contents.
On the other hand both fruits and vegetables that are contained in items such as jams, chutneys, sauces, pickles are manufactured from products that can be of poor quality to downright rotten. Ever notice how the companies that manufacture those products are all a standard colour and consistency. Ever wondered about say strawberry jam. Notice that the jam is set (solidified) to a degree that it will not tip out of the jar unaided. If you have ever made jam at home of any variety you will know that it is only by adding chemicals that, that degree of solidification can be achieved. The colour of store bought jams is nothing like that of jams made at home and fruit for home produce is selected for its quality not quantity. I often ask people if they think that the manufacturers of some products employ workers at a huge cost to check the quality of the ingredients or do they think it would be cheaper to just camouflage the poor quality of them with chemicals. Most of them then realise what does go on in industries that are only concerned about profits.
Vegetable oils may/will contain cottonseed oil and palm oil and for the problems relating to those if you do not know them look them up on the internet. In the thread Is THIS Where Australia Is Heading? I posted an item from the internet relating to some of the problems with cotton seed oil. After visiting a particular rural area in the past few weeks cotton seed will not be the only product that is grown by farmers who use chemicals for fallowing that we will have a problem with.
There are many people now saying that if a food item contains more than three ingredients then it should not be considered as food. Looking at the ingredients of many processed items on the supermarket shelves that statement is well and truly justified.
I belong to a group that some time ago had a discussion about what type of rations we should take when bush walking that would, if a necessity arose whereby we would not be able to get back to our camps on a particular day as planned keep us nourished for at least another day. A number of us looked into readily available ration packs that are available through various outlets. One outlet in particular sells what they call an ‘Energy Ration Pack’ and gives out a sheet listing the various contents as well as an ingredient and allergen list.
The amount of different food additive numbers and other additives staggered me so I looked on the internet to see what each of the numbers and additives meant. I found that a number of the items have been banned for use in other countries and several that were listed were to be avoided at all times.
I rang the manufacturer of a popular health (their description) food bar as the label to my way of thinking was not all that clear in the ingredients list as to what oils were in their products. It took three phone calls and the lady who rang me back two days later apologised as she was unable to get proper clarification as to what some of the ingredients were or where they are sourced from. We no longer have those products in our house.
We no longer purchase or use any products manufactured by Cadbury’s as there is some doubt over some of the contents and also a lot of their products are now manufactured in China.
It is a common saying that some of these items are all right in a just in case situation. If you are bugging out I would say that a certain amount of stress would be involved and that is the time when your diet should consist of wholesome healthy food and not food containing products that could inflame allergies or other gut related problems. Another point is that if you do eat foods that disagree with you in a SHTF situation are you going to be able to get over it without intervention by a medical practitioner who in all probability will not be available.
Water is another issue. Bottled water is one of those items that I do not altogether agree with but if you are going to use it make sure that the bottle is never allowed to get hot as that is when the gases in the plastic leeches into the water and once the bottle is empty they should not be reused. We use stainless steel bottles and with them we have the holders that either attach to our belts or our packs for the sake of convenience.
There are tanks on the market that are suitable for storing small to large quantities of water in which I believe are far better than having many small bottles of what is a product that costs more per litre than petrol.
The stockpiling of foods such as rice, flour/wheat, dried fruits, nuts, pasta, legumes, sugar, canned fruits and vegetables and a host of other unprepared items would be the way we would go as they can all be turned into nourishing meals.
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Post by Peter on Mar 8, 2015 21:58:54 GMT 10
Peter1942, I agree with everything you say, but there is one thing you mentioned that I feel the need to clarify (and yes, I know that you simply quoted others): "There are many people now saying that if a food item contains more than three ingredients then it should not be considered as food.".
I'm not concerned with how many ingredients are contained in a food item; I'm concerned about the quality of that food item. For example, many great dishes include many, many ingredients. I am concerned, however, when ingredients require a chemical factory for production.
The old adage applies: If someone's Grandmother never knew it, it isn't really food.
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Matilda
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Post by Matilda on Mar 9, 2015 13:35:25 GMT 10
Inflation Unplanned circumstances, like a job loss, sickness etc Natural disaster Terrorist attack that would impact our grid World/area economic collapse
If you want to see how quick things change, have a look at the many clips on youtube of the Japanese Tsunami. I know we are not in a Tsunami area, but it could be bushfire or flood or cyclone. This is why it is important to make it a priority to get your personal documents together in one place as well as copies to immediate family or stored elsewhere. There is no way I could move our preps on my own if a bushfire etc was coming. At least with your important documents you could start 'rebuilding' and being able to prove who you are etc. would be critical in a total collapse, grid down etc situation.
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