Posts from — December 2006

Hide your light in a bushel

Now I know we’re are all scared of the dark these days, but the best way to cut the energy used in lighting is to have none of it — or very little. Motion sensors can be a good way to keep lights turned off when they’re not needed. Dimmers can give you just the right amount, and timers can turn lights on and off when needed.

For the light you do need, changing the bulbs and fixtures can go a long way to saving money and greening your home. In future – think CFL and LED – a conventional incandescent bulb turns only around five to ten percent of its consumed energy into light, the rest goes out as heat. (more…)

Shhh! I’m meditating

Lydia Polzer spent last Christmas on an intense 10-day retreat – you can still book yourself in for this year.

Ever since I lost my childish thrill about everything sparkling, Christmas lost its, well, sparkle. So I was relieved to find a low-impact alternative to crackers and stockings last year on a hill near Sheringham in rural East Anglia. A 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat does add a new dimension to Silent Night. Using their meditation techniques, the Christmas period in noble silence sounded like music to my carol-worn ears. I added up the hours to learn meditation on the daily schedule of the retreat and felt a little intimidated when I got to eleven.

That’s a lot of silence. (more…)

Kate and William at sea

Prince Charles of England is planning to present his son with a $10 million off-grid home as an engagement gift.

Charles is personally overseeing the plans for the eco-palace where heir to the throne William will eventually move when he marries Kate Middleton. Neither Kate nor William are known for their interest in the environment.

The mansion in Herefordshire will be packed with eco-friendly features including solar powered heating, wood chip boilers and insulation made of sheep’s wool. Floors, window frames and doors are all to be made from oak, fir and larch wood from Charles’s estate. An on-site eco-sewage works will filter waste through a bed of reeds. (more…)

Making solar popcorn

When the oil runs out, Bob Fiske will be ready. He talks us through some of the essential gizmos and gadgets for a life unplugged, items such as a self-powered fridge, a solar cooker, a cool tube, and Active solar lighting.

There are certain major areas of preparation I would focus on for a time when our fossil fuels are effectively spent or are at least out of the common person’s reach anymore. These aren’t supposed to be the ‘Global Solution’, but are small, numerous and repeatable by everyday folk, such that word of them and designs would be easily shared, if people saw them as successful and attainable.

First, though not necessarily more important, would be a range of ways to divest a household and a town from external energy imports, and I list some examples below. (more…)

Man with a Plan

Thomas Homer Dixon would approve of grid tie solar systems. These are sets of solar panels, batteries and inverters which power a house but also export their surplus energy onto the grid.

Homer-Dixon’s big idea is resilience the need for society to improve its capacity to withstand shocks like power cuts, food shortages and terrorist attacks. He has just published a monumental book on the subject called The Upside of Down, the fruits of 5 years research.

It sketches out the main threats facing us today, and the actions we all need to take to avert collapse of civilisation.

(The “Upside” of the title is that there are things we can do to make the collapse more tolerable, when it comes) But Homer-Dixon is not a survivalist. He is not even into the idea of living 100% off-grid. Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Toronto, he is an authority on what he calls social adaptation to complex stress. With his academic hat on he says the probability of complete breakdown of civilisation over the next 50 years is a relatively high 50%. Speaking as a human being and a father of a 20 month old son he told me I wouldn’t be surprised if we see something really bad in the next twenty years. (more…)

Dean Kamen’s off-grid island, near New York

A great interview on news.com with Dean Kamen, inventor of the ill-fated Segway personal transporter.

We sincerely wish Dean better luck with his next two big ideas  a gadget for serving clean water to some billion people who would die without it each year, and a box the size of a dishwasher that delivers an off-grid source of electricity.

Dean plans to sell both these gadgets throughout the developing world using micro-financing to enable small businesses to distribute his products. It’s a bit like a franchising operation, but with a heart. (more…)

It’s cold outside

Wood is the oldest form of renewable energy. Wood pellets or chips makes it a more sustainable fuel, and more efficient. Using wood to heat your water and your house is a sensible precaution against shortages of other fuels.

- Wood pellet boilers make use of what is probably the most convenient fuel in a home setting. It is necessary to manufacture the fuel, so it is not the same as natural wood, but with a maximum water content of 10% and a high density, there is less storage space needed, lower transport costs, and higher boiler efficiency – around 90%. (more…)