Posts from — May 2011

The Off-Grid 2.2k Power kit

Let us Power you Up!

Off-Grid.Net has launched the Off-Grid Energy Design Service. We specialise in large-scale projects, but launch with a perfect low-cost starter kit: The Off-Grid 2.2k (pictured).

Whether you are an installer, a real estate developer, or an off-grid community, we can design your entire renewable energy system, delivered for under $5 per watt. Wherever you are in the world, our Off-Grid Energy Design Service can deliver a complete package at a competitive price.

Our design and production team have in-depth experience of every kind of energy set-up . The Off-Grid energy system designers consist of skilled, senior European design Directors with degrees in Physics and Engineering, plus veteran Chinese engineers, brought up in a society where there was no grid — ready and waiting to create the perfect, tailored system for your needs. (more…)

easy no-knead bread

I love making and baking bread, who doesn’t enjoy eating fresh, homemade bread hot from the oven? The problem is the time it takes to make, the mixing, the kneading, the rising, the kneading again, the shaping, the rising again… it just takes too much time and attention.

About a year ago, I started seeing books and recipes for no-knead breads, it looks almost too good to be true, this method makes what is often referred to as “artisan breads”, the kind that cost a small fortune in the specialty bakeries, who knew how easy these breads were to make? (more…)

I’m a professional, self-employed software coder / startup guy who is making plans to get some land and go off the grid as much as possible. Just looking to meet and talk with others in the area working towards the same thing.

Multi-millionaire TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has said that anyone living off the grid is likely to have a better life than his own.

In a recent newspaper column he describes his move to an unfurnished flat in Central London and says that someone living in a barn and feeding off “what you could find in a hedge” would be better off than him.

In his column, Top Gear presenter Clarkson, 50, reveals  he has been thinking of doing without the modern conveniences of living.  “In recent times, I have become so fed up with everything I own that I started to think seriously about what life would be like without any of it,” he said. (more…)

I’m a Freelance Pagan geek looking for similar like-minded people to live off-grid in the UK.

What I want is a community not a commune, where people are free to explore their own goals within the overall envelope and not have to worry too much about what the rest of the group have to say (I suppose in some respects like Scoraig). Emphasis given to being self-sufficient and the applicable use of technology.

I’m pretty flexible about moving.

Prof Jerry Woodall

Researchers at Purdue University have developed an aluminum alloy that could be used in a new type of mobile technology to convert polluted water into drinkable, while extracting hydrogen to generate electricity.

The potable water could be produced for about $1 per gallon, and electricity could be generated for about 35 cents per kilowatt hour of energy, which is low compared to the cost of solar at 10 times that amount.

It might be used to provide power and drinking water to remote villages or for military operations, said Jerry Woodall,  Professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The alloy contains aluminum, gallium, indium and tin. Immersing the alloy in freshwater or saltwater causes a spontaneous reaction, splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. (more…)

Gas and electricity prices are expected to surge by 15 per cent in 2011, says a report in the Daly Mail newspaper.

The initial rises – up to five per cent later this month – will be followed by double-digit increases towards the end of the year.

Despite the fall in the oil price after the killing of Al Quaeda boss Bin Laden, continued instability in the Middle East and North Africa, the Japanese nuclear catastrophe and surging demand from the booming economies of China and India are all playing in to price rises.  A weak and ineffectual regulator is also partly to blame. (more…)