Posts from — February 2005

Moira Cruickshanks Geothermal Q&A

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: http://www.off-grid.net/index.php?cat=30 (more…)

Alcohol Still

Ethanol is produced from starch-based grains, including corn, barley, grass straw and fast growing poplar trees, and is a replacement or additive for gasoline. Ethanol is made using a process called fermentation.

Biodiesel Powered Bus

Bio-diesel, a clean burning, renewable diesel fuel substitute or additive, can be made from oil-seed crops, animal fat or vegetable oil. In the US, farmers grow mostly soybeans for bio-diesel, but canola or mustard seed are also viable feed stocks. Used fryer oil can replace about 5% of the diesel fuel used in transportation. Bio-diesel is made by chemically reacting lye and methanol with the animal or vegetable based oils and fats.

More info:

Planting the biofuel seed

Bio-fuel Tutorials

From http://www.hydrodelta.com/:

Horizontal Loop GSHP

Anyone who has a refrigerator

or air conditioner is already familiar with the operation of a geothermal heat pump. Contrary to common belief, cold is not something that is produced, but is a condition that results when heat has been removed. If you remember your high school physics class, you know that heat is produced by a molecular motion. All substances are made up of tiny molecules that are in a state of rapid motion. As the temperature of a substance is increased, the molecular motion increases, and as the temperature decreases, the molecular motion decreases. Molecules move faster on a warm surface than on a cool surface. Heat will flow from a warm substance to a cool substance. Reminder: Second Law of Thermodynamics.

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Charris Ford (aka the Granola Ayatollah of Canola)

My passion for all things Eco started when I was 18 in the hills of Tennessee, where I spent ten years running the family’s Organic farm, living with solar power home, harvesting rainwater, chopping wood and hauling spring water. I have lived off grid for nearly 20 years.

I was a student of Permaculture and apprenticed with members of a nearby Amish community. The Amish taught me how to work my team of Belgian horses and they reinforced my love for doing things by hand. My fondest memories of Tennessee are of driving the horse drawn wagon, mowing with a scythe and foraging for wild food & alternative medicine. (more…)

Daryl Hannah outside her Tipi (Jeff Lipsky)

Actress Daryl Hannah gave us an in-depth interview about her Rocky Mountain hideaway and why she likes to go off-grid. We will publish the whole interview next week, and meanwhile here is one of Daryl’s favorite photos of herself. I have a nice picture of me in front of my Tipi, she told us. You can’t really see my face that well, but I like it.

The shot was taken by ace portrait photographer Jeff Lipsky, and we think its totally stylish. Although if Daryl likes it, that’s good enough for us.

Keep coming back to the site to read the interview with Daryl in a few days, plus another exclusive photo.

Moonrise

Photographer Colin Prior, who took this photograph says: I am fascinated by the fleeting nature of the optical phenomena I observe outdoors, such as rainbows, the Aurora borealis (northern lights) or an eclipse.

During my time in wild places, I have been privileged to witness some great rarities — including a white rainbow, the Earth Shadow, a Brockenspectre, the green flash of a setting sun and the Fata Morgana (a mirage) in the Arctic Circle. Each of these phenomena presents their own
unique photographic challenges and for a photographer, require an
understanding of the factors, which create them.

Rainbows are coloured arcs with a radius of 42 degrees around the antisolar point that appear directly opposite the sun. A fainter secondary arc can occur at 51 degrees and when both primary and secondary are present we have a ‘double rainbow.’ Viewed from an aircraft, a rainbow can inscribe a complete circle not visible at ground level. Rainbows can be found in
unexpected places such as waterfalls or geysers. At the beach we can see ‘surf bows’ and there is a ‘marine bow’ formed from the prow of a ship. Whether it is formed in the spray from your garden hose held at arms length, or in a sheet of rain a few miles away, the angular size of a bow remains the same.

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