Water

Off-Grid farm to double in size – if it can raise money by 26 April

Plotgate Farm in Somerset UK is becoming a remarkable success story for its pioneering, community agro-ecological style of farming.

It was designed from the get-go to be truly sustainable, Plotgate has recently come top in an assessment using United Nations approved criteria.

Founded in 2015 with 23 acres, they have just closed a deal to buy the neigboring 16 acres of land and already raised £175,000 to pay for it. The farm, run by Dan Britton and Amy Willoughby raised most of the money over the past few weeks from locals who already subscribe to their weekly food boxes (plotgatecommunityfarm.org/2-box-trial. Plotgate is paying a return of the CPI – meaning whatever inflation is at the moment they pay the same in interest on the loan, currently 9.5%. They only need another £15,000 to complete their targets, although there may be more funding rounds soon to pay for their most ambitious idea yet.

The land Plotgate just acquired is waterlogged. It sits within the Somerset levels, famously prone to flooding, especially in winter. The levels contain a network of sluices, dams and ditches which has for centuries managed the water in the area to allow agriculture to take place.

“We are planning to return to a forgotten method of farming,” said Dan Britton, a naval architecture graduate who has masterminded Plotgate’s technical development. Their new fields already contain the remains of the array of shallow dugout water courses at regular intervals that allow the higher earth between them to remain dry and fertile – 13 strips in the 8 acre field, each approx 10mx180m.

“Its anybody’s guess, but I think we will see a doubling in yields per acre from the new land – “that means twice the food for the same amount of work,” said Dan who nw sells 100 veg boxes per week for £13 each. Anyone interested in investing can contact via the Plotgate web site or direct to Dan.
Far more important to Dan than the potential profitability is the water remediation – “We are going to clean up the waters of Avalon,” he said.…

April 17, 2023 No Comments

Events

“Quantum Leap Needed” To Avoid Global Warming – Grid To Blame

UN secretary-general António Guterres says “a quantum leap in climate action is needed to meet the 1.5C limit set by scientists.
“The climate time-bomb is ticking,” and a new report was a “survival guide for humanity.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, set out the final part of its mammoth sixth assessment report on Monday.

Production and consumption of energy is known to cause 75% of the problem, but Utility companies and policiticians are still failing to take the neccessary action – drastically reduce energy use NOW.

The comprehensive review of human knowledge of the climate crisis took hundreds of scientists eight years to compile and runs to thousands of pages, but boiled down to one message: act now, or it will be too late.

“Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once,” said Gutteres, urging richer countries to significantly improve their net zero greenhouse gas emissions targets, and strive to achieve the goal by as close to 2040 as possible, rather than by 2050.

Global warming is “more likely than not” in the near-term to reach a 1.5C rise since pre-industrial times, the world’s top scientists said, and climate change already taking place will continue across the lifespan of three generations born in 1950, 1970 and 2020.

The summary report found the risks of warming were greater than was thought at the time of the last assessment in 2014. Some regions had already reached the “limits” of what they could adapt to.

But the report, signed off by governments worldwide, also concluded that humanity had the tools to curb and adapt to climate change, and a lack of political “commitment” was a key barrier to progress in what was a “rapidly closing window”.

The definitive report draws together six landmark scientific assessments published since 2018. It comes ahead of the UN COP28 climate summit to be held in the United Arab Emirates that will feature the so-called global stock take.

Carbon emissions continued to rise relentlessly last year but they must fall by almost half by 2030 for the world to have any hope of limiting global warming to 1.5C, previous IPCC reports have said.

The latest report included the year 2035 in its assessment in an effort to bridge previous warming timelines pegged to 2030 and 2050.

The sequence of devastating extreme weather events in the past year is expected to continue, including floods, fires and droughts that the scientists said would become more frequent and intense with every fraction of a degree of warming.

Researchers and policymakers signed off the report after a week of discussions, including a frantic 24 hours of final nonstop negotiations as government representatives from fossil fuel-producing nations clashed on issues including finance, carbon capture technology and fossil fuel subsidies.

Detlef van Vuuren, a report author from the Netherlands, …

March 20, 2023 No Comments

Spirit

Small Growers Deserve Same Green Subsidies As Farmers

ALL over the world, governments are handing farmers green subsidies in the form of carbon credits for certain types of planting and land management that sequester or reduce carbon consumption. But small growers, including off-gridders and allotment owners, are excluded from this cosy arrangement. The grants total tens of billions each year according to McKinsey, a consulting firm.

If you are a smallholder who wants to apply for your carbon credits, get in touch with us at off-grid.net, or leave a comment at the end of this story. We will collate all claims and submit them when there are enough to qualify.

In Britain, for example, farmers have two options – go green or go under. The calculation is simple – A farmer plants a wood, grows bigger hedgerows or tends the soil in a certain way, that sucks a certain number of tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

This is verified and the farm is then granted a certificate for how much CO2 it has absorbed, which can be sold to a business that needs to reduce its own carbon footprint.

The UK is not alone in this field, with similar initiatives under way in the US, the EU, Australia and New Zealand.

In eastern Australia, a vast area called the “mulga belt” is now home to a booming carbon trading industry that has netted 150 businesses at least $300m in less than a decade, according to official figures reported by the Washington Post.

Businesses should be looking to reduce their own emissions first, say experts, but carbon credits could help with any residual emissions, the ones that are difficult or impossible to remove.

Farms and landowners are well placed to help with this, as many actions they can take to improve their own operations will also cut carbon emissions.

Farmers can apply for carbon credits if they plant their fields with environmentally-approved crops. Small growers cannot. The amount seems small, only a £100 per Hectare in the UK and £168 for woodland, but to someone with a two Hectare smallholding who survives perfectly well on £10,000 a year, its a 2% pay rise, for doing what they were going to do anyway.

At the moment, UK farmers cannot participate in the British emissions trading scheme, although this may change soon with the Government having recently consulted on proposals to bring them in. But there is nothing to stop us all, every landowner, garden owner and allotment owner who wants to log-in to any online application form set up for farmers.

In the meantime, farms and others can participate in voluntary carbon trading markets. The two most established are the Woodland Carbon Code and the Peatland Code, both of which are recorded on the UK Land Carbon Registry.

The woodland code rewards landowners for planting trees, typically over a typical period of 30 to 40 years. It …

March 12, 2023 No Comments

Brilliant Research Intern Wanted

You will need writing and social media skills, good phone manner and love of the subject…

February 4, 2023 No Comments

Community

Inflation Reduction Act Actually Causing Inflation

“Greenflation” will be the word of the year by late 2023.

In 2022, the US Congress passed the biggest climate bill in history — under the name the “Inflation Reduction Act.” It calls for a 10-year torrent of money to be spent on installing heat pumps, solar panels and other clean energy equipment in American households and businesses.

Starting today, the Act will offer households thousands of dollars to transition over from fossil-fuel burning heaters, stoves and cars to cleaner versions. Middle-class families will be able to access tax credits for solar, electric stoves, cars, and other kinds of renewable energy equipment. By mid-2023, lower-income households will get discounts without having to wait to file their taxes to get the cash back. This online tool shows what you might be eligible for, depending on your Zip code and income.

According to Washington Post journalist Shannon Osaka the new US Inflation Reduction Act provides multiple ways to green the economy and save money. But the money saved per household will be depend on future energy prices, and the effect on carbon emissions will be relatively slight, unless the growth in clean energy is accompanied by a sharp overall reduction in energy consumption.

Up to a billion separate items of home and office equipment will need to be swapped out – from fridges and heaters to aircon units and cars. Who will manufacture all these wonderful new products? And who will install and maintain them? There is already a shortage of both labor and materials.

Economists say the IRA may not reduce inflation very much, but they don’t say it could spur inflation in the sectors affected by the new law. As millions of households across America switch to cleaner energy sources with the help of government money (meaning our money), there will be shortages of both skilled labor and of equipment, driving up prices.

There are currently only about 13,000 solar installation companies across the USA, growing at an average of 2.5% per year. And the number of workers employed as solar or wind energy installers is projected to grow by less than 10,500 between now and 2029, according to US government figures.

The growth rate of all occupations in the U.S. is predicted to be 3.7% from 2019 to 2029. Wind turbine service technicians and solar photovoltaic installers, on the other hand, are predicted to grow at a rate of 60.7% and 50.5%, respectively, , from a very low base.

If this prediction is correct, together, these two occupations will add only 10,400 new jobs to the U.S. economy by 2029.

Quick Facts: Solar Photovoltaic Installers
2021 Median Pay	$47,670 per year $22.92 per hour
Typical Entry-Level Education	High school diploma or equivalent
Work Experience in a Related Occupation	None
On-the-job Training	Moderate-term on-the-job training
Number of Jobs, 2021	17,100
Job Outlook, 2021-31	27% (Much faster than average)

…

December 31, 2022 No Comments

Energy

Queues Around the Planet for Grid Connections

West London, UK – 17.12.2022. A huge housing development on the West side of UK capital city has had to be postponed because the developers cannot obtain a grid connection for another ten years. The problem is overloading of grid capacity due to renewables which need access intermittently at unpredictable times – meaning the grid owners cannot plan ahead and have to leave surplus capacity unused.

It will take up to a decade to bulk up grid capacity and get developments under way again in three west London boroughs — Hillingdon, Ealing and Hounslow. In those boroughs, “major new applicants to the distribution network . . . including housing developments, commercial premises and industrial activities will have to wait several years to receive new electricity connections”, according to a note from the Greater London Authority which oversees the capital’s utility infrastructure.

Part of this is just bad management by the company National Grid which is also coming under criticism for its operations in the Eastern United States. Part of the problem lies with Utility regulator Ofgem, which has, worryingly, just been awarded responsibility for the future planning of the UK electricity supply.

The problems faced by London are also popping up everywhere else in the world, as the huge demand for renewable energy installation come up against the realities of the current, ageing grid network.

The projects go on waiting lists that can now stretch for years, and many ultimately drop off when the delays become intolerable. In the United States, according to reports in the New York Times, enough renewable energy projects are backlogged right now to achieve a largely clean electric grid by 2030. But without urgent action, most are unlikely to get built.

It is the smaller, local power lines running through state-designated transmission corridors that are the main problem. Strung alongside interstates and highways, they were designed decades ago and are just not fat enough to carry more electricity from solar and wind projects. Unless these lines are upgraded with new wires, connecting too many wind or solar farms could cause the cables to overheat, leading to power outages.

Electrical utilities have been caught flat-footed by the falling costs and rapid growth of renewable energy, says the NY Times. “They simply failed to get ahead of the wave and upgrade their wires, and the state governments that oversee the power business neglected to hold them accountable.

“In every state, a public utility commission is charged with regulating the power business, and for too long the decisions of these bodies have flown under the radar. As the climate crisis worsens and our goals for limiting the damage slip farther out of reach, citizens need to show up and make clear to the utilities and their regulators that they want action now.”…

December 17, 2022 No Comments

If you take the dime, you gotta take the crime

Ever since 2008, I have been puzzled as to why individual directors are never prosecuted for corporate crimes in the UK. At the time of the financial crisis, I tried placing numerous stories and TV docs on the subject but nobody wanted to know.

The announcement this month by the US Department of Justice that there is to be a “crackdown” on company executives, is the first sign that the tide is beginning to turn

It will cause an uneasy stirring in corporate circles from Los Angeles to London, where the result of a UK Ministry of Justice “Call for Evidence” on a new “failure to prevent economic crime” offence has been pending since March 2017. Even the government’s own supporters are ashamed of this failure and the Law Commission is now due to issue an update at any moment.

There is widespread distrust of the system in Britain because of the scale and variety of large companies which break the law without their directors facing any criminal charges. chief executives argue that they are worth their hugely inflated salaries, and take the credit in full when things go well, but when large companies are found to have broken the law, its remarkably hard it is to prove that the boss was in charge of the decision making process that led to the crime.

When the companies themselves are fined, it is the shareholders or customers that foot the bill, not the law-breakers themselves. The rules of the game are rigged in favour of the wealthy , who can afford armies of expensive lawyers and tie prosecutors in knots for years on end. This makes a mockery of Britain’s reputation for rule of law, and is harmful to democracy in general.

Sewage dumping by Southern Water

Take the current outcry in coastal areas all around the country over sewage dumping. Southern Water has been repeatedly fined over the dumping. A judge has unequivocally found that previous court rulings were flouted and n evidence of illegal sewage dumping was destroyed or falsified. Nobody individual ever been prosecuted, or as far as I am aware even investigated by police.

The fury currently being expressed in Parliament, and on the nation’s beaches by swimmers is not just at the stench of the sewage, but also at the cosy system which allows company directors to hide behind evidential barriers which were designed to be insurmountable.

Proving a “Controlling Mind”

The issue in the case of Southern Water, and almost every other large corporate prosecution, is the difficulty in proving that the offence was committed by a “controlling mind.” The CEOs and CFOs of our biggest companies, who are happy to take the credit for success, draw large salaries and even larger bonuses, are mysteriously absent from the wheelhouse whenever there is a criminal investigation. You could say that McAvity-like quality is their biggest talent.…

November 20, 2021 No Comments

Energy

Off-Grid campaign for Renewable Micro-Grids

UK Parliamentary Petition

Decarbonise UK energy by funding locally-owned renewable micro-grids

About 75% of all global warming (ie carbon emissions) is caused by the production and consumption of energy. Please see our new video and sign our petition to persuade the government to act.

It will cost hundreds of billions to make electricity production in the UK carbon-neutral, but the current national grid is inefficient, with at least 8-10% of energy lost in distribution or transmission. And a further 30% wasted in the electricity production process.

The Government estimates it will cost a total of £500 billion over 20 years to decarbonise the grid, and it intends to spend most of that money through the energy companies which caused the problem in the first place. the UK should instead fund resident-owned renewable energy grids across the country. Power to the people.

More details

We are campaigning for 100,000 signatures for the parliamentary petition and then a government debate while Cop26 takes place.

Sign this petition

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10,000

At 10,000 signatures…

At 10,000 signatures, government will respond to this petition

At 100,000 signatures…

At 100,000 signatures, this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament

Share this petition

Created by

Nick Rosen

Deadline

18 February 2022

All petitions run for 6 months

Official petition website: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/594570…

September 29, 2021 No Comments

Water

No Directors Prosecuted for Deliberate Sewage Dumping by Southern Water

One of Britain’s biggest water companies was fined £90m ($126m) today for deliberate dumping of “billions of litres” of sewage into the North Sea over a 5 year period. But no Directors or other staff were implicated in the proceedings, and none were bound over to ensure that they would receive prison sentences if/when it happens again.
“These offences show a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for precious and delicate ecosystems and coastlines, for human health, and for fisheries and other legitimate businesses that operate in the coastal waters,” said the judge. But the £90m fine compares to annual profits of well over £200m.

The judge said the company had a history of criminal activity for its “previous and persistent pollution of the environment”. It had 168 previous offences and cautions but had ignored these and not altered its behaviour. “There is no evidence the company took any notice of the penalties imposed or the remarks of the courts. Its offending simply continued,” he said.

In 2019, three employees were convicted of obstructing the collection of data by the government-owned Environment Agency, which was investigating raw sewage spilled into rivers and on beaches in south-east England, but none spent a single day in jail.

The case between the environmental regulator and Southern Water, which the company tried to suppress, raised questions about the Southern Water’s corporate governance and why employees would obstruct the agency.

It also puts the spotlight on the regulator’s monitoring of sewage treatment plants and water companies and the extent to which the public can trust assessments of water cleanliness.

Southern Water, which supplies 4.6m customers in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight with water and sewage services, was charged at the same time as the employees but the company was found to be not “criminally liable” for obstruction of the investigation.

Five staff members were convicted in 2018 of obstructing EA investigations between July 11 and 13, 2016 although two of the convictions were overturned on appeal. Several of the employees argued that they were acting under the instruction of the company solicitor not to give data to the regulator, even though the agency is dependent on information supplied by the water companies for its monitoring of sewage outflows.

The court documents cite a “lack of co-operation . . . and in some cases . . . conduct which was clearly calculated to frustrate the inspection”.

In one example, a management scientist said she was instructed by a lawyer to refuse to allow the EA to take documents that would have provided data on sewage outflows from a waste water treatment works.

In another example, a colleague was instructed by a superior “to remove the bagged diaries from the officers’ possession and lock them in his van”.

Marie Bourke, a senior associate at law firm Russell Cooke who was not involved in …

July 9, 2021 No Comments

Community

Sign petition now to delete anti-van clause from Police Bill

A new law aimed at protesters will allow police to seize thousands of vans parked anywhere in the UK, other than designated camping sites.
The new Police Bill is aimed at reducing the right to protest in the UK – but hidden away in Clause 4 of the Bill, is a chilling assault on all who live in vans, campervans and other recreational vehicles. Even those who want to stay in a van for a few weeks over the summer will be adversely affected.

Please sign our parliamentary petition, while the Bill is currently being debated in the House of Commons, so MPs can hear direct from voters what they must do to amend the proposed law.

Under the guise of attacking protest camps, the anti-vanlife law threatens anyone who wants to park up for few days or a few weeks on someone else’s land – whether that be a council-owned lay-by, or behind a hedge in an unused field.

Parliamentary Researchers have published a briefing document on “Public Order and Unauthorised Encampments” which makes it clear that the aim of the legislation is to “deter trespassers from setting up an unauthorised encampment,” even if it is for a few people for a few weeks.

At a time when the tourist industry is still hampered by Covid, with camp sites full to overflowing, and a wave of evictions is likely to hit those who have been unable to earn their rent for the past year, this new law is guaranteed to increase homelessness in the UK and reduce the ability of thousands of individuals to live off-grid, while still earning wages through remote working or driving to work.

Legislation details

The 2021 Police Bill is currently going through its Committee stage in the commons. It will strengthen police powers to tackle unauthorised encampments that “significantly interfere with a person’s or community’s ability to make use of land.” Imagine three camper vans parked on a street. Do they significantly interfere with ability to make use of that street? That will leave everything to the judgement of local people who want to complain, and local police who have to enforce the law.

The proposed powers will come into effect when:

A person aged 18 or over resides or intends to reside on land without consent of the occupier of the land;
They have, or intend to have, at least one vehicle with them on the land;
They have caused or are likely to cause significant damage, disruption or distress;
Persons fail to leave the land and remove their property following a request to do so;
Persons enter or return to the land with an intention of residing there without the consent of the occupier of the land, and with an intention to have at least one vehicle with them, within 12 months of a request to leave.

This new …

June 21, 2021 2 Comments

Map pointers show where off-grid people live

Community

Using our Landbuddy Map – new video

Our Landbuddy section is one of this web site’s features most valued by our readers. Now we have released a video to explain how to use it.

It allows people with land to contact people looking for land, and vice versa – there is also a third category for people who just want to help out – perhaps at an off-grid community near them.

Landbuddy is a browsable map – which means you can zoom in on the area you are interested to explore and then find like-minded people who are advertising.

We hope you find it useful. Please contact us with any comments or leave them on the site – and please be in touch with any videos or stills of your off-grid life – send any news stories to news@off-grid.net…

June 9, 2021 2 Comments

Community

Liana Cornell, actress-activist, on her new Eco-TV series

In real life, the actress Liana Cornell –co- star of the Amazon and Sky TV series Britannia – is living off the grid in Cornwall, UK. She is a strong woman – not afraid to turf her boyfriend out of the house while she carries out our zoom interview. And she plays a strong woman in Britannia – a Roman epic set in 43AD and featuring a number of powerful female lead roles. Recently the 31-year-old sat down to discuss her new eco-documentary series, Refugia, with off-grid.net.

The remarkable pledge Liana has made to herself is that all her acting revenue beyond what she actually needs to survive is ploughed back into causes she believes in – including environmental activism – either through her films, of which more in a moment or the activities of the people she makes the films about.

“I’ve done a lot of environmental work throughout my life, and there was this gap between people doing the work and people who could donate. That was where Refugia comes in.” Its a 3 part series on WaterBear which she wrote, shot and presented herself – made to support and draw attention to some amazing environmental initiatives (until now in Australia but in future around the world).

“I wanted to create something to pull back the curtains and show how they are doing the work – truly good work.” She said. “They don’t have the time and funds” to get more funding.

As well as publicising the characters in her eco-series, she also finances them. you see her presenting cash to individuals she meets during the series. “We have helped to buy back a rainforest in North Queensland and replant it; create a seaweed forest and (sequester) Carbon (by growing) hemp.”

“There are 25 different things we have done with that money.” She is particularly excited about Hemp, which has long been illegal but is now being rehabilitated in the new pro-cannabis climate in America, although not in the UK.

Off-Grid living

Liana is from a well-known acting family in Australia, and was brought up in a coastal rainforest town, with much of the property off the grid. “I enjoy the idea of being off-grid – when we had the fires in Australia my family (in different houses) still had electricity and our own water.”

She told me she had found herself in the UK at the start of lockdown last February 2020 – and would have decided to stay anyway – even without the shoot for Britannia series 3. Her significant other used to live in a van, and he now shares the smallholding they found together in a hidden part of UK’s wildest and most remote county.

Liana’s voyage of discovery filming Refugia was also a voyage of self discovery. “I lay in a sleeping bag with a knife on my chest, coyotes and mountain …

June 2, 2021 No Comments

All you need to go off-grid

Nick Rosen

Off-Grid farm to double in size – if it can raise money by 26 April

“Quantum Leap Needed” To Avoid Global Warming – Grid To Blame

Small Growers Deserve Same Green Subsidies As Farmers

Brilliant Research Intern Wanted

Inflation Reduction Act Actually Causing Inflation

Queues Around the Planet for Grid Connections

If you take the dime, you gotta take the crime

Off-Grid campaign for Renewable Micro-Grids

UK Parliamentary Petition

Decarbonise UK energy by funding locally-owned renewable micro-grids

At 10,000 signatures…

At 100,000 signatures…

Share this petition

Nick Rosen

18 February 2022

No Directors Prosecuted for Deliberate Sewage Dumping by Southern Water

Sign petition now to delete anti-van clause from Police Bill

Using our Landbuddy Map – new video

Liana Cornell, actress-activist, on her new Eco-TV series

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Nick Rosen

UK Parliamentary Petition

Decarbonise UK energy by funding locally-owned renewable micro-grids

At 10,000 signatures…

At 100,000 signatures…

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Nick Rosen

18 February 2022

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