Off-Grid living in the UK

How many people are living off the grid in the UK? In 2010 Off-Grid.net estimated there were 100,000 living off the grid in the UK.…

Off-grid communities at sea

Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel has made his second donation to the Seasteading Institute which is setting up libertarian countries on artificial islands. How Hurriacane Irene…

Homesteading-book review

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you…

Going fridgless

Going fridgless, to most people would be paramount to going topless, many people couldn’t imagine living their lives without having a 19+/- cubic foot energy…

Coming soon: American Riots

Legalizing all drugs is the only way to smash gang culture in our city centers. Until that happens there will be gangs and there will be riots

Solar Energy on Dragons Den

The  BBC’s top-rated TV show Dragons’ Den gave a cautious thumbs-up to Solar in the first show of its new series.  But the valuation they…

Global Storming

2010 was the wettest year since records began. And it was not just the amount of rain and snow, but the intensity which increased

Can do

Can-It-Forward Day, Aug 13, when home canners can connect through a national circuit of parties and social-media activities

Satcon Inverters accused of fraud

The bottom is dropping out of the market for large-scale inverters as government subsidies for renewable energy are lowered worldwide. America’s largest inverter company, Satcon…

Unlimited smartphone plans

From this month new Verizon Wireless customers kissed goodbye to unlimited data plans. But what effect does this have on existing customers? Can off-grid people…

Energy Design Service

https://www.off-grid 200W Portable Power Station, Powkey 120Wh/33,000mAh Power Bank with AC Outlet, 110V 6 Outputs Solar Generator External Battery Pack with LED Light for Home…

No knead bread

I love making and baking bread, who doesn’t enjoy eating fresh, homemade bread hot from the oven? The problem is the time it takes to…

Vodafone African off-grid tests

Vodafone is set to announce it will build one of Africa’s greenest commercial buildings as a base for testing new ways of using renewable energy…

DIY rocket stove

I like rocket stoves, these are usually small, usually portable, mini-cooking-heating devices that are very efficient. You can use twigs instead of larger pieces of…

Co-generation in small-town America

Ah, the irony. In San Andreas, CA, atop a possible earthquake of cataclysmic proportions, the town is adopting the latest distributed power generation technologies. Someday…

Let him live in peace!

Would not clear the weeds from his land, so it was done for him and he was charged $71,000. Now home siezed to pay bill

Euro power grid plan

German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle has called for expansion of the European power grid to be accelerated, to allow cross-border power trading in electricity. This…

Life in the slow lane

Not only the shallow lives people live today, also I'm pained by the fact that everyone seems to have lost their connection with each other.

Urban Danger

"Civil unrest could be a very high probability," says a ten-term US congressman from Maryland. "....those who understand, need to take advantage of this opportunity when the winds of strife are not blowing to move their families out of the city."

Chassidy gets a Headcold

Chassidy Fitkin is learning to be a herbalist. She continues her diary of discovery as she dumps the MD and conquers, you guessed it, a headcold

Back to my Roots

Native American's are off the grid by design, and I've always felt connected to that; its where I come from. My great grandmother lived in a hut, with dirt floors and we wore moccasins as to not disturb her floor

Bulk food supplies

With food prices going up and up with no end in sight, some of us have already started buying extra food to put away for…

Off-gridders flee ‘solar Katrina’

One Florida family has bought an old chicken coop in West Virginia as an off-grid bolt hole fearing solar storms that could do twenty times more damage than hurricane Katrina

Less is More

Someone very close to me spent over a year trying to convince me to quit my job, sell off most of my belongings and set sail on a lifetime of boating with him. I resisted

Gratzel solar cells

Gratzel solar cell imitates Nature's way of converting sunlight to energy and is slowly making its debut in a variety of products

Off The Grid in Oklahoma

Just getting started on my project.  We have twenty acres down on the Salt Fork of the Oklahoma Red River.  The view is worth all…

Solar cell efficiency set to double

High solar PV project costs, high cell/module production costs and increasing land acquisition costs are key factors slowing solar cell manufacturer's research on solar cell/module efficiency.

Food and medicine

People, it’s time to stock up on what you can now, things aren’t getting any better, and our money is losing value every day. The…

Solar powered rainwater pump

Pumps up to 100 gallons on a single charge and runs off of a solar rechargeable NiMH battery. Adaptable to most style rain barrels

Chinese greener than US

The common perception of China is a culture so hell-bent on economic growth that it doesn’t have time for the luxury of environmental awareness. That…

Daryl Hannah slams Steven Chu

Says Mexico Climate Change conference center is over-air-conditioned and condemns Chu for proposing "nothing concrete" in his keynote speech.

Can this bucket save the world?

Pieter Hoff's Groais is an off-grid tree incubator that could help reforest an area the size of Canada wiping out our carbon emissions in the process.

Small house, big movement

Americans have overhoused themselves for decades. Now they are buying or building small homes that could fit inside a living room

Joan Baez recovers from tree-house fall

"I sleep in a tree all summer long," Baez said 2008. "I climb up on a ladder, with ropes and things. The birds are right there in the morning. Sometimes they're flying so close to my head, I can feel the wind."

Dehydrate your own chicken

I found this today on YouTube, these guys are dehydrating chicken, it looks very simple and I suspect you could do this with other meats…

Wind turbines 101

Wind turbines can be an efficient way of providing clean and renewable energy for your home.  There are a number of small wind energy devices…

PhD in living off-grid?

Here are two University press releases issued today that may be useful if you live in Iowa or Texas. DES MOINES, Iowa, Nov. 3 —…

Can solar crash the grid?

Uptake of solar in Germany has been so great that the sudden appearance of the sun could generate so much power that it blows the county's grid.

Off-Grid updates

My off-grid life is more enjoyable and more fulfilling than just about any part of my old life – living in the city, working 2…

Tankless water heaters

In my experience tankless water heaters are the way to go in areas with little sun. In sunny areas, water can act as an energy…

LPG Generators

Green Power gensets - CC5000 series with Single-Phase Synchronous Brush Alternators

How to avoid foreclosure

Most who cannot afford their mortgage might think, "well, I can't afford a lawyer either." Its OK, you don't need one

Yak wool power plant

The umbrella-like design uses yak wool and a cheap Chinese insulation fabric with unusually high reflectivity to focus the sun's rays and generate about 11 watts of power

Small is the new big

One of our readers commented recently "It's sad that municipalities force people into huge homes, by refusing to let people build small homes. It's all about the money (taxes) that they want to rake in."

NPower rips its customers again

One of the UK’s biggest power companies has been caught with its hand in its customers pockets –again, and has been forced by regulators to…

The Flintstones 50th

Early-modern consumers yearned to return to nature, sensing somewhere along the way, America had taken the wrong turn

Bloom Box rolls out second wave

Bloom Energy has maintained a low profile since its highly orchestrated news conference, chaired by John Doerr,  raising the curtain on its fuel cell technology…

Solar Flare could kill the Grid

One of the biggest dangers to the grid is bothering the British Secretary of Defense Liam Fox. Today he warns that the electricity grid, financial…

For millions, nowhere to turn

With 15 percent of all household loans are already past-due or in foreclosure, off-grid living is the only solution for many Americans.

National Grid scams consumers

"Red flag" expenses include $35,700 tuition bill for an executive's children, $1,200 for shipping a wine collection from the UK, and $1,200 for cat transportation.

Pay it Back (avoid the double dip)

Workers in the financial sector whose companies reported large writedowns post-2009 should be forced to pay back their bonuses, thereby strengthening liquidity.

Justin’s just lovin’ his greens

‘Sexyback’ singer Justin Timberlake this week re-opened his luxury ‘eco-friendly’ golf course in Memphis Tennessee  after investing millions of dollars on an environmental upgrade. Note…

Earth Balls

A low-cost, off-the-grid, dome-like housing option, adapted for living on water.

Wow, what a rain!

Living in the high desert means having to deal with long periods of dry weather punctuated by periods of mega-rains. We got one of those…

Permaculture Truffle Growing

Hazel trees inoculated with summer truffle yield 64-288kg of truffles per tree at an average wholesale price of $420 (£280) per kilo.

What to wear for the Apocalypse

TV survival show "The Colony" is stocked with ridiculously good-looking inmates who must survive a global catastrophe. They should try living off-grid!

Party like its 1929

As the Banksters continue to draw their massive paychecks, the rest of us are hunkering down for what looks increasingly like the end of economic growth