So here’s the dilemma. You compost, you recycle, get off the grid when you can, maybe even bought a fuel efficient car, getting 30+ mpg. But every day as you fill up on $2+ / gallon gas, you wonder if there is something else you can do to offset your emissions. Not everyone is into diesels and vegetable oil. Along comes Tom Arnold of TerraPass, a student owned and operated company.…
The off-grid world is going mainstream in the US, as this story shows – reprinted from the Chicago Tribune March 8th and LA Times, April, yes April, 10th —
More warming to off-grid living
People who live without access to the electric grid that powers most homes don’t have to exist like rural pioneers, thanks to solar energy and other alternatives
By Clarke Canfield
Associated Press
Published March 7, 2005
BINGHAM, Maine — Just because Richard Roberts and Martha Maloney live more than two miles from the nearest power line doesn’t mean they have to read by candlelight and take cold showers.
One day this winter, with the temperature at 8 degrees and whipping winds making it feel 20 degrees colder, Roberts and Maloney were warmed by the fire in their 25-year-old wood-burning stove and the heat from three propane heaters.…
Daryl Hannah has a massive commitment to the environment, and unusually amongst the Hollywood A-list, she puts in real time and effort to forward her beliefs. In this exclusive interview she spoke to Off-Grid’s Steve Spence. Off-Grid 2005
Actress Daryl Hannah is often referred to as the Blonde Goddess of Hollywood, but as far as we’re concerned she’s the Green Goddess of the Rocky Mountains. Hannah lives there, off the grid, and she spoke to us about her setup and why she got into that life. The details were fascinating, from the technology of her farm-tractor to the soft couch in her living room made of moss covered stone.
She was in New York with Charris Ford who has lived off-grid for the past 18 years. They are on a tour to promote use of bio-diesel fuel, one of the issues that most concerns her. She started learning about the environment as a pre-teen, and she found nature to be the thing that has centered her, where she can think about things.
Charris, who runs Grassolean Solutions , got Daryl into bio-diesel as a way of reducing energy consumption on the planet, and now, as is well known she drives a bio-El Camino as well as running a bio-truck, and a bio-tractor on her farm in the Rockies.
But Hannah is not a one-issue campaigner. Her whole way of being is all about the interconnectedness of things and her favourite saying is on that theme: …
We have all had to do it at one time or another, and some do it out of choice. Sleepinginairports.net is an essential travel companion when you are trying to save a few dollars on your way round the world. Its as off the grid as you can get.
Sleeping in airports is often the only answer and sometimes the cheapest answer when you have an early morning flight. After all, airports are safer and more comfortable than some hotels. This site is a useful guide to the sleeping facilities in most of the world’s major airports and many of its minor ones.…
The Triodos Bank is one of few UK lenders to look kindly on loans for off-grid properties. Borrowing on unusual properties is made harder by big lenders like Nationwide and Halifax — they charge extra-high interest rates for the loans, while the Triodos offers a normal rate — for them the use of solar and wind energy is a plus.
While it is unlikely you will find cheap loans on Green properties, there are also a few local councils, for example Burnley’s Community Credit Union, offering averagely-priced loans for home improvements to save energy — but none are as wide-ranging as The Ecology which is “dedicated to improving the environment by promoting sustainable housing and sustainable communities.” The building society is focused on energy efficient housing; ecological renovation; derelict and dilapidated properties; small-scale and ecological enterprise and low-impact lifestyles (i.e.providing finance to those living off the grid).
The Ecology granted its first discount mortgage on an earth-sheltered dwelling in 1998. Earth sheltering combines low energy use and minimal disruption to land and flora. The mortgaged property forms part of the Hockerton Housing Project in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, one of the most advanced developments in sustainable housing in Europe. …
Super-chef Jamie Oliver, whose new series about school dinners just launched on UK Channel 4, is preparing live off-grid for a few months. This is said to be his next project, but it is completely under wraps and his office have not confirmed the story. The detailed planning began some time ago. It is just one more example of the way the off-grid life is becoming mainstream.
After years of making TV series teaching other people how to cook, Jamie is now a national hero, as our picture shows. But he is frankly exhausted. So he has decided to take his family to Italy and tour the country in a camper van. He has set no time limit on this adventure. …
Many folks are familiar with the concept of a Geodesic Dome, and the great advantages of strength and minimal materials,
but most have not heard of a Geodesic Quonset, that also brings along many of the same advantages. It’s great for connecting domes, standalone as an emergency shelter, garage, or greenhouse. We built one recently, with a length of 60′, a width of 15′, and a pre-sidewall height of 7.5′. Less than 100 man hours to build, and a materials cost of less than $500 (plastic sheathing) , it’s extremely strong and functional. We built this structure using new 1″x6″ green lumber (1″x4″ was originally specified), but since all the pieces are less than 4′ in length, waste/scrap or recycled lumber would be ideal. All the pieces were screwed together using a power screwdriver and 3″ wood screws, 5 to a connection.…
by Sarah Brown
Four days and nights alone in the California desert without food or shelter is not everyone’s idea of a good time, but for the vision questers of the School of Lost Borders, the gruelling ceremony is spirituality off-grid, an ancient rite for modern times, which generates a powerful experience of self and spirit, carried out far beyond the reach of organised religion.
The School of Lost Borders, based in the Eastern Californian Sierra in the “land of little rain” has offered rites of initiation for over 30 years to thousands of spiritual adventurers whose lives are in transition. …
Moira Cruickshanks of Imperial College London Engineering Department answers your questions on Geothermal Energy next week in our forum. Here she introduces ways you can use Geothermal Energy.
Post your questions for Moira in the Off-Grid Forum.
Geothermal energy is heat from the Earth. On a large scale, geothermal power plants generate electricity using naturally heated groundwater and steam from deep in the ground to turn turbines.
But we can also use geothermal on a small scale to heat our homes, schools and offices, although it is not yet an off-grid technology. If you want to supplement your grid energy with a renewable off-grid supply, either taking advantage of natural hotspots in the Earth or using the constant temperature of the planet to regulate interior temperatures, you will need to make an initial investment in the technology, and the scale is more for a community than a single home.
It is not quite as easy as plugging a wire into the earth and then lying back and toasting your toes but almost. Go to our Forum to ask questions and get answers on installing Geothermal: https://off-grid.net/index.php?cat=30…
Here on our off-grid homestead, we use PV panels as part of our energy solution. PV takes the energy in the sun’s light, and converts it directly to DC electricity for battery charging. A inverter then takes the low voltage DC, and converts it to 120vac house current. In other countries, it may be converted to 220vac. The number of PV panels you need is determined by your electrical usage, and the part of the world you live in. We get 2.5 full sun hours a day, another area might get 6, so they would need fewer panels than we do for the same load. A good beginner’s tutorial can be found here . It’s a PDF, and requires Adobe Acrobat.…
CHARLEY Boorman went off-grid with best friend Ewan McGregor but has not been able to find work since.
Since the pair returned from their motorcycle journey in aid of UNICEF, very few job offers have come his way. Charley has had to make do with promoting the DVD and book of the pair’s Long Way Round adventure.
McGregor, on the other hand, is one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. He is currently in Los Angeles filming the sci-fi thriller The Island with Scarlett Johansson. …
In pristine northern Vermont, tucked in the woods, David and Mary Lahar have lived off the electricity grid since moving to their new home in Strafford in 1984. As David reports, concern for the environment and interest in alternative energy technologies were the underlying forces behind their home-building decision. The Lahars obtain between 75 and 80 percent of their electricity from wind, with the rest coming from solar panels.
They use wood for heating and use propane for instantaneous hot water, as a back-up heating source, and for cooking. The Lahars keep their electric needs modest, but recently David has considered putting up a larger wind turbine to provide for his family’s growing needs.
When choosing a lot for the 1,700-foot timber-constructed home, wind was a primary consideration. The Lahars conducted wind tests for a month before they made a final decision. An average of 8 mile per hour (mph) winds are enough to get the turbine paddles moving, and the site they finally chose for their wind turbine on Mount Mansfield has regular 10 mph winds. They constructed a 100-foot platform to raise the windmill above the tree line in an attempt to further capture the wind and installed a Sencenbaugh 1.2 kilowatt wind turbine with 13-foot blades.…
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