Posts from — July 2007

Turbines everywhere, please

Over 50 per cent of households want to generate their own power according to a survey sponsored by Utility Week magazine and management consultants Accenture. The main reason was to save money, and the environment was the second motivating factor.

The most crucial finding was the strength of appetite for microgeneration. Just over half of all participating homeowners (51 per cent) said they would be interested in generating their own power. Accenture’s UK utilities practice, had anticipated 10 to 20 per cent. Saving money was the driving factor for those interested (71 per cent). (more…)

Now all we need is orders

Did someone kill the electric car? You wouldn’t know it in Norway, where the idea of a mass-produced battery-powered vehicle is being resurrected and actual cars are scheduled to roll off the production line this year.

Its called the Think �a zippy little Web-enabled, carbon-free electric car. If it takes off, it could reverse 100 years of automotive history, reinvent the battery, and even the grid itself. Think CEO Jan-Olaf Willums’s pitch is this: He’s not just selling an electric car; he’s upending a paradigm, aiming to change the way cars are made, sold, owned, and driven. (more…)

City wuss in Burnt Lake

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, downtown living is about the best most of us can do. Small dwellings, no auto; walk or cycle round the area. But what happens when city dwellers want to get their dose of countryside at weekends?

When weekenders arrive from the city it can often spell doom for the local rural community and the local environment, but not all weekend home owners are eager to embrace modern conveniences and make their places into suburbs. A group of cottages in Canada provide a model for other off-grid second homes to follow. (more…)

Wrenches – they’ll never give up

The first test of a new policy to promote off-grid housing in the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire has ended with a defeat for Tony and Jane Wrench who built a roundhouse in a beautiful field ten years ago and have been fighting the planning authorities ever since.

The Pembrokeshire planners decided earlier this month that the hobbit-style home is not suitable for the area, even though it is built entirely of natural materials and uses renewable energy and rainwater. The application for retrospective planning permission was declined on the grounds it could not make a positive environmental contribution and has an adverse impact on the semi-natural habitats in this location. The officers also stated that the development cannot meet the basic needs of the applicants in the long term, because of the yield from the woodland. (more…)

Birds make great ringtones

Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.This piece from Fortune Magazine sums up the ambivalent relation many of the Blackberry generation have with the grid:

I’M STANDING ON A BLUFF overlooking the Pacific Ocean, writes Stanley Bing. The surf is tremendous. In a field to my right, horses are grazing, munching on grass they pull up a clump at a time. A pleasant, ripping sound of roots being torn from the turf is audible under the crash of the waves as they leap up in curls of spume from the black rocks of the beach.

I am off the grid. This is a phrase I have heard only recently, possibly because it is new, possibly because I am no longer so new and hear things later than I used to. Off the grid. It has a nice feel to it. (more…)

Nick Rosen in his research RV

Thousands of people are choosing to live in homes without mains electricity, gas or water. Are these the eco-townies of the future? The Guardian newspaper today features Nick Rosen’s call for changes to the law to encourage off-grid living. Here is the article in full.

I reckon there are 75,000 people living in nearly 25,000 off-grid homes in the UK. These are homes not connected to mains gas and electricity, water and sewage or even the phone lines that bind the rest of us into a system that wastes energy transporting it around the country, and loses up to 30% of water through leaks.
To get some idea of how many are living this way, I travelled round the UK for most of last year researching a book, How To Live Off-Grid. I met some of the thousands of normal families living this way, in everything from brick houses to yurts. (more…)

Live above water level

Up to half a million Brits are poised to go off the grid this morning as floods interrupted water supplies and power stations were closed down by water damage. The flooding crisis underlines the need to think carefully when choosing where to live off-grid, as well as the benefits of living off-grid in times of climate change.

Central England is the most affected by the worst flooding in 70 years, with 50,000 people at one point losing both power and water supplies, and 450,000 losing just water. The battle continues to save Walham power station from flooding. If it is forced to close, a further 500,000 will have their power cut off. (more…)

Live In The Wild In Style!

The Do It Green site has a fine roundup of recent articles about living off the grid, full of neat examples and useful links.

(Picture courtesy of Tolka River)

It links to an article at ElectronicHouse featuring an architect designed off-grid home � luxury on the cheap by the look of it, near San Jose CA. A quote from the article,

“Once we did the research and realized it was possible to run a �normal� house off the grid, we really got into the idea…This was also during the time of Enron and brownouts in California.”

(Picture courtesy of mjovery)

An energy kit was installed by Planetary Systems, plus a back-up power generator, and a windmill system to help out with the energy consumption.

he needs the power to run the following:

• A 56-inch Samsung DLP
• An InFocus IN76 projector
• A Vonage phone setup
• A Mac with EyeTV software
• A PlayStation 3

Another article referenced is Living Off The Grid which talks about how this family manages to survive without all of the ammenities that the Mitchell’s have. The author of the article, and the individual who lives in this home notes,

“We have lived in our home in the woods for the past twelve years without electricity, running water or telephone. It has been an exciting experience.”

If you truly want to live off the grid and do it green, you should definitely check out the article. It truly tells you how this family lives in all aspects of the infrastructure of their lives- from how their house is heated, to how they get water, etc.

Stoate: fear of frying

Britain edged closer to a ban on house building near high voltage power lines THREE YEARS after it was first announced by the government that this could cause health risks to children.

� Call for immediate 60-metre limit
� Committee accepts link with childhood leukaemia

A committee of MPs is the latest to come out saying that new homes and schools should not be built within 60 metres of high voltage power lines until the link with childhood cancers is better understood by scientists. A UK government agency acknowledged in 2004 that adults can suffer nausea, headaches and muscle pains when exposed to electromagnetic fields from electricity pylons.

(more…)