Producing your own energy resources is a major part of being able to live completely off the grid. With off the grid living you must be able to have a system that not only can create the energy but can store excess energy that you are not using when it is created. Many people will try to tell you that this is a difficult or impossible task, but it is not as bad as we are led to believe.  Like many things in our society, we as a society tend to believe that we can’t
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When it comes to boondoggles, many of the largest have involved the energy industry. Executives who work in oil, gas, coal, and green energy, along with the lobbyists they hire to do their bidding, are the true master manipulators of governments everywhere, and they have been controlling the system for their own benefit every since the days of John D. Rockefeller. Presidents, governors, legislators, and even judges have been like putty in the hands of the energy industry, and the handouts, tax breaks, legal exemptions, and no-bid contracts this powerful special interest has received over
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The proposed 1,700-mile long Keystone pipeline would transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands region in Alberta to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. TransCanda (TRP), the company that would build the pipeline, predicts Keystone would create 20,000 direct jobs and upwards of 120,000 indirect jobs. So, with 13,000 construction jobs, 7,000 direct support jobs,
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Longer days and warmer nights lighten energy demands considerably during the summer months. As the calendar turns in most parts of the United States, however, the situation changes dramatically. In these locales, the cold and darkness of winter will eventually descend to confine people to their homes and increase the size of their heating and
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At one time, natural gas was seen as little more than a superfluous byproduct of the oil extraction process. But once the potential of natural gas as an energy source became clear, a new era in energy production was soon off and running. Today, natural gas accounts for 23 percent of the world’s total energy consumption, and the International Energy Agency is projecting that by 2035, natural gas use across the globe will expand by an astounding 44 percent. One of the reasons why governments and industry are pushing natural gas so hard at the
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Back in 1989, two University of Utah researchers named Pons and Fleischmann announced to the world that certain experiments they had performed appeared to show the existence of a new type of power source. This new type of energy appeared to emerge as a side effect of certain chemical reactions involving heavy water and palladium, and it was given the name “cold fusion” because it was theorized by these two electrochemists that the excess energy being detected was coming from reactions taking place on the atomic level. Nuclear fusion is the process that fuels energy-releasing
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A decision to move off the grid means profound changes are coming. But many people do not realize what an incredible opportunity for change the off-the-grid lifestyle really represents. This is because most people do not truly understand how deeply co-opted and colonized they have become after living for so long under the camouflaged thumb of a system that comprehensively oppresses our instincts for independence and self-reliance.

The government has quite a bit of egg on its face after the Solyndra debacle. Yet it’s not just one venture that’s the problem. For more than a decade, the U.S. government has been pouring money and easy loans into the alternative energy space. The government has no reason to be in the alternative energy space, and no business meddling in a market that works very well on its own. The fact of the matter is that the government likes to back losing propositions. Private businesses and industries don’t have that luxury. They have to
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Sustainability is a central theme in off-the-grid living, and as technology advances, it becomes easier to access the sustainability one desires at a cost that’s relatively inexpensive to prior years. However, this proliferation of access to energy and value in acquisition also brings looseness in the mindset of those who participate in it. Suddenly, those
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Many U.S. states have given up waiting on the federal government to fully support achieving energy independence in the country. Among many locally-sponsored programs, Hawaii and Iowa have taken large steps toward using alternative energy to provide power for their citizens. Hawaii in particular has sought to increase production of electricity generated by solar power. Hawaiian Electric Company (HEC) has reached a milestone of providing 20 megawatts of electricity through solar power generation. The most prominent location for solar power is on the island of Oahu, where HEC operates a solar array and approximately 4,000
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