Posts by — Amy Suarez

Bag or barrel, madam?

Ontario water storage company Tuff Tech Bags launched a line of flexible water storage barrels this week, for rain water collection and storage of drinking water.

It is just possible that you are able to contain your excitement at this news. But water storage has long been one of the most serious constraints on off-grid life -especially for mobile and temporary settlements.

Festivals, camps, summer houses, mobile homes and ski lodges have all needed large, expensive to buy and expensive to install water storage tanks and barrels. (more…)

Joan Ruddock and friend

M2 Presswire – LONDON – Twelve communities from across the UK are today celebrating after winning up to GBP500,000 each to help install new green technologies such as solar panels, hydro turbines and energy saving insulation.

The grant money, awarded through the Government’s Low Carbon Community Challenge, will be spent on a range of green measures which will helpthemove to a low-carbon society, save money on energy bills, and could even see some communities make cash from generating their own energy. (more…)

Symbol of a sick society

George Clooney’s starring role in “Up in the Air” is a movie about a special class of off-gridder – the business traveller – living in a peculiarly amoral world, of airports, corporate hotel rates and frequent flier cards. George Clooney plays a smooth-suited consultant whose job is firing people at a time when downsizing is the fastest growing industry in the US.  “We take people at their most fragile and we set them adrift,” says Clooney’s character.

Directed by Jason Reitman, the hero of Up in the Air inhabits an entirely new state: Airworld, where the hometown paper is USA Today, the laptop-plus-executive-lounge is the office, a mobile phone is the only permanent friend, the indigenous cuisine wilts under heat lamps, and the citizenry speaks a Byzantine dialect of upgrades, expense accounts, and market share. (more…)

Loboa: prince of darkness

The vulnerability of grid-bound power was exposed this week after the world’s largest operating hydroelectric plant failed, blacking out a quarter of Brazil and all of neighbouring Paraguay.

The ‘outage’ affected tens of millions of Brazilians living in nine states which include Rio de Janiero and Sao Paolo, the country’s two biggest cities – as well as 6m Paraguayans. They were plunged into darkness at on Wednesday evening when the massive Itaipu plant which straddles the border of the two countries, suddenly went off line. (more…)

Palin. Oil? You betcha.

Sarah Palin has put some of her thoughts on the record in an interview withRush Limbaugh. See the transcript below.

Limbaugh was moved to say of Palin; “The intellectuals don’t understand her, don’t like her. She doesn’t analyze herself. She doesn’t analyze her thoughts; she just has them and expresses them.” He described her new book  ‘Going Rogue’ as “One of the most substantive policy books I’ve read.”  He might be serious! (more…)

Farrell: you cant beat state power

Nearly two thirds of US states could be self-sufficient in electricity production if they exploited all the renewable energy available to them, says a new report.

The study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an environmental lobby group dedicated to creating sustainable communities, examines the potential of seven different forms of renewable energy state by state.

It looked at the possible contribution of roof-top solar, geothermal, combined heat and power, enhanced geo thermal, small scale hydro, off and onshore wind, in each  state. (more…)

FoE’s Robin Webster: “useless”Micro-generation suddenly looks a better bet in the UK after an official report painted a dismal picture of insecure energy supplies and yo-yo prices over the next decade.
In a tacit admission that the private sector and the national grid are failing to deliver energy security, the study by UK energy regulator Ofgem predicts that consumers could face price volatility with energy price spikes of up to 60 per cent within the next 7 years. (more…)

Don’t let the sun  go down on Shi China has given off-grid power a key role in its massive strategic move to renewable energy.  Plans include large-scale on-grid solar projects, urban building photo voltaic projects, nuclear power and wind-solar hybrid installations as well as large and small-scale off-grid solar schemes in rural areas. (more…)