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 ...
Nothing wrong with making sure they weren't stealing electricity.
“wood-burning stoves heat the cabins”
But they claim to be happy not be using coal fired electricity.
Eff this nonsense.
Build more nukes, also the smaller nieghborhood nukes as well.
Power should be cheap and plentiful in this nation.
The so called “green” movement has neutered us! And we chose it!
Total crap. The Lake Julian steam station was converted to a scrubber stack years ago.
Alternative energy is receiving huge subsidies from rate payers and taxpayers. Even with enormous subsidies alternative energy solutions are still expensive and often unreliable. If you are not connected to the grid, alternative energy generation may be a better alternative than grid connection.
Living off the grid may work for rural locations and hard core enviros but the ideas will not scale for large populations. It is a retreat to the past with a much lower standard of survival.
if you have to ask; you have no business posting this thread.
I hear you. The utility company could not believe they had year round AC / heat from and underground cavern. I think that house is still heated and cooled from that cavern. Believe me, it does need a dehumidifier.
I do have to ask as I don’t see the con. Before you revoke my posting privileges please use your psychic abilities and superior knowledge to tell me what it is.
That’s what I thought. You are the one making accusations; not me.
Most of the country is covered with trees, more than we could ever burn, except for the forest fires that are enabled by not thinning the forests.
“Living off the grid may work for rural locations and hard core enviros but the ideas will not scale for large populations. It is a retreat to the past with a much lower standard of survival.”
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Absolutely correct!
We have a place in the sierra that uses solar for electricity, but it is only feasible because the cost of running power lines to the place would be astronomical.
Regarding the Co-op, I’m gunna wait until the neighbors beg.
Plus if you burn wood you are just releasing the energy 20yrs earlier than it would have be released by rotting.
20yrs is nothing in geologic time.
????
Excellent!
They have always had a love affair with “much ado about nothing.”
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