Solarious - stumbling away from the grid

How about $3.50 instead? As often as I tweaked my previously profiled windshield solar cooker, there remained a real wind problem (as it was constantly falling over in the unpredictable gusts that are SoCal’s weather), and it never seemed to get QUITE hot enough for me to trust cooking something like meat or eggs within. So rather than tinker into oblivion, when I fortuitously found a nice sized box on the side of the road, I decided to make myself a little box cooker. After locating another box to house the inner cooker, and reading the many variations on recommended construction in a few books, I promptly threw out the plans and just went at it myself.

First up, finding tin foil. I had a roll at home, but it would have costs me $1 otherwise, so that’s the running total so far. I also had a few rolls of aluminum foil tape from when they had some at the 99 cents only store, of which I used one roll (10 yards) in construction, bringing the total to $2. The cement factory down the street threw out a buch of AirPaks (the plastic air filled bubbles you use as packing material for large items), which became the insulation for my oven. Price? A trip to their dumpster. Holding it all together was a roll of duct tape, also bought for a dollar, and a nice oven “window” made of cardboard and a Reynold’s Oven Bag ($0.50). Grand total - $3.50 and about an hour’s work. Not exactly a bank-breaker.

First, I lined the smaller box with foil on the inside, taping edges down with the aluminum foil tape. When I was happy with that, I closed up the other box completely with duct tape, making sure to cover ALL cracks well with the tape to minimize heat loss. I placed the smaller box on top of the large and traced around it to create a cut line for inserting the one box in the other. There were about 3 inches on each long end of the box around the smaller one and about an inch on the two shorter sides. So I dropped in two pieces of folded up cardboard on the bottom and secured them (to support the weight of the inner box and pots, etc), and then surrounded them with the AirPaks. After dropping the inner box down into the larger one, I secured the flaps to the large box with duct or aluminum tape, depending on where, and then stood back to see what I’d created.

Not bad. It looked relatively like the ones I’d seen in the books, even though I’d been reading warnings about how these cardboard versions would “never hold up like one of wood”, it looked pretty sturdy. Now on to the lid. Given that my top surface wasn’t exactly level the whole way across (it dipped in the corners where I taped things into place), I was wondering how to trap in the heat while still providing easy access. In a moment of inspiration (or was it desperation? I can’t remember now!) I thought to build a square frame of cardboard, and then place it inside a plastic oven bag, creating my own version of double glazing which was VERY easy to construct. Then I taped this down to the cooker along one edge and found two fist sized rocks to hold down the open corners, creating, with the excess plastic I’d left a little loose around the edges from the bag, a pretty decent seal.

Next up? You guessed it, time to test her out! I went to store and got some hot dogs. Now, I never liked hot dogs much even as a kid, but hey, this is an experiment, right? (and they’re already cooked, so I don’t have to worry much about food poisoning) So I cut four of them in half, and then added a few slits along the body of each so that I could tell if it actually cooked (did you ever make “hot dog men” in your microwave before? Same idea.) and placed them in the two back pans I’ve used previously. Put in the sun at about 2:30, the hot dogs were visibly cooked by 3:05 on a pretty hot sunny day. And the plate was HOT, requiring a leather work glove to remove from the oven, which was also quite warm (didn’t use a thermometer this time). They smelled great, sort of like a sweet sausage rather than your standard picnic fare, and there was a bunch of liquid in the bottom of the pan that had cooked out. As far as I could tell, it was mostly fat, but perhaps water as well.

In the name of science, I ate a bit, and found that the sweet smell translated to taste, making them pretty good. The biggest test was when I left the room a moment and came back to find my two best taste testers (my cats) happily smacking their lips around an almost empty plate. Two cats made it through three hot dogs in a minute? It must be good! Happy, I put the cooker away and called it a day.

Today, I pulled out the oven for another test. Having fulfilled my meat-eaters’ test, I returned to something I’d actually cook for myself. I bought two zucchini and cut them up in 1/4 rounds about 1/2 inch thick. It filled the bottom of the pan completely, about two layers deep. Next, I added about three tablespoons of cheddar cheese and roasted red pepper spreadable cheese and mixed well. On the top, I added a dash of “Chef’s Essence” spice, which seems to be a mix of garlic, salt and a little chili powder. The mix went out in the sun at 12:20 on another hot sunny day as I sat down to watch Fast Food Nation (see my previous post).

At first check, they were good, but still a little firm. So I gave the mixture another twenty minutes (40 total) and brought the oven inside. Again, the plate was too hot to handle (but the oven wasn’t, which I’d worried about). This little cooker doesn’t mess around! Properly gloved, I removed the meal and opened up the pot. Wow! Perfectly cooked to a nice steamed tender with the cheese melted into everything, giving it a little kick and a lot of creaminess. It was seriously good, and very filling. My hurried picture doesn’t do it much justice. RESULT? Total success. I like this cooker already, and though I won’t scrap the windshield shade cooker, I trust this one more with foods that require a hot temperature to cook through. They are about the same size, and as you’ve read, neither costs much to make. So, since the long days of summer are approaching, what are you waiting for? You can be a gourmet slow foods cook by tomorrow!

You may have been wondering, where the heck is Solarious? Well, I decided to check of society for a few days and get lost in the mountains.  It was hot, but great.  I am back safely now, but my calves are still too sore to let me sit still for enough to write a real post.  So let me leave you today with an image and the assurance that stories will follow.

Blessings to you on your path~

Music and art lovers, get ready to travel! You won’t want to miss this year’s Communikey Festival of Electronic Arts in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Coinciding with Earth Day weekend (April 18-20, 200 it’s going to be three days of performances, workshops, and art installations, all designed to inspire and educate about sustainable living in a technological world. If you’ve never been to Boulder, you owe yourself this green respite from the daily city grind. The scenery is breathtaking, and Communikey’s festival takes full advantage of their ideal location, scheduling events at cultural and community landmarks around town, such as the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.

Best of all, Communikey organizers are implementing a zero-waste policy at the festival, offering recycling at all venues, placing events within easy walking or biking distance from each other, using hydro and solar power generators to power the events, and offering festival-goers the chance to buy carbon offsets for their travels to and from Boulder. Add in a panel discussion on how to create sustainable green arts communities, and you may receive as much education as enjoyment. But with the international line-up of cutting-edge electronic art performances scheduled, it won’t be stuffy, that’s for sure!

Communikey has an excellent reputation for creating events that promote the myriad possibilities of electronic art while fostering organic community growth both locally and on a global scale. Since 2004, Communikey has presented thirty unique events working with pioneering local, national, and international emerging artists [1]. David Last, a producer in NYC, had this to say about their events:

High quality, high energy, professionalism and good taste. New York, L.A., and San Francisco could actually learn a thing or two from what happens at Communikey events.

For this festival, Communikey has partnered with a variety of green sponsors, including Waste-Not Recycling, Pangaea Organics, the Boulder Arts Commission, and ATL&S.
So pack your bags, save trees by buying your festival passes online here, and get ready to have some nice green fun! See you in Boulder!

And now for something completely different…

You may see from time to time (like in the post below) a box stating “Clipped from Clipmarks” in a post. Well, it isn’t exactly an earth-saving technology, but Clipmarks can save you a lot of time if you are storing information from the internet. And that, in turn, could result in less time on the computer, and therefore less energy used. Certainly less of your own brain energy! Clipmarks allows you to “clip” certain sections of a webpage and then do one of many things with it. If the item you’ve clipped is less than 1000 characters (you will quickly find out how small this really is!), then you can save it to a public clipcast, which is basically your own TV show of the things you like across the web. You can also post directly to a blog, as I do here. If you have something longer you want to save, go ahead! The interface will still allow you to save longer clips privately (so you can still access them), or (my favorite feature) email the clip to yourself, the full text and a link back to the original source, not just a link to visit somewhere else and retrieve the info. Basically it’s copy and paste super-charged. And then, to top things off, you can post your clips to the del.icio.us’s and reddits of the world with a single click. I’d only be slightly exaggerating if I said it’s changed the whole way I do business on the web. Best of all, if you use firefox, you can get the clipmarks extension, which will place a nice little button in your browser bar to automate the process even further.

Remember, there are a million ways (at least!) to rethink your activities and make them more earth friendly. Especially once you decide to make the leap toward off-grid living, this site could be a big help in getting your facts straight and organized so you can actually find them again. ‘Cause we all forget things sometimes. =p

Oh, how I love Freecycle. It might be the best site on earth for getting people to reuse the things sitting in their garage gathering “don’t need it, but can’t toss it” dust. I’ve been able to find a lot of the materials necessary for solar projects just by asking. Maybe that has something to do with living in Sunny CA, the mecca of earth-friendly solar enthusiasts, but I’m pretty sure with a little ingenuity, you can get started on your solar projects with little more than a bit of gas money. Just remember to return the love when someone asks for that one-of-a-kind thingamajig you have rotting in the basement.

from: CREST.org

Applied Power Corporation of Lacey, Washington: Applied Power was acquired by the Idaho Power Company, a company with $1.1 billion in annual revenue that was the first U.S. utility to offer solar electric service to its customers. Applied Power itself recently acquired Alternative Energy Engineering of California, Ascension Technology of Massachusetts and Colorado, and Solar Electric Specialties of Colorado. Applied Power assembles and sells PV systems for applications such as remote sites in national parks, mountaintop telecommunication systems, solar homes and village water pumping systems in developing countries, etc.

AstroPower, Inc. of Newark, Delaware: Originally a government contractor that has become a publicly-traded commercial manufacturer, AstroPower manufactures PV modules, single crystal cells and silicon thin film. Total annual sales equaled $20 million. In June, 1999, AstroPower agreed to develop products for GPU, Inc., a major New Jersey-based utility company; in return, GPU made a major purchase of AstroPower stock.

BP Solarex of Frederick, Maryland: In 1999, British Petroleum merged with Amoco, which with Enron Corporation was a joint owner of Solarex, a photovoltaic firm with 600 employees in Maryland, Virginia and Australia, and annual revenue of $58 million. Enron subsequently sold its share to BP Amoco, making BP Amoco sole owner of America’s largest photovoltaic firm. It remains unclear how BP Amoco will merge the operations of Solarex with BP’s solar arm, BP Solar, a firm with 900 employees in India, Australia, Spain and California, and annual revenue of $95 million. BP Solar projects annual revenues of $150 million, representing 20 per cent of the global market, and the firm seeks $1 billion in annual revenue by 2007.

Solarex has manufactured both polycrystalline silicon and potentially cheaper-but so far less efficient-thin film modules. Recently, the firm purchased a Swedish and a South African PV module manufacturer, to assemble American-made PV cells into modules ready for installation in growing European and African markets. Meanwhile, BP Solar has built markets in 160 nations, and particularly in developing nations, for its mono-crystalline and thin film technology. A vertically integrated firm, BP Solar manufactures cells, assembles PV systems, and installs and services grid-connected and stand-alone systems.

Golden Genesis Company of Scottsdale, Arizona: Kyocera Corporation, the world’s largest PV cell producer, acquired Golden Genesis (formerly Photocomm, Inc.) in July of 1999. The resulting merger produces a vertically-integrating PV firm with combined annual sales of $185 million, to be named Kyocera Solar. The merged company will assemble, distribute and install products made from Kyocera cells, including PV power systems for lighting, telecommunications, cathodic protection and data acquisition for oil and gas pipelines, water pumping, etc.

Powerlight of Berkeley, California: PowerLight is a full-service company offering unique solar electric products and complete energy solutions, from initial consultation to installation, project development, maintenance and financing. According to the company, Power Light’s patented photovoltaic (PV) products provide solar energy at the lowest possible cost in the industry, and are uniquely designed to install seamlessly onto existing building infrastructures, without penetrations.

Siemens Solar Industries of Camarillo, California: Siemens Solar is affiliated with Siemens AG of Germany and Siemens Corporation of the U.S.; the Siemens Solar Group as a whole enjoys annual revenue of $78 million (1997), employs 475 people worldwide, and has American facilities in California and Vancouver, Washington. Siemens produces both crystalline and thin film PV cells, which are sold wholesale to PV system integrators.

Spire Corporation of Bedford, Massachusetts: In addition to its biomedical processing and optoelectronic divisions, Spire is the world’s largest producer of PV manufacturing equipment. Spire also supports its production lines with process technology, spare parts, training and equipment warranty. Annual revenue is $14 million.

Trace Engineering Corporation of Arlington, Washington: Trace designs and manufactures battery chargers and inverters, which convert the direct current generated by photovoltaic systems into the alternating current used by most appliances and the national electric grid. Trace also manufactures accessories such as cables, charge controllers and remote controls. Trace employs 125 people, and recently acquired the rights to bankrupt Kenetech Windpower’s power conversion technology, which it will manufacture as Trace Technology Corporation.

I’ll admit it - I’m addicted to the web. Putting in around 50 hours a week, it’s more than a full-time job! So when I see way that I can help the planet without even getting up from the computer, it’s a big deal. Here are a few “goodies” from the internet that I’ve come across lately. None require more than a minute or two to make a real contribution to a world-saving cause.

First up, Friends Green. This Google replacement allows you to run a search using Google technology. The bonus? For every search you run through their site, they make a donation to saving the rainforest. There aren’t a ton of features, like with Google, but if you know “Search engine speak”, you should still be able to find everything you need. Including a piece of pristine rainforest when you need one.

Next, email. Planet Save has been providing planet-friendly email accounts for years. Their service is reliable and fast, and every time you send an email, they donate to a worthy cause. Their site is also a storehouse for environmental news and activism opportunities.

Want to donate to someone in need? Here are four sites that let you do it (for free!) with the click of a button. Visit each often, or if you use iGoogle, get a widget that places all four links together for easy access here: . Poverty Fighters even lets you count clicks toward your college alma mater, keeping tabs on the most philanthropic school out there.

Hunger Site
Hunger Fighters
Por Los Chicos
Poverty Fighters

Finally, when trying to cut down on your carbon consumption, it can be hard to tell when you’re making progress. Enter The Carbon Diet. This site lets you create a profile and enter your daily carbon expenses, based on the carbon “accounts” you set up (these are the sources of your carbon emissions). It will then make a nice “diet chart” for you, showing your progress. You can even compete with your friends to see who makes the biggest cuts. Kind of like Weight Watchers for greenies.

So next time you think, I’m too _______ to do anything right now, you can jump online, make a quick contribution to the greater good, and get back to your excuses.

It’s clear to me that succeeding in any complex task requires good advice from people who’ve been there before. Are you that person? I’ve been lucky enough to find kind people to donate equipment to me (Thank you everyone!), and I do have a few technically savvy buddies who can hopefully guide me through the physical electronics work. And of course, the internet is the biggest blessing ever given to a student. But that alone isn’t going to get me off the grid. If you ever read something here and think “this lady’s talking out her arse”, you might be right. I’m certainly not too proud to be corrected. And from the number of people asking me about solar living, I get the feeling I’m not the only one who could use some good advice. Please, share!

And if you’re stopping by, whether to learn, teach, or whatever, feel free to introduce yourself and tell everyone a bit about your own story and where you’d like to see your lifestyle evolve. There just may be someone else reading who has the answer to your questions or who could use encouragement from someone who’s “been there”. To learn a little more about me (if you aren’t tired of me talking about my life already!) check out the Meet Solarious tab up top. I look forward to meeting you!

Welcome to day one of a grand experiment. As a greenie-at-heart, but not always in practice, I’ve been gliding through life claiming to be more ecologically friendly than I must really be. Heck, I’m not even sure what the best steps to take will be! So, in a spirit of jump on in the deep end, I acquired my first solar panel this morning. I feel greener already, even though it’s just sitting in a dark corner at my house. It’s old and needs some love before it’s going to work, but I’m determined to make it replace something in my life that uses grid power. The guy who graciously freecycled his old panel said that it would charge a 12 volt battery (a car battery). Okay! Now I need a battery, a converter, and a clue about how to hook this stuff all up! Looks like I’ll need make a few smart friends along the way.

Rather than tell you this blog will be this or that, and fail miserably, I’m going to let it just grow like one of those mystery seeds you pick up off the floor. If I succeed at learning anything, maybe you’ll learn something too! If not, well, I’ll try at least not to make things boring. Thanks for stopping by.