Powerless cooling

"Apocalypse" frequently means no power. But so does "rural Africa." A very inventive Nigerian man named Mohammad Bah Abba developed an incredibly easy evaporative cooling system called a Zeer. Take an unglazed terracotta pot, and fill the bottom with sand. Put a smaller pot inside it. Fill the gap with sand. Add water to the sand. The water soaks into the pots and slowly evaporates, which causes cooling. Apparently it works quite well.

Terracotta is a great PA material because A), it's everywhere, B) it might actually survive the ravages of time and weather, assuming it doesn't get smashed, and C) you might actually be able to make it yourself. Hit up any garden or home store and you'll find plenty of big planters. For that matter, check your neighbor's houses. They may have a few as well, already in use.

More on Bah Abba and the pot-in-pot refrigerator at Wikipedia.

Solar Cooking

I came across a site on solar cooking today, and I realized that it's just the thing when you need to cook your food but don't want any smoke to alert nearby raiders, zombies or other nasty folks. The site has some plans for cookers. One seems to be made from an old tire and a sheet of glass - a little gross, but very resourceful. My dad and grandpa had actually messed around with this a few years ago. They used a wooden box lined with garbage bags and a glass lid. I don't remember if we actually cooked anything in it, but it was a neat idea.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Work has me very busy and there's no sign of it letting up.

More instructables - solar charger and pallet shelter

Instructables has had a few relevant projects lately. If you don't already know, Instructables is a site for sharing instructions on how to make stuff - food, sewing projects, electronics, all kinds of stuff. I'll have to go back through the archives and see if there are more that have relevance. I think I saw a solar water heater project at one point...

The Rain or Shine Solar Charger is potentially quite useful. It's basically a solar panel in a clear pouch for backpackers. It's mildly weatherproof and lightweight. He also shows how to hook it to a phone charger. This is a really good one with detailed instructions and decent grammar.

Here's another one, the Pallet Shelter for "Urban Survival". Basically just simple pallet walls held together with bungee and velcro straps, covered with a tarp. This is the kind of thing you just need to see once and then it sits in the back of your head until you need it.

How to sharpen a stick with fire

This is quite simple, and something I didn't know before. Now I can make my own fire-hardened spear or arrows.