[bwilson4web]

Hurricane Irene still has another day or so and hundreds of miles of Atlantic seaboard to strike:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/27/national/main20098289.shtml said:

At least 907,058 customers in North Carolina and Virginia are now without power.

So I'm reminded:
http://www.komonews.com/news/tech/125812068.html

. . .
The systems will be fitted to about 40 of the automaker's Prius hybrids. Hybrid vehicles can be used to store and generate electricity because it is partly an electric vehicle that runs on a high-quality battery.

Toyota's hybrid technology has already been helping in quake-affected areas, which suffered massive blackouts, as an emergency source of electricity.

The automaker said the positive reviews for its Estima hybrid minivan, which comes with regular electrical outlets to plug in and run household appliances for up to two days, are prompting it to make it available as an option for the Prius within a year.
. . .

My first Prius mod in 2005 was to add a 1kW, modified sine-wave inverter. It has paid for itself many times over. Given about 1-2% of the vehicle sales for the past 5 years have been hybrids and assuming the 1 million are households with one car each, there are about 10-20,000 hybrids that could be providing emergency power. There is no reason to 'curse the darkness' like we had with the tornadoes this spring:

• Wed, 5:49 PM arrived at house, started Prius power: 10.2 mi, 50.3 MPG, 0.203 gal
• Sun, 11:34 PM power on, Prius turned off: 10.2 mil, 1.3 MPG (1.2 MPG soon?), 7.843 - 8.500 gal
• 112 hours, net 7.634 - 8.297 gal., 0.070 - 0.074 gal/hr :: rule of thumb, 2 gallons/day, nice weather

Unlike a generator, hybrids are quiet and have catalytic converters that make a 100 fold reduction in poisonous carbon-monoxide. As shown, they can be very efficient, power generators.

Bob Wilson