Posted on 08/12/2010 3:41:46 PM PDT by posterchild
Asheville, N.C.
Living "off the grid" can conjure fantasies of Swiss Family Robinson-style ingenuity in paradise. Or, for those with less love of roughing it, it can simply remind them of the hardscrabble self-reliance throughout much of the developing world, where millions cook over fires, bathe in streams, and consider the glow of a bare light bulb a luxury.
In the United States, off-the-grid living – without relying on government entities or utility companies to provide electricity, heat, gas, and water – often is associated with gritting it out on the survivalist fringe.
But an increasing range of Americans are leading a snug, even smug, lifestyle totally or mostly unhitched from public utilities. Using nature – the sun, wind, water, and the earth itself – they cheaply warm and cool their homes and power everything from a blender to a giant flat-screen TV to a raging hot tub. And with the constant concern about global warming and messy dependence on fossil fuels, it's natural that growing numbers of Americans – "the foot soldiers" of energy independence, as one expert calls them – would begin taking steps to untether themselves from the grid.
For Wayah Hall, going off the grid in a cabin 26 miles from downtown Asheville, N.C., was a way to live in harmony with nature and avoid reliance on electricity that comes from the region's coal-burning power plant that pumps smog into the famous Blue Ridge Mountains haze.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
i think the reason people scoop all the dog crap in little plastic bags off the sidewalks of this city is ‘cause they use it to make little fires to cook soup and stuff at home.
Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Pleeeezzzz....He’s living in the woods...Obviously doesn’t have a job...or a family.....or responsibilities. He’s a friggin’ hermit...
One can live off grid and have all the modern comforts. This article makes it sound like some kind of sacrifice.
How clean-burning is the wood?
This enviro cr** added $100,000 to the cost of his house. Dumb and dumber. Pssssst...He’s got a cell phone. Read the article...You’ll like what these folks do for a living!!
If he want’s to spend his own money I’ll be glad he’s doing it if it reduces the tech costs in the future.
CS Monitor.
‘splains it all.
“Most clean-energy experts don’t see off-grid living as the solution to the nation’s energy crisis. “
Experts don’t like it when ya can’t meter it. LOL
He’s doing it for the ‘universe.’ When a black hole consumes the matter that used to be the earth the universe will be glad that a minor oxidation reaction didn’t take place prematurely a few billion years prior.
I’m going off the grid.
I just installed a 47KW diesel generator.
Woohoo......
“How clean-burning is the wood?”
.
100%
Burning wood produces all natural substances, all of which are beneficial to the environment.
I like the idea of living off the grid, but not for ‘environmental’ reasons. I also like growing some of my own food and doing my own house repairs and doing a few other things that are transactions not taxed.
“powered with electricity that comes exclusively from solar panels mounted on a wagon that they wheel around the property to catch the best rays.”
Wow!
This is “high tech” at its best.
.
Now that's more like it. Plus you can start a small co-op with that kind of power.
Running the economy on alternative energy is like running on fairy dust. As if by magic everything will be all right.
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