Snow storms swept across the midwest and the northeast of the United States this holiday season, some so severe they left thousands of homes without electricity. This day and age though, you don't have to give up on the TV when that sort of thing happens. There are other ways to provide electricity to your home! In Harvard, MA a man named John Sweeney came up with a clever solution: he hooked his Toyota Prius up to an inverter and powered his house (including a television, refrigerator, freezer, lights, and stove) with it.

Since the Prius is a hybrid, it's able to do this much more efficiently and for a lot longer than a regular ol' car battery could. Its battery capacity is greater, and every thirty minutes or so it automatically kicks into internal combustion like a normal car to generate power from gas to recharge the battery. It wasn't enough to fully power all of Sweeney's house, but it probably made him and his family a lot more comfortable than the neighbors! And they only burned about five gallons of gas in three days.

[Image courtesy of JohnandKat on Picasa]

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