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09-26-2008, 09:11 PM | #1 |
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Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Looking for creative ideas here!
Here's my thinking ... I grew up non-electric until age 11, so I know how they did it in the old days. However, I want to get away from all things like propane, kerosene, gas, oil, etc., all harmful products. I've solved most of the heating/cooking problems, but I haven't solved light. Candles -- old fashioned way, made from beeswax, but that's HONEYBEES, in short supply. New way is Parafin, but that's an oil derivative, petroleum. I don't want to support that industry in any way. So that leaves? Anybody with true alternative energy ideas out there? Thanks! Peace to all on this beautiful planet. |
09-26-2008, 09:21 PM | #2 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Hi, I haven't got too much experience with alternative energy. The bad ice storm we experienced here in Quebec a few years ago motivated me quite a bit, however!
We improved our fire place for starters so now the new insert will spread heat thruout the house. We have been looking at portable solar panels that would connect to a 12 volt battery and then by using an inverter we would have electric power for small appliances eg laptop, small fridge, battery recharging etc. We need to consult with a friend who is an electrician to see is this is a viable way to proceed. And that's as far as we have gotten so far. Diane |
09-26-2008, 09:27 PM | #3 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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09-26-2008, 09:38 PM | #4 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Turn out the lights???!!!
Sorry . . . . couldn't resist . . . . I really just wanted to use the little rolling laughing face. |
09-26-2008, 09:40 PM | #5 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
go solar...
peace bananaman |
09-26-2008, 09:46 PM | #6 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Has anyone mentioned steam power? I think that would be a viable way of charging batteries in order to have light.
You could use it as your main source of generating power, or just as a backup to your Solar/Hydro/Wind set-up. Jay |
09-26-2008, 09:53 PM | #7 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Steam -- Am willing to think about it, but I don't live near any hot springs. Energy is needed to make steam -- fire maybe. How would this work?
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09-26-2008, 09:50 PM | #8 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Thanks for all the suggestions so far!
Blufire - I do turn out the lights! A lot of the time I live by the sun, go to bed early all that. However, I'm realizing that by "lights" I'm really also meaning (maybe) computer, and some small electrical devices. Diane and Bananaman -- Can't afford to go major solar, but you just reminded me that my niece took two small portable solar panels with her to Kenya when she was in the Peace Corps and living in a native village. I'll have to find out from her if they worked or not. The battery part of the solar setup, to store electricity, isn't very much to my liking, but I guess that's where the technology is today in that regard. I'm going to look into bicycle-recharging of batteries, too. I think I saw something about that somewhere. More thoughts welcome here! |
09-26-2008, 09:58 PM | #9 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
There are two issues I'm keen on solving for myself: getting my little Tracker converted to use hydrogen fuel (Texas is just too big to be stuck without wheels!); and, having a generator that also runs on water.
Re: water-for-fuel There is a bewildering variety of material on this topic and I'm no engineer. I did download a set of plans for a device you could build yourself and attach to your fuel system that supplemented your gasoline with hydrogen for cleaner, more efficient fuel power, but that had some drawbacks, imo. Not the least of which if there is a total break in the gasoline supply, expensive or not. I'd much rather go for the full hydrogen solution. However, I've read that you have to tweak your onboard computer to not respond to fuel sensors that shut down the engine if they sense improper fuel mixture. If there are any engineer types or even car geeks in the group--I'd sure like all the input on this project I can get. Maybe we can put together a library of links with notes on the various set ups/plans available? Re: generators. Someone on Avalon had posted a link to a YouTube that demo'd the zero-point generator (i.e., it runs on 'no' energy, once the battery gets the generator motor started). Tremendous concept, but I sure can't afford the $20,000 pricetag for that kind of machine, myself (but I bet a municipality could, forced to supply their own citizen's power--hmmm!). But waxing self-reliant appeals to me, so a hydrogen generator or magnetic type that George Green demo'd seem the least problematical for that. Any of you given this some in depth thought? . |
09-28-2008, 08:32 PM | #10 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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09-28-2008, 09:23 PM | #11 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Compensating for Doodah's video challenged computer:
Here is a link to Other Power's home built steam generator. http://www.otherpower.com/steamengine.shtml I also am intrigued by human and animal power. Maya Pedal is a project to assist electricity challenged folks in South America. They have done some magnificent work making human powered machines that do everything from making smoothies to pumping water http://www.pedalpower.org/?q=maya_pedal http://www.mayapedal.org/index.html Animal powered treadmills are also an alternative The good news is you get the afternoon off. The bad news is the Captain wants to water ski this morning... Last edited by Baggywrinkle; 09-28-2008 at 09:33 PM. |
09-29-2008, 02:06 AM | #12 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
The trouble with all these generator ideas are that they are completely off-topic. The OP was about living non-electrically !
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09-29-2008, 03:51 AM | #13 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
True, Anchor, that keeps happening here.
Baggywrinkle, thanks for the reference, photos and humor. A previous post of yours here about a setup for methane production shows pits with black plastic covers. I understand the prinicple in the use of the plastic, but don't want to use anything made from petroleum (ie plastic). The only other non-permeable materials that come to mind are glass, metal, and possibly glazed ceramic. Have you seen methane production using anything else but plastic? |
09-29-2008, 04:30 AM | #14 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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balloon. The problem is storing the methane which remains in the gaseous state. The other feasible system consists of a steel or concrete container in a container. as the methane builds it pushes the inner container vertically to the limit of it's travel (Think of a glass inside a glass). These are low pressure systems easily utilized by folks like you and me. You start adding compressors and tanks the price skyrockets rapidly. Not to mention complexity breeds problems. The beauty of the bladder system is it was designed in the phillipines for use by third world farmers. It is inexpensive and will provide cooking gas for a family easily. With some planning all of your basic needs can be provided from this one source of energy - Even lighting! At my home we use petromax kerosene mantle lanterns and one propane mantle lantern At the web site below Dr David Fulford has a biogas lamp design which uses the mantles in the same fashion as the lamps mentioned above. If you are a smallholder all you need is a few pigs, chickens, and cows and no qualms about shoveling poop. Addng a steam engine you would have the means to pump water into a water tower using a pump jack AND compress the biogas into tanks. Paul Harris at the University of Adelaide has been all over it. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/ Last edited by Baggywrinkle; 09-29-2008 at 04:47 AM. |
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09-29-2008, 08:03 AM | #15 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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09-29-2008, 12:43 PM | #16 | |
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for running natural gas. Propane requires larger jets since it is a larger molecule than methane. When you start burning the biogas in an internal combustion engine you need to scrub it first to remove contaminants that corrode engines such as sulphur. It isn't a big deal but it is an extra step with extra complexity and another chance for adding problems. This is why this idea is best suited for the community level with dedicated workers tending the process. At the level of the small holding farmer (me) the best solution is burn the gas directly and utilize the heat for getting work done. Remember the KISS principle. The goal is simplicity. Theoretically elegant, technically simple. We are, after all, neo-luddites. Occam's razor rules. |
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09-30-2008, 01:26 AM | #17 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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Umm..... ya lost me on the last part but thanks for the info. |
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09-30-2008, 03:50 AM | #18 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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stouter than others. The rule of thumb is you buy the best you can afford, then use it as little as possible. So the question becomes how do you store the generated power. Batteries, water towers, hydrogen, and gasoline all have one thing in common. They store potential energy for use later when you need it. Your method of storage depends on the route you take. I wish Henry or perhaps an engineer were about to explain it better then I can. Storing the energy for when you need it is the weak link in the chain. Batteries are okay. Kerosene is better as a storage medium with a much longer shelf life. At the moment, storage is the rate limiting step in my personal scheme of things. So we have settled for large quantities of kerosene and propane till we can come up with something better. One really intriguing storage medium is the kinetic battery. This is a flywheel spun at high speed by your engine. From what I have read, a flywheel the size of a refrigerator buried in the ground could power your home. There are still technical issues to overcome. Using the earth to store your energy as in geothermal is another route. But my favorite is Stan Deyo's work based on research by Henry T Moray. In a nutshell, a tribolumenscent compound turns heat or light into electricity. Stan Deyo is basically talking about using the universe as your storage medium.....I know, I know, way off topic and absolutely pie in the sky. We would all love to jam a stick into the earth and get all of our heat light and power from it. {Deep sigh} Biogas steam or wind is real. You can touch it and you can use it right now if you are mechanically clever. Just a reference to our personal lifestyle. Last edited by Baggywrinkle; 09-30-2008 at 04:17 AM. |
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09-30-2008, 04:33 AM | #19 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Just a thought, but would it be practical to build a still for making alcohol and using that to power your generator and such?
Alcohol Can Be A Gas |
09-30-2008, 04:54 PM | #20 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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of stuff on the topic including the plans to Robert Warren's Charles 803 reflux still. I've not done anything with it - yet. Alcohol is just another energy storage medium. It works. Problem is, it takes energy input from some source to concentrate the ethanol to the point of being useful as a fuel for an internal combustion engine (E-85 or higher) This takes heat. Either solar or from some other source. Biodiesel would make more sense in the long run. I'd do it in a heartbeat if I had 100 acres of rape seed and an oil press. Instead of going to the trouble of making the ethanol why not just build a woodgas generator. It would take the same amount of effort and would be functional faster. Ultimately you are always converting light/heat from the sun into some other form which is usable by your machines. One day perhaps we can be efficient enough to use the sun's output directly in an efficient way. Storing the energy from the sun for when you need it is the key. Hold that thought, and remember the name Daniel Nocera! http://www.boston.com/business/artic...y_have_answer/ |
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09-30-2008, 05:17 AM | #21 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
[QUOTE=Baggywrinkle;32570]No generator is intended for continuous run. Some are
stouter than others. The rule of thumb is you buy the best you can afford, then use it as little as possible. Weel, actually the military does have continuous run generators with hardened circuits. It just isnt cost effective for me to buy, which is most certainly a contradiction in terms. If I cant afford it, neither should my government. |
09-30-2008, 05:54 AM | #22 |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
Zorgon -- I have nothing against solar as an intermediate alternate power source. But solar is intended to produce electricity to run current-design electrical devices. If electromagnetic flux on this planet leads to all current-design electrical devices going kaput, then this kind of solar is dead-ended. I'm trying to think beyond that dead-end.
MMe M -- The military does have, I'm pretty sure, just about all the alternative tech we could use here. Whether we'll ever get it is the question. In the meantime, I kind of like the glow worm excrement idea, but we don't have those larvae here in North America, at least not where I live. But maybe a lightning bug farm idea could be developed. As kids we caught them in a jar, but they didn't live very long, and they are seasonal to the summer mating season, so that would require some exploration. Baggywrinkle -- Tesla was working on the "stick in the ground" universal energy field, free energy, back in the 1920s and all that happened was the military stopped him and used whatever they could of his ideas as weapons. All those alternative-energy people who have been killed in the past 60 years also had free or near-free energy inventions. Maybe some of this will emerge after everything collapses. Also, remember Leedskallen? The guy who built the "coral castle" in Florida without any kind of machinery except a wooden tower of some kind, lifting enormously heavy blocks of coral by himself, without helpers? He said he had rediscovered the secret of how the pyramids were built, and refused to share any of his research with the military when they approached him. So they didn't get it, but unless somebody can rediscover what he rediscovered (and he did it through research at public libraries!), this secret is lost once again! |
09-30-2008, 08:43 AM | #23 | |
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Re: Need advice - How to live Non-Electrically
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You have seen the power of a lightning bolt... this is PLASMA energy (and yes we call it electricity) but WHERE does the electricity come from? Water molecules rub together in the air and create friction which generates static electricity... just like when you walk across a carpet.. When there is enough in the air... a small streamer seeks ground... Then the BIG bolt of PLASMA follows the trail up from the ground and you have a tremendous discharge we call lightning (free energy) Did you know that one side of your house current is the EARTH? That is why its called a 'ground' Did you know that if you take a simple copper wire... say 12 miles long... and drag it through space at orbital speed of 17,500 MPH you generate electricity the same way you do at the dam? Noving a wire through a magnetic field... Only in the space situation you create a LOT of electricity... so much so that it fried the STS 75 tether and continued generating PLASMA long after it broke free... the most famous continous arc event in mankinds history You talk of wanting a free energy device... TH Moray had the answer... he was refused a patent because he could not explain to the patent clerk WHERE the electricity came from... so was refused Later his machine was destroyed... Nikola Tesla had the answer. Few people know him, yet without him your car ignition (tesla coil) would not work and your home electricity would not exist. He had the answer to wireless power, built an electric motor for a car that used transmitted energy via radio waves... but Westinghouse asked "Where can I put the Meter?" and that was the end of that. Yet today those same radio waves (radio was invented bt Tesla and stolen by Marconi) cook your food in a microwave... and MIT has announced that they have rediscovered wireless power transmission (Only 100 years later... not bad ) Did you know that your body runs on electricity? Wonder why they call blood PLASMA? Like I said PLASMA is the life blood of the Universe.. See all those beautiful Nebulae out there from Hubble? Those are PLASMA remains of an exploded Star... we know that energy travels forever, or we would not be able to see the stars billions of light years away (and billions of years into the past) so all the energy of every star that ever exploded in the history of the universe is stilll out there waiting for us to wake up and tap it Anyone that tells you otherwise does NOT have your best interests at heart |
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09-30-2008, 08:52 AM | #24 | |
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Tesla's secret is that it works better in reverse Tesla himself created the weapon. It is this that cause his problems.. his idea was a beam weapon... a weapon so powerful that it would end all wars... but he forgot that the PTB do not wish to end wars War clouds were again darkening Europe. On 11 July 1934 the headline on the front page of the New York Times read, "TESLA, AT 78, BARES NEW 'DEATH BEAM.'" The article reported that the new invention "will send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles..." Tesla stated that the death beam would make war impossible by offering every country an "invisible Chinese wall." http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_wendwar.html |
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09-30-2008, 09:00 AM | #25 | |
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The ancient esoteric societies will tell you that the Pyramids were built using sound frequencies to levitate the blocks into place. The Tibetan Monks do this with chanting Before anyone says this is BS and not possible... Acoustic Levitation Chamber http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94KzmB2bI7s Warning turn down your volume so you don't float away Ultrasonic Levitation This one is silent... but shows the level of control possible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4exO4CuoSU The Possible coming Pole Shift? Don't worry HAARP will have us covered |
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