Nirvana - at a price
The summer solstice on June 21 marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the Summer of Love. Mid-1967, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco was teeming with close to 100,000 marijuana-smoking, acid-dropping, flower powerful baby boomers. Did you miss out on the ’60s? You could buy a piece of it at £150-per-ticket Glastonbury this year. Stella McCartney is selling Beatles-style tie-dye t-shirts in aid of Oxfam.

At the first Glasto in 1971 tickets were £1 and milk was distributed free. How times have changed.
>>Keep reading “Hippy times are here again”

Surf the web like this!
Not long ago, we brought you a story on how to get a telephone line to your off-grid palace in multiple ways (Ssstay connected). Now a California company has introduced a product that will help you get internet access, and through it the possibility of an IP-phone, powered by solar power!

What the Meraki network has put together is new, but the individual bits that make it up are not. The solar powered wifi box sells for around 100 dollars but it is also something your could do yourself with some of the products in our online store and a visit to your computer hardware store.
>>Keep reading “Solar powered wireless internet”

Kartoon Kate…by Kate.
Amid all the talk of affordable housing and eco-towns in the UK, here’s a reality check. There is not much of either to be had, however hard you look. Meet two people who would love to live affordably, but who are living on their friend’s or relatives’ land because anything else would be out of the question.

Kartoon Kate Evans works from a lorry parked in her granny’s field in South-East England, and lives in an adjoining caravan with her husband and their child. Note the voltage regulator to her left.

Jeweller Adam “Two Skies” McIntosh lives in a tree house on his family friends’ land in Kinghorn Loch, Scotland. He’s been there ten years and has set up a jewelry workshop in his eyrie and finds time to hold fortnightly sweat lodges in the tree house for anyone whop wants to show up (by appointment) .
>>Keep reading “On Grandad’s land”

From CA to Scotland
Eco-holidays are all the rage, but how eco are they when the offer mains power and water, and all the other luxuries of modern life? Here are four genuinely off-grid vacation opportunities, though whether they are really weekend getaways depends on where you are travelling from.

Martin Foster, …
>>Keep reading “Weekend Getaways”

Bruce Willis went on the Letterman show last night wearing a giant wind-turbine hat and announced he was “completely off-grid, in fact I can’t even see the grid anymore.” Way to go Brucie.
>>Keep reading “Bruce Willis spoofs off-grid”

DIY fridge design.
Using a very old idea - the cooling power of the evaporation of water - a small Indian group has released plans for a very inexpensive but effective way to keep food cool and fresh - refrigeration without any power source whatsoever!

The bamboo iceless refrigerator is a low cost device that can be used to store food items. It preserves the food longer, and keeps it cool. This fridge can be used to store vegetables, fruits or even keep your beers cold. Detailed instructions at the end of this article
>>Keep reading “Fuel-free fridge”

Now that’s recycling
In an attempt to break the high initial cost of solar power for remote regions, an MIT team has developed a small - 1kW - solar concentrating combined heat and power system. It uses the concentrated heat in an Organic rakine cycle, in which a liquid with a low boiling temperature is reused over and over - to turn a turbine salvaged from an old car.

After several years of experimenting in the labs in Masachussetts, this young group finally managed to get some funding from the World Bank, and has been working in Lesotho, South Africa to put a working practical model on the ground.
>>Keep reading “Solar power from car parts”

Smaller than Live Earth
Michael Franti & Spearhead, is topping the bill tonight at the final day of the 9th Taos Solar Music Fest. Get down there if you are in the area. Franti blends hip hop with a variety of other styles including funk, reggae, jazz, folk, and rock. He is also an outspoken supporter for a wide spectrum of peace and social justice issues.

The other big names at the three day event were Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and Los Lobos.
>>Keep reading “Taos Solar Music fest”

The Earthship has landed
France’s first residential Earthship has received planning permission. There are already two UK Earthships (houses built to the specification of Earthship guru Mike Reynolds) but these are eco-showcases in Brighton and Fife - not for living in, and there is another in Valencia, Spain.

Having failed to get planning permssion in the UK, a couple from Brighton decided to build the totally sustainable home in the small French village of Ger in Normandy. Kevan Trott and his wife Gillian are now hard at work on the structure (pictured).
>>Keep reading “First Earthship in France”