Solarious - stumbling away from the grid

If the intricacies of setting up a home solar solution have you flummoxed, you may be looking for an out-of-the-box solution for your energy needs.  It’s not exactly portable (unless you own a forklift!), but the PowerCube 600 Energy system is just that… a box that you simply open and start harvesting light energy.  Visit the PowerCube site for pictures of the cube being set up to appreciate how easy it really is. The site and technology appear to be young, but the promise of a standalone power system in a box can hardly be overstated.

From what I can see, the box has a variety of power outs so that you can hook up various devices to the unit. And the site claims that you can increase your energy output by daisy chaining multiple units together, providing enough for off-grid applications and primary power-source situations. I like the box design, it looks sturdy and easy to ship, given its size, and it seems like a good fit for programs that offer solar power to remote communities across the globe. I haven’t been able to access the spec sheet yet, but the maker’s site, a yacht building company, shows the product in more operative detail.  All from Reluminati, an eco-concious design lab that sports several lines of solar powered products.  Be the first on your block to sever your ties to the grid when the PowerCube rolls off the assembly line this summer.

Read the article on building a solar-powered PC here

A solar powered PC?  It sounds too good to be true!  Well, I had to know more, so I went to Tom’s Hardware and checked out the article above.  It’s very professionally written and researched, and the grand experiment seems to be a huge success.  Of course, at $5,000 for the solar panels needed to power this PC and specially selected hardware that reduced average wattage, it’s hardly your average box, or the everyperson’s pricetag.  But every great idea gets its start somewhere, and I’m rooting for this one to go all the way. 

Based in Germany, the experimenters started by deciding what the capabilities of their dream system would be, and then clearly defined a goal as to its power availability.  They wanted a full-featured PC that could run 24/7 off-grid, in case you want to do a little midnight computing.  Any techies out there know this is a must, not a luxury, when chasing the elusive vapors of creativity.  This first step underscores an important point in any undertaking: defining the goal in concrete terms and deciding what you can and cannot live without will go a LONG way to determining the eventual likelihood of successful completion.  May you plan your exercises with the same careful attention to detail. 

The article then outlines the steps taken to achieve the stated goals.  First, they acquire the necessary equipment and consider the practicalities of their chosen configuration.  Then they set about building the PC so it will require a minimum of operating wattage, and then move on to the solar array that will power it.  Last, but certainly most important, comes the testing phase, when they see whether they have been able to construct a suitable prototype to fit the brief. 

It’s certainly not a beginner’s or even intermediate project, but it’s an excellent read, and I recommend you visit the site to read the whole (pretty long) article.  Happy Earth Day, everyone~ take a moment today to do something special for yourself and the world around you.

Nice. No, really, everything about this concept is nice, from the idea, to the execution and the website. So nice that you’d better go check out the website for yourself, so I’m only going to provide one chart here as a teaser.

This house does it all. Collects water, uses high-capacity solar, makes its own compost, and looks amazing while doing it through your laptop. And you can construct one in under a weekend. How’s that for simple? It’s certainly inspiring.

Bluenergy Solar-Wind-Turbine

BSWT is a vertical wind turbine based on sailing engineering. The wind rotor is rotated by two spiral-formed vanes. For best performance, these vanes are covered in solar cells, so that sun and wind produce electricity as one element. The BSWT installation costs relatively little, produces no noise or significant shadowing, can be easily maintained from ground level, and is an attractive addition to any home.

from the Bluenergy AG website.

Power with Nature Second Edition: Alternative Energy Solutions for Homeowners Updated (this review is based upon the first edition, but hey, newer is better, right?
I picked up this book while on a “shopping spree” at the library and promptly set it aside. Which is a shame, because once I did pick up this book, I read it from cover to cover. And I would do it again, except that it’s a popular item at the library, and they want it back. The story starts with a fable, a little tale designed to lull your brain into thinking that you are reading for fun, not education. All the while, it’s filling you in on all the basic details and considerations you need when deciding of off-grid living is for you. And then, if that isn’t enough, the second section of the book backs up the fable with lots of practical examples and configurations for solar, wind, and mini-hydro projects that will save you money. And it’s not written in geek-speak. Thank you, Mr. Ewing!

Thanks to this book, I now have a much clearer idea of what my little solar panel will (and will not) do. Dreams of charging my computer with only this little panel and a battery seem a bit more distant, but the new opportunities and food for thought that were provided instead were well worth that disappointment. And here’s to finally understanding the difference between watts, amps, volts, and all that jazz, which is worth another college education, at least! I cannot recommend this book enough. In fact, I’m headed to the library right now to see if they have Rex Ewing’s newest off-grid living book: Crafting Log Homes Solar Style: An Inspiring Guide to Self-Sufficiency.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Bill McKibben, a local energy production advocate. He has just released a book called Deep Economy on the topic. Read more at Gaiam.com:

“We can get off our power grids
For decades, our model for generating power has been highly centralized: We produce electricity in a few huge centralized power plants and then ship it around the country via a network of wires. As long as you don’t worry about the side effects, such as carbon emissions, and as long as you have abundant fuel to run it on, then you can provide relatively cheap electricity, and the few people who own the plants can make a great deal of money.

And — partly because of the lobbying power of these big players — most attempts to “fix” the energy sector to deal with global warming or peak oil involve marginally improving these giant, centralized plants: For instance, subsidizing utilities to explore “clean coal” plants that might someday capture carbon emissions and pump them into old mines for storage. The federal government also underwrites loads of research on nuclear power, because reactors, despite their ruinous expense, fit neatly into the familiar centralized scheme.

We may need some such technologies in the years ahead; the fight to slow carbon emissions is so desperate that it’s wrong to rule anything out, especially as a bridge toward some better future.

But that future’s more exciting possibilities lie elsewhere, in smaller community-scale power systems.”

Chock full of good reasons for you to go solar today!