December 11, 2013

ethnography of candlelight
Off-Grid 101

Pools of light and off-grid comfort

ethnography of candlelightThis site is dedicated to showing how you can live off the grid in comfort and style without costing the earth. Lighting is fairly crucial part of that. Being able to snap on the light when you come home is just as important to off-gridders as to those who are grid-connected.

Light is expensive, energy-hungry, and vital to our happiness – especially at this time of year. And there is a large degree of unanimity amongst off-gridders about what makes good lighting and how to achieve it.

When you live off-grid, electric lighting is not something you can take for granted. The means for controlling natural and artificial light and thus achieving visual comfort are not as well-established in the Unplugged community. But the off-grid aesthetic is now spreading to the plugged-in community.

So how do off-gridders light their homes to maximise the gain and minimise the cost?

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eco-paper made from wheat not trees
People

Woody Harrelson plans paper mill

Actor Woody Harrelson is planning to raise money for Prairie Paper Ventures Inc. a private company he started 15 years back.
Prairie Paper makes its paper using a different mix of material from normal: 80% of the inputs come from wheat straw and the rest from recycled fibre. The paper is known as Step Forward Paper. It’s available on Amazon US, and at Staples, Lyreco and Basics.
In a posting on its website, “Out of the Furnace” star Harrelson, who is holding up a box of paper, said “it’s good for the forests, it’s good for the farmers and it’s good for our future.”
The company’s tree-free paper is produced in India – because no ecomill is available in North America and Europe. The ultimate goal is to “build a 100% tree-free, off-the-grid, eco-friendly, chlorine-free mill on the Prairies where millions of tonnes of leftover wheat straw is readily available,” said Christina Marshall, director of marketing.

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Power Predictor

Here’s a useful gadget for sizing your green energy investment.

Spending thousands on solar panels or sticking a wind turbine on your roof requires a serious leap of faith.

You can research how good an investment it should prove, but until most people splash out they will never know. So, it’s no wonder that green energy has gained a reputation for being the domain of those who can afford to have a conscience – or at least enough cash lying around to stump up for an installation lump sum.

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Available for Amazon Prime