Off-Grid 101
Cell-phone base stations
The phone industry’s efforts to put cellphone base stations everywhere is spurring advances in renewable power…
September 27, 2008
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The phone industry’s efforts to put cellphone base stations everywhere is spurring advances in renewable power…
From big oil to big wave The data centres at the heart of the global Internet may soon all be off-grid. Google has filed a patent for a datacentre that uses wave motion to power on-board computers and the ocean’s water to cool them
The search giant has filed a patent for a ‘floating datacentre’ that uses wave motion to power on-board computers and the ocean’s water to cool them.…
Freedom: Secret is in the water FREEDOM BEER, which was kind enough to provide 50 cases of its amber nectar for the launch last year of “How to live Off-Grid” by Nick Rosen, gets its key ingredient from an off-grid source. The entire water supply at the Midlands base of the organic beer company is now from a local underground lake.
And the couple who took over the brewery earlier this year are celebrating after being ‘highly commended’ in a top industry awards ceremony.
Susan and Edward Mayman officially relaunched the brand at the end of August.…
https://wretha.googlepages.com/ClayPotFilter_final_web.pdf
I should get paid for researching on the internet… I don’t know how I do it, but I almost always seem to find what I am looking for, sometimes it happens like this time, while looking for something else, I run across something that I have been previously trying to find. Today, while looking up another person who writes on off-grid subjects, one of her articles turned out to be exactly what I have been looking for, a way to make your own terracotta pot for a water filter, this has an actual recipe for the clay, you don’t need a kiln (a MAJOR plus!) and I believe most people would be able to do this. Here is the article, it can be found here https://off-grid.net/2008/06/19/cheap-water-filter-for-everyone/
check it out!
Cheap Water Filter for Everyone
The Australian National University (ANU) scientist Tony Flynn has developed a process to create water filters from commonly available materials. The materials need to also be fired, which can be done without a kiln or other western technology, by using common manure.An estimated 80% of all sickness in this world can be attributed to unsafe water and sanitation according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That can be seen in the annual 1.5 billion episodes of diarrhea in children under the age of 5, with about four million of those being fatal.Since historically water filters have had to be imported to developing nations, which means increased cost and reduced availability for the populace. With the new filter design made from common place materials available in even the most remote places.“These filters are a hollow ceramic vessel filled with charcoal. They are intended to filter out suspended silt and bacteria. However, at around $US5 each, they’re too expensive for individuals in many developing communities to consider purchasing,” stated Mr Flynn. “They are very simple to explain and demonstrate and can be made by anyone, anywhere. They don’t require any Western technology. All you need is terracotta clay, some used coffee grounds or tea leaves, a compliant cow and a match,” Mr Flynn continued “Everyone has a right to clean water, these filters have the potential to enable anyone in the world to drink water safely.”Filter production is simple:
- A handful of crushed dry clay
- A handful of common organic material, such as coffee grounds, rice hulls, or used tea leaves
- Add water, just enough to make a stiff biscuit dough like mixture
- Shape into a cylinder shaped pot closed on one end
- Dry it in sun
- Place dried filter on a layer of
Perrey in red, and mum in white Perrey Reeves who plays Mrs. Ari Gold in Entourage on HBO is in real life no power-hungry toady, but an off-grid fanatic.
Born in New York and raised in New Hampshire, Reeves, who does not disclose her age, now spends her leisure time in Montezuma, Costa Rica – a small, hippyish town on the coast with the best ice cream ever, well worth the two day journey it takes normal people to get there. …
OK, so you have a property, but no home on it, or maybe you have been looking for land, a place away from the city, away from the crowds, but if it already has a home on it, the price skyrockets, you could afford to get land with no home, now what? Assuming your land (or potential land) is located in a place with no or few building codes, you can build your own home, that’s what we did, and we were able to use recycled materials, making the costs minimal. Bob didn’t have a “plan”, though he had a rough idea of what he wanted to end up with. For those with no idea how to start, I have found a couple of small home plans to get you started, these are designed to be low cost and easy to build, you can use new materials, used materials or a combination of each. Here are the links:
All is well here on the mountain, my Dad is enjoying the peace and solitude, and the various animals running around. A couple of days ago a herd of donkeys strolled through behind the cabin, we counted 9 of them, it was quite exciting to see them up close and personal, it’s amazing how large they really are, they aren’t the small burro variety, these are nearly as big as a horse.
The mule deer are starting to come down to the lower elevations, we have seen many of them walking around too, I even saw “Notch” a couple of days ago (Notch is a female mule deer, she has a distinctive notch in her ear and is easy to pick out from the other deer), I haven’t seen her in over a month, I was very happy to see that she is alive and well.
My garden is doing pretty good, through some of the plants are looking rather ratty, I have let the spinach and some of the lettuce go to seed, they are looking particularly tattered, but I’ll get some good seed from them. I noticed that I am getting blossom end rot on my tomatoes, I looked it up today to see what I can do about it, it seems that it’s caused by a lack of calcium and/or low moisture, since we have been getting plenty of rain, that leaves the calcium issue. So I took a hand full of Tums (the green ones that Bob doesn’t like), I crushed them up, next I added a cup (or so) of powdered milk and about half a cup of Epsom salt, I mixed it all together and put a handful at the base of each tomato plant, it began to rain as I was walking back to the cabin so it should get watered in good, hopefully this will do the trick, the Tums are rich in calcium, the milk has calcium too, the Epsom salt has magnesium in it, that is needed for the plant to be able to take up and use the calcium. This fall and winter, when the garden is done, I really need to get some good stuff into the earth, I know a lady on the next mountain who has a horse, she said I could have all the manure I want, I’m sure I’ll take advantage of her offer… :)
Bob’s son came by yesterday and spent the night, he had to leave today, but it was a good visit. His son is in the Marines, he is stationed in California, he got a few days off, flew to Dallas, visited his mom and other family, got his truck and a few of his things that he had left behind, he drove to our place, got here yesterday evening, made it in good time. I was very …
Cash-strapped teacher Kath Kelly claims she has been living on just £1 ($1.70) a day for the past year. And she has written a book about it.
Miss Kelly, 47, ate at free buffets, shopped at jumble sales and scavenged food discarded by grocery stores and restaurants.…
Warmth and comfort not optional Start by calculating how much energy your home is consuming and what you can save by changing your habits and retrofitting your home. Online aids, like the Home Energy Saver in the US (hes.lbl.gov) or the Energy Star web site or Canada’s Natural Resources home heating calculator (www.canren.gc.ca) are invaluable.
The next step is to calculate the return on investment of generating your own energy, beginning with the simplest technologies and those that give the biggest immediate bang for the buck.…
Silas – skating high One of the world’s top skateboarders comes from an off-grid background in Eugene, Oregon. He talked frankly about his life off-grid, and drugs and skating to Thrasher magazine’s Jake Phelps:
Of his time in Oregon he says:
I stuck around until I was 18 or 19 before I moved out. Acid is cheaper and easier to get than beer, or it used to be. I don’t know if it is anymore, but it was for a while, when The Dead shows came through and we had the summer festival country fair. We’d have all these roving bands with vagrant hippies coming through, trying to make money and selling hits for a buck or two.
Q: Coming from a hippie culture, do you feel like you’re more open to people, or are you more reserved?
A little of both. I’m pretty open to most people, but I feel tons of resentment towards the drug-dealing fucking scum hippies. I don’t like being called a hippie because I don’t like being associated with that crowd. I guess I kind of have a reservation towards that, but I’m open towards most people.
Jaya said in an interview one time, “My parents are hippies, but they’re not dirty hippies.” If your parents are free-thinking people, that’s always good.
They try to live off the land and have property, get off the grid. When they had kids, they were like, “We don’t want to raise our kids with a bunch of rednecks.” That’s the school system up there, and they didn’t want to home school us, so we moved.
Meth’s big up there too.
Yep, meth’s real big. A lot of tweakers. It’s crazy to think that in a place so pristine and natural, some people become tazed by something so fucking violent.
But it’s like that everywhere. You know, you’ve been all throughout Montana, and it’s the most beautiful place, but you also run into the most backwards, fucked-up redneck tweaker dudes ever. It just comes with the territory. Getting away from the mainstream and the cities and getting into the woods, it brings in all sorts of different people. It brings in the hippies who wanna chill, and it brings in the tweakers, too.
What do you think about skaters who wear jewelry?
Well, I wear rings and I have a necklace, but I don’t wear bling. It seems like it’d be hard to skate with, but we’re in a time in skating where you’re not just skateboarding. You’re everything, and so if you’re trying to personify a thug look–if that’s what you’re into–then I guess when you’re off your board …
… You better rock it.
Yeah, exactly. If that’s what you’re into, whatever. It seems silly to me. If you were to have an iced-out necklace, what would it be?
Maybe something that has to do with …
Your own architect designed eco home for as little as $70,000. Yes really, and coming soon to a tourist resort near you.…
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