On this episode of Ready Radio on KLZ 560, John Rush and Bill Anderson tackle two issues that are colliding fast: financial preparedness and grid reliability.
The show opens with a deep dive into TexitCoin, a U.S.-based, geo-locked cryptocurrency project designed to make crypto more accessible to everyday Americans. Guests Freddie Freeman and Mike Morris explain how TexitCoin differs from traditional crypto by tying participation to ownership in a large Texas-based mining operation—providing daily coin deposits regardless of market volatility. The conversation breaks down mining, wallets, security concerns, and why local utility and education matter in an increasingly crowded crypto
SPEAKER 14 :
This is Ready Radio, preparing you to be ready for anything, now.
SPEAKER 12 :
Here’s your survival guide for Ready Radio, John Rush. And it is Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for joining us today, by the way. I appreciate it greatly. Bill Anderson with me as we get things fired off. Bill, how are you today?
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m trying to hold the house down, John.
SPEAKER 12 :
You’re hanging on, are you? I’m hanging on.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s not too bad out here in Elizabeth.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, before we get into power and all of that because of everything that’s happened the last couple of days, we’ve got a couple of guests that are joining us for the first time today. We’ve got Freddie Freeman and Mike Morris, and they are from Colorado Tech Sitcoin. Freddie, let’s start with you. How are you, sir? I am doing well, and how are you, John? I’m good. I’m good. I appreciate you joining us. Mike, thank you as well.
SPEAKER 14 :
Hey, thanks for having us on.
SPEAKER 12 :
I appreciate it. Okay. Mike, you’re a Marine Corps veteran, one of the leaders of Colorado TexitCoin. Start off by telling us what TexitCoin is.
SPEAKER 14 :
You know, TexitCoin is a new up-and-coming crypto coin. It’s really providing an amazing way for people to get into crypto, maybe that haven’t been involved in crypto before but had some interest in it. and uh texacoin has come up with a very unique opportunity that allows people come in get involved in in the crypto atmosphere make some great money and and uh create some generational wealth and uh it’s it’s been a it’s been a great project for us um you know we’re growing with over 60 000 people in in the first year over 140 million dollars raised uh through grassroots funding and texacoin is building the largest privately held crypto mine in the entire crypto universe right now here in the United States in Texas. 100 million mega hash mine.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. Freddie, what makes yours different than everybody else’s?
SPEAKER 06 :
Ours is a very unique community. I first heard about TechSitcoin from a couple of different people that I know.
SPEAKER 05 :
I used to be in advertising and I kept in contact
SPEAKER 06 :
with several of these people, and when Mike and my friends, Sam from Build Design America, located off 665 Frontage Road in Longmont, he gave me a call and invited me to a meeting with him and Mike to teach me a little bit more about Texacoin. I was hesitant to get into cryptocurrency because I didn’t know how to set up a mine or anything like that. The nice thing about Texacoin is you buy your seat in the mining community, and it mines for you every day and automatically gets put into your TXC wallet. So it’s very user-friendly, very easy to use. I’m not very technologically savvy, and if I can figure it out, anyone can figure it out.
SPEAKER 12 :
Bill, I know you play around a little bit on the crypto end of things. What questions do you have?
SPEAKER 07 :
So is there a specific… Is this mining Bitcoin? Is this mining XRP? Or is it its own thing?
SPEAKER 14 :
So, Texacoin is its own Layer 1 coin. It’s its own coin that rides the Texacoin network. Now, if you understand a little bit about crypto, you understand that you have a native coin that can ride its own native network. Earlier this month, we rolled out our Layer 2 stuff. And the Layer 2 stuff is… individual unique coins that can ride over that native network so a native network would be something like you know bitcoin or uh ethereum those kind of things so but the uniqueness of texacoin isn’t so much that it’s it’s yet another coin but it’s the opportunity that is presented is that you’re actually getting a piece of the mine you are coming in and you’re getting a piece of the mine that’s been built down in texas And you get that piece of the mind for the next 136 years. So no matter what the price of Texas coin is, no matter what the trade is going on on that day, you’re still getting a deposit of coins every day for the next 136 years. And that’s what’s unique on the Texas coin side. Now this coin has been, it’s been rapidly growing. I mean, um, they were the platinum sponsor of token 2049 this year in Singapore. And they’re actually the keynote sponsor of Token 49 next year out in Dubai. And so a lot of folks that are, you know, in the know of the crypto world, they’ve got their eye on this coin. This coin isn’t one of those pre-buys. It’s already out. We’re on 10 exchanges right now. So that coin can be bought, sold, and traded today. Okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
Does that help, Bill? No.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, the crypto thing is very confusing, I think, for a lot of people, including myself. I’ve got a little bit into it, but I don’t really understand it. And it just seems like everybody’s kind of coming up with their own coin here and there. And, oh, this company is now starting their coin. And at some point, how can we have all this, quote, currency out there? Is there ever going to become a standard?
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s what I’m wondering. That’s a good question. Mike, I’ll throw that over to you. I think there’s a lot of folks listening that probably have the same question that Bill has, especially folks that maybe aren’t as ingrained in the crypto world as others. Frankly, I think it’s a solid question. By the way, it’s a question even I personally have wondered when it comes to even, you know, Ethereum and Bitcoin and so on. It’s like, okay, which one of those will end up being at the top or will it be the only one? Or will it continue to grow and will there be multiples of these?
SPEAKER 14 :
So it’s a great question. I see it as a kind of a multi-part question. So let me tackle the part first about… you know, a lot of people not understanding crypto or knowing just a little bit and wanting to know more. That’s one of the things that Texacoin is really built upon, trying to provide classes and education. We have classes all over the state. Like we hold some down in the Denver Tech Center area, down by you guys. We have weekly classes up north where it’s not just about Texacoin, but it’s about how does crypto work itself? How do you read a market? What are these coins? How are they made? How are they traded? So that’s one other thing about Texacoin, but that’s something where anybody can come in and learn a little bit about crypto. We invite anybody to come to those events. The other thing is, you were asking about is, you know, there’s so many coins. Well, yeah, in the crypto field, you’ve got meme coins and alt coins and you’ve got native coins. It gets to be a lot. I mean, there’s tons of coins. So new coins coming in the market have to carve out their niche. And one of the niches that Texacoin has really carved out is the fact that it’s a geo-locked coin to the United States. This means that no other countries can come in and start mining it. The only people that can mine and profit from this are people that are involved in the Texacoin project. Now, what is the use of Texacoin? Well, Texacoin is focusing on peer-to-peer payments. And they’re also looking into things but what they like to call downtown dollars. So we have, uh, multiple jurisdictions that have reached out to us to solve. How do we keep our, our money local to our economies? Texas coin provides a very unique opportunity for folks that want to be able to control, uh, the spend and track the spend inside of their local communities or inside their local stores. There’s already stores here in Colorado that take Texas coin as payment. Um, I know there’s car dealerships, there’s gun stores, there’s detailing shops, there’s all kinds of unique shops are already taking Texas coin today as payment. And as those grow, so does the utility of the coin. And then adding that layer two to the process really boosts the value of the native coin and its own life, but it extends the utility and use of that coin as a payment method.
SPEAKER 12 :
Now, when folks join in, or let’s say somebody decides that they want to participate, is there a cost to that, Mike? How does that work?
SPEAKER 14 :
So there is, and there’s multiple ways to participate in Texacoin. You don’t have to have a mining share to participate. You can go on the exchange today, and you can buy Texacoin yourself. But the best way to get into Texacoin is to buy yourself a share, a mining share of the project, that’s going to pay you every day for the next 136 years. And those shares start at $995. It’s a one-time fee. It’s not a monthly fee. That is, you are buying your portion of the mine. And let me just clarify, when we talk about mines, because that can be a little confusing too, it’s simply a data center of computers that is processing the crypto transactions. That’s what they refer to as a mine. You are buying… into that data center that is processing those crypto transactions. And what you get rewarded for is your portion of the crypto coins that are built every day in that mine. And there’s other unique things in Texacoin. Like I said earlier, it’s all grassroots, right? They’re not hiring spokesmen. They’re not bringing in the latest and greatest YouTube influencer. They want to keep this local. So, There is benefits to people that also want to bring other folks in. They have a benefits package that allows you to earn free shares. They also pay out commissions on a weekly basis for those that are really wanting to get involved and start bringing other folks in.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. All right. Makes total sense. I should have asked this earlier. How do folks find out about it? What’s the website?
SPEAKER 14 :
The best way to get in touch with us is coloradotxc.org. You can contact us directly there. You can send us an email at info at coloradotxc.org. But when you visit coloradotxc.org, there’s an event section. You’ll find events all over the state where you can come and get information on this. And John, I want to throw a unique opportunity out for you.
SPEAKER 12 :
Sure, go ahead.
SPEAKER 14 :
Because What I’d like to do is I’d like to gift you a spot on what we like to call the rocket ship. I’d like to gift you…
SPEAKER 12 :
a share in the mind so that you can look and you can see how this works okay and you can feel good about your listeners finding out about this so at some point after we get off yeah no i’m not happy and i you know i dab like bill i dabble around in some of this so i know a little bit about the crypto end of things i would not by any stretch of imagination call myself an expert so anything i could gain knowledge wise guys would be awesome absolutely
SPEAKER 14 :
Yep, I’ll shoot you over an email. You send me a couple of little bits of information, I’m going to get you set up.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, we’ll do it. All right, so one more time, how do folks find you if they’re interested in getting started?
SPEAKER 14 :
ColoradoTXC.org.
SPEAKER 12 :
Awesome. Mike, Freddie, both of you guys, I appreciate it. I’m sure we’ll talk after the new year is over here, you know, Christmas just around the corner. But, man, I appreciate both of you guys greatly. Thanks for joining us very much. Hey, John, thanks a lot, man. You betcha, guys. Have a great rest of your day. And yeah, Bill, like I said, that’s one area that I appreciate those guys, even the offer that they gave, because it’s one of those things where I dabble enough to know enough that I don’t know much. Is that the right way to say it, Bill?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I mean, it seems to be growing at such a rapid pace that it becomes pretty hard to keep up with it all. And then you’ve got security concerns, you’ve got what if the grid goes down concerns and you know, what if there’s, uh, uh, an EMP on the phone and now you can’t pull up your, your, your app to, to trade that coin. I mean, there’s, there’s so much going on. In fact, that was one thing that happened in, they were concerned about in New York when they, uh, had that attack out there. Right, right, right, right. That’s right. That’s right. You know, and, and basically I was listening to a couple of cybersecurity people on that event. And what they do is they set up these remote locations, and it just overwhelms the network is what it does. They don’t get into the network. They don’t shut it down. They just overwhelm it. It’s kind of like when you go to a football game or a concert and something, and everybody’s now getting on the network there, and now there’s just so much information. The highway’s so busy that it just shuts down. And from my understanding, that’s what happened there in New York with that pandemic. cell phone issue that everybody had. And, you know, that’s something that they can easily do. And, you know, now what? Now what? How do I do that? You know, I was thinking, what if you bought Bitcoin? Because I had an opportunity to buy it way back when, when the VA was being built. And some guy was like, hey, you should really get into this. And, you know, what if I had gotten into that? And, you know, I understand my limited knowledge. Again, I understand the difference between you know, wallets and where do you keep it? Right. And I understand that as well. Yep.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yep. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
There were a lot of people that early on got into Bitcoin and somebody somehow got in their account and wiped them out. Right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Or they forgot their password or, or, or.
SPEAKER 07 :
Or, and you got to have that big long key. That’s right. That you got to write down. And if you don’t have it correct, you can’t access your Your wallet or, you know, can you download it? People have downloaded it onto a thumb drive or, you know. And they lose it. And then they lose it. I know. It’s broke.
SPEAKER 12 :
Crazy. No, and this is fascinating. We’ll talk to these guys some more because I’m fascinated about, you know, from the sounds of it, if you can get in more on the ground level of something and be in it, you know, sort of like Bitcoin back in the day, Bill, and then watch things grow. You know what? Absolutely, I’m in. I mean, to me, it’s a minimal investment to try to see how things work out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, definitely not a bunch. Trying to get into Bitcoin right now is crazy. I don’t know what it’s trending at today, but in the past weeks, it’s been 80,000, 90,000. It went all the way up to like 130 at one point. You know, so, you know, you just got to nickel and dime your way up to the top, I guess. That’s right. That’s right. But it’s so volatile, too. You know, it goes from 130 down to 80 and so volatile.
SPEAKER 12 :
And again, guys, for everybody listening, those will be some of the things that we learn from these guys moving forward. Trust me, we’ll be talking to them again. I’m curious as to how all of this works. And to have something that’s really, I think, Bill, more on a localized level or at least a U.S. level where, you know, it’s not a worldwide thing and is that good, is that bad? I personally think it’s good because you’re keeping money here versus sending it other places. So to me, yeah, am I interested in learning more? I absolutely am.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, whenever you can support the homeland, right? Absolutely. You know, whenever you’re doing something through China anyway, because China government has access to any private business that’s outside or inside of China, you know, you’re really not secure, you know? So it is kind of nice that there is that extra layer of protection of, you know, Hey, there’s no foreign, uh, government involved here that can, you know, through the political realm, access my, my information. know um a little bit here we’re a little bit more secure in that so that’s that’s kind of nice you know but but there’s so many out there i belong to a a program called up uphold and it’s like a trading platform if you will and there’s just it seems like every day it’s like oh new coin is available and new currency is available and it’s just like my goodness you know there’s so many of them out there you can You could literally just create your own. And that’s the biggest concern for me is I guess we treat it as any other investment where you diversify, possibly, but it’s also easy to diversify into something that is going to fizzle out.
SPEAKER 12 :
Correct. And guys, we’ll keep learning. Trust me, it won’t be the last time you hear from Freddie and Mike. We’ll keep them on and we’ll… continue down this path learning more. All right, we’re going to take a quick break because we’re going to come back with all of the power outages going on, even as we speak. We’re going to talk about some power generation things and some things that, frankly, I think a lot of you listening, knowing what Xcel Energy is now doing, the handwriting is on the wall as to what’s going to continue to happen on down the road. We’ll talk about that as soon as we come back. Ready Radio, don’t forget our website, ready-radio.com. And myself and Bill, we’ll be right back. This is Ready Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 12 :
And we’re back. It’s Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Appreciate you joining us. Okay, Bill, let’s talk about backup power, and there’s multiple ways that we can do this. We’ve talked about some of this in the past, but given where we’re at right now currently with Xcel Energy and the simple fact that I don’t think there’s any denying that what we’re seeing happen right now is going to be a continual growth, repeat on down the road. I think anytime we get any type of a forecast for, you know, somewhat high winds, Bill, you’re going to see Excel doing exactly what they’re doing right now. I don’t see this changing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, they start shutting down things in case of, you know, poles being blown down, then they are mitigating the damage, if you will. You know, and it’s having a big impact, right? There’s schools shutting down. There’s, you know, kids that aren’t in school today because of it. There’s, you know, that causes a whole other problem because Well, now the parents maybe can’t go to work or, you know, your workplace shuts down because it’s got no power or you’ve got stuff at home. You know, and like we’ve talked about in the past, there’s all these different layers of protection that can fit all kinds of budgets. You know, if you can’t afford to go into a full whole generator or there’s other options, you just have to be a little bit more methodical in, you know, choosing in what you’re going to power up and how you’re going to power that up. I mean, you could do something as simple as, you know, a standby generator that you buy at Home Depot Lowe’s, have it outside. Of course, I did send you that article and you said you saw it where a home caught on fire because someone was trying to use their gas fire generator. And, you know, really understanding the ins and outs of a generator. Some people think, oh, well, if I have a generator, you know, it’s going to power everything. And, understanding, is that a 110 generator? Is that 210? Do you have dual fuel options? Meaning, can I use gas and then switch it over to propane, which is always a good option, because if you can’t get gas, think about this, if the gas station has no power, you ain’t pumping gas either. So we’re talking… on a bigger level, but it’s something to keep in mind, keep into consideration how many of those gas stations around those areas were affected by that as well. So you can layer this, John, even as something as a jackery just to keep your fridge going. This time of year, we’ve got to keep heat going, so we’ve got to keep that furnace going, perishables in the refrigerator, freezer, things like that. So my point that I’m trying to make is you can layer these things. You know, you may not have the money to do a whole house generator. That’s fine. You can do figure out something and layer and even just, hey, I unplug the refrigerator or whatever it may be, and I plug it into an extension cord and run it outside to my generator. That’s better than nothing, I guess, is what I’m saying. But you’ve got to figure out what your critical loads are, and that’s what we call them. These are the loads that, you know, I can’t live without. Now, that’s different than it would be nice to have. Nice to have is I can’t live without if you’re working on a budget, for sure. That’s the place to start. And the way the houses are wired now, John, is you may be sharing circuits. So your refrigerator might be on a shared circuit with something else, so you’re trying to plug that in, and you’re picking up all this extra power that’s going to consume from your possible power availability from your generator, too. That’s something you’ve got to consider as well.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, so when we talk budgets, I don’t know if we’ve ever really done this before, but for people listening, because believe me, there are going to be a lot of folks. We’ll get Bill’s number out, too. There will be a lot of folks wanting to get in on this and deciding, you know, is it time to do a whole house generation or at least maybe, Bill, a partial home generation, which we’ll get into some of that as well. Budgetarily speaking, I mean… are we talking, you know, zero to a hundred grand, zero to 50 grand, zero to 40 grand? I mean, you, when we start talking about, you know, backup generation, you know, is it the sky’s the limit or, or, you know, what’s a relatively, you know, and I know it’s going to be different for every single person in their house. We can’t get exact, but you know, what’s a rule of thumb when it comes to whole house generation?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you gotta, it’s not like a shopping cart. Like I said a second ago, and you can’t just sell your basket with, with, you know, all kinds of goodies. Do you want just a generator? Do you want just a few circuits? Are we talking about also including a, a power wall with it? Um, so, you know, John, it’s, there’s so much more that you’ve got to bring into the equation, into the conversation before you can start floating something that, you know, standard, um, generator, you know, if we got to run depending on the footage, cause you got to, have the footage that you run the electrical to, and then we like to try to put it as close to the gas main as possible because, you know, the more that that generator runs, the more gas it’s going to pull. And then you’ve got a whole issue with, with the, um, the pressure of the gas. And so we like to keep it as close to the, to the meter, to the source, if you will, um, as possible, you know, so all of that stuff kind of comes into play, you know, but, uh, That’s a hard thing to answer, you know, as far as what brand are we going with. Are we going with Kohler? Are we going with Generac? Are we going to go with, you know, Franklin? You know, it just really depends. I mean, that’s a wide-open statement, you know. Sorry to say, but, you know.
SPEAKER 12 :
No, it makes sense. All right, let’s do this. We’ve got John calling in. Let’s get him up. John, go ahead, sir.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, thanks, Bill, for taking my call. Thanks, John. You bet. So I have an 8KW generator. I live in the middle of nowhere, so we’ll start with that. Power goes out. It didn’t get back on for six to eight hours just because that’s how long it would take the line crews to patrol the lines and get it closed back in.
SPEAKER 12 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I’ve got an 8KW generator, and I went through, and I use a, Bill, are you familiar with the Jenner link?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I have a Generalink. But when I first sized everything, I worked with a buddy of mine from the power company. I worked for the power company, too. And we said, what do we need? And 8kW is enough. But what I would like to do is get a whole house battery that’s maybe about 8 or 10kW just to hold the house for four or five hours until I can get the generator or see if the power’s going to come back on or is it a long-term outlet. Good idea. What are your thoughts on those, Bill?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, let me go back to, before I answer that question, let me go back to your 8K. Is your 8K generator a 220 or a 110? Oh, 240, yeah. It’s got 240. Okay. So, you know, at full speed, at full power there, that’s probably only going to provide about 33 amps. And so right now we’ve got to have the conversation, too, which, again, John, you know, I sent you a price range there. You know, typically the average cost is around $13,000, $15,000 for a whole house generator, but there’s so many variables going on.
SPEAKER 12 :
Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Nobody hold Bill to that because it will vary a lot. Right, right. I mean, they can go to 20. It can go all over the place depending on what you want. But, you know, you got to look at your appliances, too, because if you have an electric dryer and electric range, I mean, just your electric dryer is 30 amps. Obviously, you’re probably going to choose not to run that. But I got to be honest with you. There’s a lot of people in this world that don’t have that mindset. They think, oh, the generator’s running, the power’s unlimited. And so, you know, you can give somebody a false sense of security by saying, hey, I’ve got a generator, and it’s an AK generator, and it’s sufficient. That’s probably on the very conservative side of someone who is using their electricity. Also, do you have a well? I mean, most wells are on a 20 amp circuit. You don’t necessarily pull that continuously. You pull that until your pressure tank fills up and then you’re off. And that’s where I like the battery idea because the battery is more of an on-demand where your generator has to continually run at a certain RPM to create that current for you. They do make newer generators that can ramp up and ramp down with the demand load. And again, with that, you’re going to pay more money for those generators, but the battery bank is an on-demand, meaning that whatever comes on at a certain time, let’s just take your refrigerator for example, about every 45 minutes or so, it might cycle through a stage to cool off the refrigerator just a little bit. Again, depending on how much we open or close that refrigerator. but it might just come on every 45 minutes or so just to make sure it maintains cooling. Well, is that coming on at the same time that I’ve got the microwave on, I’ve got the coffee baker on, and the furnace is running? You have to take worst-case scenario because people will go to that extreme, and then they’re disappointed. Hey, you sold me this generator, and it’s not working. Well, what do you plug into it? Well, all this stuff. Well, I told you that, right? But the power wall will drain upon demand, and then once it reaches a certain drainage point, you can program them to say, okay, turn the generator on, and now my generator is topping off the battery while it’s also providing me with electricity. And then if you get the solar included on that, of course, depending – You know, whether it’s daytime, if it’s cloudy, whatever, solar is an iffy thing. Solar has got to have the right conditions, you know. But now your solar is topping off. And what I like about the Franklin models, too, is they’ll connect to the NOAA radio station. And if they know that something is coming to your area, it’ll prioritize topping those batteries off. So it’s going to say, okay, there’s a storm coming. you know, let’s top the batteries off to make sure they’re ready for the storm in case power goes down. Gotcha.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that was my thought was, you know, I know how to go. We had a long power outage when we had that 33 inches of snow. What was that, John?
SPEAKER 1 :
2000, 2001?
SPEAKER 03 :
You remember.
SPEAKER 12 :
Sounds right. Yeah, that sounds about right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we were out of power for three days. And that’s when I learned to prioritize. No, I’m not using my coffee maker. No, I’m not using my microwave or my oven. I have a gas cooktop, and I have a box of matches. So when I prioritize, it’s the well. I have a wood pellet stove. And once that thing’s on, it draws almost no power because all it is is the blower motors. So the pellet stove for heat, the well pump, the hot water heater, again, same thing. It only kicks on when you use too much hot water, and then it only stays on for a short amount of time, usually. And then refrigerator and a few lights. But that was it. That space, we’re in survival mode. So how big of a battery wall, then, do you look at?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, and really quick, I’m going to jump in, because essentially, Bill, what the battery wall does with a generator to top off the power wall is essentially a lot like a hybrid generator. vehicle in other words you’re using the battery for propulsion and so on but the gasoline engine is topping off that battery continually granted there’s regenerated braking and so on but it’s sort of that same concept meaning you may not need as big of a generator because all it’s doing is topping off the power wall am i thinking correctly um no i wouldn’t i wouldn’t go that way with it i would say the generator refills the battery so one thing about the generator is
SPEAKER 07 :
Versus the battery is the battery is on demand, right? The generator has to run continually no matter what okay, right? So if I have my you know, my AK generator out there running, you know and providing me those 30 amps Let’s just say but I’m only using two amps. Well, guess what the generator is still running. It’s still consuming fuel It’s still doing these things whereas the power bank is As it gets close to draining to the bottom, it sends a signal to the generator, tells the generator to kick on. Now the generator starts up, re-tops off the battery, and then, of course, you can use the energy that the generator is producing at the same time, but it’s going to prioritize energy. re-topping off that battery. Then once that battery reaches, let’s say, 100%, generator goes off. So you’re not running the battery all the time. So yes, in a sense, the hybrid cars are kind of like that, but I don’t know if I would use the idling…
SPEAKER 12 :
analogy because it’s it’s based on percentage of battery life before that generator kicks on yeah no i meant more of more along the lines of as the you know given the fact that the power wall has a certain amount of kw built into it and the generator has a certain amount that’s topping off the power wall and kind of back to john’s question if you went that direction and his and again it’s it’s going to be unique to each individual situation but if you got an 8k generator you want to add a power wall what size power wall would you look at
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, this is the toughest part about this, is every situation is going to be unique because everybody’s power demand is different. Everybody has a different square footage of a house. Everybody has a different appliance load. Everybody has a different whatever. So the best way to look at it is you can look at your bill and see how many kilowatts am I using per month, and if you want to do some very kind of rough, barbaric math, break that down into the hour. Now, the reason that’s very barbaric is because usually we have times where our loads are used more. Like in the middle of the day when nobody’s home, if most people are working, you’re not really using that much electricity in your home. It’s when everybody comes home and turns on the lights, starts cooking, starts doing laundry, that’s when the big draw is. And so you would need to look at what you’re consuming and then Base it off of that. We have calculators that we can go in and go, okay, well, what appliances are we connecting to this? And then do the math for you. You know, there’s formulas out there. You can look online and go, hey, what’s the average kilowatt hour use of a refrigerator? Average kilowatt. use of my furnace and things like that. That’ll kind of give you an idea. We usually start about 5K on the batteries, though, around 5K.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and my electric company and the company I work for both use the Honeywell Smart Grid, so I could just call them and tell them to send me last 90 days of 15-minute interval usage and calculate that out, which is probably the most accurate, and you can see when you’re using it. And, you know, there are bills that graph it out. But if you want the deep data, you can usually get it from your utility. I know we send them out all the time. Actually, the company I work for, we put them on our website. Customers just go in and download it. They don’t even have to ask. It’s a day behind, but they can get that. So you’re thinking if I – you started around 5K. I was thinking around 8K to 10K to hold the house with the basics, knowing I’m going to shut everything off if it’s all – you know, the power’s out, I’m going to turn everything off except what I have to need, I’m figuring I could get six or seven hours out of that before I’d have to fire the generator up.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and it depends on what brand as to what intervals are sold in. Like the in-phase ones are sold in the 5, 10, and 15. Franklin, I think, is around the 8K. But here’s the other thing with most of these wall packs, we’ll just call them wall packs, But you can add to them, right? So you can start with a 5K and maybe as your budget allows, and I think they even have a 3K. Excuse me. I think it may even have a 3K. But you can add another one. You can add another kind of like put slots in, if you will, and you can start off with a basic model. Then you’re like, hey, this one isn’t, you know, kicking out enough. Right. So now I’m going to go ahead and add a second one or a 15K or, again, whatever your budget can allow. Right. you can you know and the nice thing about that too is that it’s not just for emergency use you can program these things to be filling up the battery on non-peak hours right and then now using it during peak hours so you can get it that way a little bit as well okay question i have on the on the power walls uh bill i guess let me let me do this first john are you are you satisfied are we good bill the last thing you said you like the franklin brand because i saw those online Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. The ones I like, I, I, I have in phase at my house. personally, but just because I’ve already had them installed. But I like the Franklin. And here’s the deal with a lot of these Powerwalls, too. You’ve got to be careful because a lot of them, like if you buy Tesla, well, guess what? You’ve got to buy all Tesla stuff. If you buy Enphase, then guess what? You’ve got to have the Enphase inverters. You’ve got to have all that. Franklin doesn’t care what the input is. If you buy a Craftsman generator, a Kohler generator, it doesn’t care what it is. That’s what I like about it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, thanks, Ron. No, you bet. No, appreciate it very much. One question before we go to break that I have, Bill, on the power walls, which I bet other people have as well. Do they have to be mounted inside, basement, crawl space, garage? Can they go outside? You know, what’s the scoop there?
SPEAKER 07 :
You can put them anywhere. It’s preferred that if you do put them outside, you don’t want to put them direct sun. Temperature, just like your electric battery in your car, it definitely dogs down a little bit in the winter, right? It’s better in the summer. Just your electric car, you get a further range because of temperature. So I typically put them in my garage. It just helps with that temperature. that temperature a little bit better. I mean, it’s not as cold as outside, but it’s a little bit more of a conditioned spot. And the same goes in the summer, too. It’s not as hot in the direct sunlight, too. But to answer your question, they could be put either place.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we’ll be right back, guys. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t forget Bill’s website, Prep2, the number two, Prep2ProtectCO.com. This is Ready Radio. We’ll be right back. KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we are back. Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Bill, one thing I wanted to mention, too, and I know there’s some of our folk out there listening where they’re so anti-EV they won’t even talk about one. On the other hand, we’ve got folks out there like you and I that actually own them and drive them and understand the pluses of owning one. And by the way, one of those pluses, if you set up things correctly, and this is becoming more and more popular, is… The larger the EV and the larger the battery, and again, thinking ahead, making sure that you’re powering that up before you know there’s an event coming, which in most cases we would know ahead of time, Bill, you can actually power your house through that setup you were talking about a moment ago with the power wall. You could actually reverse what’s happening on your EV and run the house off of the EV basically through an inverter and the power wall. Am I correct in that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, my only concern with that is if that’s a person’s only vehicle, you’re draining the tank. Yeah, rarely is that the case.
SPEAKER 12 :
No offense, most of us that have one of those have something else you can go drive if you’re using it to power the house. I mean, realistically, there are some where it’s understandable, you understand where you’re coming from. And yeah, there are some cases where it’s your only vehicle. And yes, you’d have to be careful of that. But reality is, Bill, that’s most EV owners, it’s their second or third vehicle.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I hook up a lot of chargers and a lot of people are now going all the way EV and in town and stuff. But you’re right. I mean, the mindset of the people listening to this show usually have, you know, a gasser backup. We call them gassers, but you have that backup. But, you know, that’s just my only concern with that is. You know, those people who don’t, you know, you’re draining the tank, if you will, and now if you’ve got to get up and go somewhere, well, you can’t. And I was always curious as to see, you know, how much that would really, how much energy I’d really get out of the car. You know, all cars are going to be different, of course. Makes and models are going to carry different batteries with different storage capabilities. You know, the older ones, the old hybrids, I think my first one was a Chevy Volt, which was gas and electric, and you got 30 miles on the electric, and then it kicked over to gas. I really liked that idea because then I could still go to the gas station and fill it up if I needed to. But the more and more that I got with the electric, and really, if you’re a business owner, you should be buying these anyway just because of the tax incentive. I think it’s up to $9,000 now for the state plus your federal tax. And what a lot of people don’t understand, John, with the tax credits with solar and EV, it’s a federal tax credit. So unless you owe that much money, you’re not getting that much money back. So that’s where it’s the business owner, okay, now we can leverage that. Right, good point. They kind of falsely sell that in my opinion. They’re like, oh, you get all this tax credit. You’re getting all this money. Well, it’s a tax credit. That’s right. That’s right. The state of Colorado did give you a check, though. They did give you a cash refund on that. There you go.
SPEAKER 12 :
Ben, you’re on with us. Go ahead, sir.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, how you doing? Good, Ben. All right. Hope you guys are bundling up a little.
SPEAKER 12 :
We’re doing okay. Absolutely, yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
So, you know, naturally I had to chime in on the power outage because I’d like to be able to get beyond some of that and talk about, you know, overall better, you know, more pressing issues with, the government and whatnot, but, uh, you know, I’m thinking Excel, they could have managed this a little bit differently.
SPEAKER 12 :
Agree.
SPEAKER 04 :
Uh, I mean, uh, if I was Excel, I wouldn’t want to get sued either. It almost makes sense. Not quite because like a lot of government stuff, once it starts making sense to you, you, you’re part of the hive, you know, but, uh, I would have thought, you know, Hey, how about a little rolling roundouts if that, and then, uh, uh have some people monitoring with you know what do they call an anemometer a wind measuring sensor and uh you know open up a few circuits like hey you know we’re going to do conifer and then we’re going to do clear creek or whatever and there was almost no warning and
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, and really quick, and by the way, Ben, I agree with you, and here’s the thing I was also looking at, and I don’t know what their costs to bring all the extra linemen in that I know they have brought in for this particular storm, but I can tell you I think relatively, I don’t think I’m too far off in my calculations, and I did this the other day, based upon the number of homes that are out over this last, you know, you look at the amount of time that they’re not charging you for electricity because it’s completely off, this storm’s going to cost them about $1.5 million just in revenue, plus everything else they’ve done to bring folk in and so on. I mean, this is not a cheap thing. And you would think that they want to keep your power on so you can actually be paying for it. But on the same token, Ben, as a PUC guaranteed returns, maybe they don’t care.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that’s the problem with PUCs. Big business, a lot of them in bureaucracy.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, this isn’t even big business. A PUC is basically a monopoly of electricity. Yeah, you’ve got a few other providers, but I don’t have a choice of where I buy electricity from. It’s Xcel Energy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Agreed. It’s big business, however you want to label it. But, yeah, the PUC guarantees them to stay in business and make a profit, and you need it. So, you know, if anything, buy Excel stock. But it just, I think it was handled less than optimally. There’s so much technology around. And, you know, as time goes by, it’s like just living a simple life. It’s, you know, oh, you should have, like the last guy, he’s good about maybe fitting a generator in. Now I need a generator? Really? How do I live without one this long?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, keep in mind, you didn’t have a $640 million lawsuit that a judge probably should have thrown out in the first place that Xcel Energy is now trying to protect themselves against future lawsuits. And so that’s really, Ben, that’s the game changer in why you’re going to see more and more of what we’re seeing right now happen along the front range.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I agree. I’m kind of I’ll end up getting a generator.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, I don’t think you’re going to have any choice. If you don’t want to have to worry about things, yes, that’s what you’re going to have to do.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, otherwise it’s white knuckling it.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, you know, just doing the best you can. That’s right. But, you know, also what about people with medical equipment they need?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, no, I hear you.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know somebody that’s got an oxygen concentrator. Oh, and by the way, Interesting thing, there’s another, I think they’re with the REA. It’s a company that starts with a C that’s locally. Somebody out there will know it. Core, that’s it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, Core.
SPEAKER 04 :
So Core, regionally, as far as I know, they had a couple breakdowns, but they don’t have any of the rolling blackout thing. And I’m thinking, oh, well, maybe it shows that they could figure it out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you’ve got to understand, hold on a second, because Core buys their energy from Excel. That’s why I’m in Core, and when I put up my solar, I don’t get solar tax credits because they don’t have to offer it to me. Only Excel does. But Core and Intermountain, all these guys, they buy from Excel and then resell it to their areas. So it still all goes through Excel.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. I was unaware of that. But what’s interesting about CORE, I looked through their website, and you might know better than me. I was just going over it to see what’s up there. But for non-peak or off-peak or whatever it is, the real critical kilowatt hours, I saw on their website it was like $4 a kilowatt, $4 and change. And I don’t know if that’s a surcharge if you go over or per kilowatt hour. It looked like per kilowatt hour. I’m thinking, God, you guys are kind of greedy.
SPEAKER 12 :
Ben, really quick, I’m going to let you roll. We’re going to finish things up. Bill, we’ve got two minutes left here to get things wrapped up. Again, this is another topic you and I are going to have to come back first of the year and really delve into a little bit more because it’s going to be a big deal. As I said, this is going to continue to roll on. It won’t stop here. But what do you want to leave folks with?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and CORE is a co-op, so it’s not cooperative. That’s right. You know, here’s the thing, right? And I can appreciate what he was saying about the frustration. I don’t know if in the fine print of your contract with Excel says, hey, we have the right to shut this down at any time we want. I don’t know. But at the end of the day, you can’t control what they’re going to do, John. This is what I say all the time, right? We can get frustrated about it. We can do certain things to try to get it. We’re going through a deal out here in Albert County where Excel’s wanting to cut through all these properties with all these power lines, and the people are getting frustrated and in all these town hall meetings and stuff, and really Excel’s going, yeah, too bad. We’re going to do what we’re going to do. We’re going to take your property. So my point in all this is, Guys, we can’t control what we can do, so we must control what we can control. And one way to do that is to get a generator or get some kind of battery backup.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and I understand what he was saying a minute ago, Bill, when Ben was saying a minute ago when it comes to, so now, and again, he was being sort of tongue-in-cheek, so now we have to get a generator if I’m going to live somewhat of a normal life and not have to worry about when my power’s out. Yeah. Bill, again, yeah, I don’t have any other answer. That’s the answer, yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that’s the answer. I mean, we’ve got to remember, too, sometimes, and again, this might ruffle some feathers out there, John, but sometimes we’ve got to understand and realize that the America we live in is a privileged country. And stuff can be taken away. And now all of a sudden we’re crying, hey, not fair, not fair, not fair. But you look at the rest of the world, we’re still doing way better. And we might we might get there someday. But, you know, once we’ve. lived to a certain standard and now all of a sudden that standard starts to collapse right right the the point of this station is be ready for that that’s right and still kind of maintain some standard and i want to throw one more thing on top of this which somebody mentioned earlier today i was talking to somebody early this morning about this and we were talking about generations in fact i’m going to give this person your number because
SPEAKER 12 :
They’re wanting to do the same thing that a lot of us are wanting to do right now, Bill. And at the end of the day, you know, talking about it was this will do nothing but increase your property values because if you’re going to sell a home that now all of a sudden is going to be stable no matter what Xcel Energy or whoever your provider is, well, then now you’ve just increased the value of your house, Bill. Right, right.
SPEAKER 07 :
And the only problem that I throw into this is the city and counties of wherever you live, they are kind of bumping back on this, so they’re making it very hard to get permits. Gotcha. So that’s the other side of the coin here.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well said. Bill, Merry Christmas, man. I know I won’t talk to you until then, so Merry Christmas, sir. Appreciate all you do for us. You as well. You guys take care. Will do it, Bill. Appreciate you very much. And if you need Bill’s number, let me know. I can send you that directly to you if they’re interested in doing any kind of a generation, a generator, battery walls, any of that kind of stuff at all. Please let me know. Ready Radio. It’s ready-radio.com. This has been KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 08 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
