August 2007

Mobile

How to get free broadband

After the arrest of a man for piggybacking on a neighbor’s Internet broadband, we are compiling a list of all known “war surfing” hot-spots worldwide. All readers are invited to add to the list by going as quickly as possible to the Off-Grid forum.

Read More »
Land

Landmark off-grid housing victory

An off-grid community in Devon – has won temporary planning (zoning) permission after a long battle against wealthy local residents.

The group of 16 people, featured in Nick Rosen’s book, How to Live Off-grid, paid just

Read More »

Cave dwellers of Oz

Cave at White Cliffs
Visitors at underground Motel

The tiny outback town of White Cliffs in far north-west New South Wales can now claim a place in Australia’s engineering history, alongside the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Snowy Hydro scheme.

The opal mining town, where most of the 200 residents live in underground homes, was the first in Australia to be powered entirely by solar energy, and is still a fully off-grid community.

The solar plant is now closed but it has earned a national award that will see it preserved as a piece of alternative energy heritage.

Read More »
People

Fight for local energy

K.R. Sridhar and Arnold Schwarzenegger
KR sells off-grid to Arnie

In a feature on companies that will disrupt existing businesses, Business 2.0 cites power company Bloom Energy

THE DISRUPTION: Energy generators in homes and businesses

THE DISRUPTED: Electric utilities

Making electricity in central power plants is so 20th century,says the report. K.R. Sridhar has a better idea: Create energy on the spot, right where it’s consumed. His startup, Bloom Energy (formerly known as Ion America), is developing a fuel cell that could kick-start the distributed-energy industry.

Read More »

Arson campaign torches eco-homes

A third eco-home in central Somerset went up in flames this week, following an arson attack at a prototype round house in Moorlinch and a fire that destroyed Glastonbury town councillor Caroline Barry’s well-known straw bale home at Butleigh in January.

Read More »
Urban

Laurie David and other Econazzis

sherylcrowlauriedavid.jpg
Hype, all hype

Of today’s fashionable causes, the environment is the most fashionable of them all. And no Hollywood activist is more dedicated than Laurie David, who used her ex-husband, Larry David’s wealth to finance Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore lavishes praise on her work: “Laurie David has done more than any one person I know to raise awareness of the climate crisis,” said Gore last year. Gore is a great example of an Econazzi, our new preferred term for celebrity hypocrites and corporate greenwashers.

Econazzi Laurie David reviles SUV owners as “terrorist enablers.” She hangs out with her friend Cheryl Crow who recently warned the world about the perils of using toilet paper.

In her many media interviews, Laurie David details her own contributions to the cause: She uses only recycled paper products and she has made her two children take shorter showers.

Although she owns and operates the Web site, StopGlobal-Warming.com, Gulf Stream-flying tree-hugger Laurie, 49, and her strapping 44-year-old landscaper boyfriend Bart Thorpe, have been all over the place since Laurie split with “Curb Your Enthusiasm” crank Larry David.

Read More »

Utopia project update

Dylan Evans and a Utopia assistant
Trouble in Paradise

Its some time since we reported on Dr Dylan Evans, who resigned as a lecturer on evolutionary psychology from the University of the West of England in Bristol to become Director of the Utopia Project in Scotland. Dr Evans, 41, wanted to test the theory that by 2040, the warming of the Earth and ensuing climate disasters will mean any survivors will live as Stone Age hunter-gatherers. Could man survive a social breakdown, he wondered

To this end, in April he sold his house in the Cotswolds to set up a commune in the Highlands called Utopia. The first to join him was Adam, pictured here in an Airline blanket he acquired on his way to the UK. Members have to live in a post-global warming environment and find a “new way” of existing. That means sleeping in yurts, growing your own veg and developing a series of ruels and practices that others might follow.

Read More »
Land

Eco-palace back on

Plans are afoot to prepare a $10m eco-palace” as a wedding gift for Prince Charles son Prince William,and his fiancee Kate Middleton. As they holiday in a tiny island int he Seychelles, the palace in Wales is being fitted with a range of eco-features.

Read More »
Community

Nick Rosen at Edinburgh book festival

nr.jpg
Nick Rosen “free yourself”

Off-Grid Editor Nick Rosen will challenge the UK government to make clear exactly what its plans are on the five eco-towns it proposed building back when Prime Minister Gordon Brown took office in June.

Nick will be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival at midday talk about his personal journey to a free-er, greener life and to promote his book, How to Live Off-grid: Journeys Outside the System.

Read More »
Off-Grid 101

Mel Gibson goes off-grid

Mel GIbson and Oscar Arias
Mel’s Costa Rica welcome

Mel Gibson is about to head off-grid on a remote $12m, 400 acre ranch in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, 300 miles from capital, San Jose. Gibson, who achieved Hollywood stardom playing a detective in the Lethal Weapon series, is still serving probation following his arrest for drinkdriving, during which he unleashed an anti-Semitic tirade on a policewoman

“Mel loves the country, ” a source told the London Express newspaper. “He’s planning to live there for much of the year.”

Read More »
Energy

Zero carbon living

The meaning of Zero carbon living – 5 tips on how to do it and what are the tax advantages going to be.

Read More »
Off-Grid 101

Your own machine shop

The links you need to build your own multi-machine, and here’s why you might need to do it.

Read More »

off-grid.net

Join the global off-grid community

Register for a better experiencE on this site!