permaculture

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

We installed a water turbine maybe 15 years ago. We soon found out we could 
have bought all our electricity for at least 25 years with what it cost us. 
Then we found that wet Ireland is sometimes for months at a time not wet 
enough. So we set up a windmill that crashed after two months in a storm. On 
to solar voltaic which has become quite cheap in recent years but for this 
you need sun and that we are often very short off. So with al that there are 
still times we have to use the grid. I can't wait to discover something that 
works reliably the whole time.

One more positive idea maybe is that it is a lot more efficient to use 
natural energy direct instead of converting it into electricity. If you have 
a little stream, it is not difficult to put a water wheel in that turns the 
waching machine (spinning barrel), butter churn and anything else that can 
be driven by a turning wheel. If you have a lot of sunshine a solar cooker 
becomes a possibility. And water punping wind mills were once very common in 
the US.
All these things are low tech and much easier to maintain in good order than 
an installation to make electricity with battery bank, inverter and enough 
eletronics that things do have to go wrong sometimes.
John

> On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 6:26 PM, Koreen Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com> 
> wrote:
>
> > These guys will always bark up the tree that will allow them to try to
> > create monopolies. A real energy solution will enable us all to have our
> > source of energy in our back yard, or our neighborhood.
> >
> > Koreen Brennan
>
> We have covered this many times in the past in this list and it is always
> interesting to read. It would be good if someone would post state of the
> art information on available off grid power generation equipment for
> homeowners and communities (small or large, 2 houses or twenty), solar
> thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, energy efficient architecture, other
> innovative new developments.
>
> LL
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