Posts by — shampoodle

Raqs media collective

The Anant gallery in Dehli had a group show last month called Living off the Grid. It was about ways to escape the many grids that circumscribe our lives.

Here are curator Meera Menezes notes on the show:

Like it or not, our lives are enmeshed in the intersecting lines of a Grid in the worlds both real and virtual. (more…)

The Hopi declaration of water states, “What we do to our water, we do to ourselves”.  A scary reality in the West, where aquifer levels steadily decline, arsenic continues to poison city water, and new development is threatened with an inadequate assured water supply.

In the face of such monumental water shortage challenges, rainwater harvesting offers a solution.

High Desert Rain Catchment of Prescott, Arizona is hosting workshops geared towards do-it-yourself types who want to learn about installing their own rainwater harvesting systems. (more…)

Mrs Normal

It wasn�t the sight of Ben Law�s magic treehouse on Grand Designs that started my off-grid fantasies, but he certainly gave them a seductive visual form.

In common with most of my fellow fantasists, I�m not likely to be going off-grid any time soon. I�ve a husband and children addicted to London, we�re knitted in by family, work and commitments.

But, also like many others, I am predisposed; my children�s diet was the place I put all the anxieties of first parenthood (�will he die if his bread isn�t stone ground?�) which became a more general concern with the politics of agriculture. (more…)

Sunset view from Long Island

Its enough to make you long for an economic collapse. Long Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset, has gone on the market The uninhabited private island would be the perfect off-grid retreat, — it has no homes and there is no planning permission to build one, but normal people will not be able to afford to live there with offers of over �1 million ($2.08 million) being considered. (more…)

The suits are moving in

The planet isn’t the only thing heating up because of climate change. Some renewable-energy stocks have been pretty hot too. The price of electricity and oil could easily double in the next few years, making solar panels look inexpensive and stocks in solar panel companies looking even cheaper.

Wind turbines were once just for hippies, but shares of Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s biggest maker of wind turbines, have doubled in the past year, despite the market’s latest turmoil. The Danish company is ramping up production in its two biggest markets, China and the U.S., and expects sales to rise 17 percent this year. It recently announced that profit jumped fivefold in the most recent quarter. (more…)

Cate — one of the few to care

Steve Dunn outlines the latest thinking on climate change, then proposes some solutions:

Climatologist James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, predicts that if the temperature increase this century can be limited to 2�F or less, then the natural world will still be recognizable in 2100 . There will be higher species extinction rates and damamged ecosystems, but the basic fabric of life as we now know it will remain. Much beyond two degrees Hansen says and the natural world will fundamentally change. The same “two degrees is manageable” assumption underlies the carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction goals established in the Kyoto Protocol.

Emissions targets
Unfortunately, greenhouse gas emissions are already blowing right past Kyoto’s first benchmark that requires countries to reduce their 1990 CO2 emission levels 7 percent by 2012. Instead, U.S. emissions have increased 1.5-2 percent a year every year since 1990. Chinese and Indian emissions are growing far faster than was anticipated by Kyoto in 1998 and, even among the countries who signed the treaty, only the UK is close to being on target. (more…)

More water please

NEWS STORY: Africa’s third longest river, the Niger, is to be the focus of one of the most ambitious water management programmes ever undertaken on the vast continent. ANOTHER NEWS STORY: US bottled water sales are growing nearly 10 percent annually — and the trash from tossed containers climbing just as quickly — as the clamour for Americans to go back to drinking tap water rises.

WHAT DO THESE STORIES HAVE IN COMMON? They recognise the importance of water as a source of life, and they are about the politics of water – the water haves and have nots. (more…)

Bill Kemp – knows everything

The Editor of Home Power magazine says there are 180,000 off-grid homes in the US. But there’s a bidding war going on. William Kemp, author of Renewable Energy Handbook, and its urban sister publication $mart Power says there are 250,000 off-grid locations in the US.

It’s the battle of the experts. Home Power has a formidable reputation, but the thoroughness and technical expertise in these two books, puts Bill Kemp up there with the industry leaders. If he says there are a quarter million of us out there, then there probably are.

Smart Power: An Urban Guide to Renewable Energy and Efficiency – buy it from Amazon

The Renewable Energy Handbook: A Guide to Rural Energy Independence, Off-Grid and Sustainable Living – buy it from Amazon (more…)

Fuel Cell Animation

The next great step forward in human civilisation will be the next generation of batteries, which have hardly progressed since the 1940s.

And the leading edge of battery research is in fuel cells. The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is one of the most promising fuel cell technologies. This is the type of fuel cell that will end up powering cars, buses and maybe even your house. Here’s how they will work: (more…)