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Green living: Off the grid families pioneer sustainable energy lifestyles
Christian Science Monitor ^ | August 7, 2010 | Kari Lydersen

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
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To: Arrowhead1952
They piped that air into their house and the utility company wanted to know why their bills were less than $10 per month.

Nothing wrong with making sure they weren't stealing electricity.

41 posted on 08/12/2010 5:02:01 PM PDT by SteamShovel (UTOPIA...Isn't)
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To: posterchild

“wood-burning stoves heat the cabins”

But they claim to be happy not be using coal fired electricity.


42 posted on 08/12/2010 5:10:05 PM PDT by Pessimist
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To: posterchild

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!


43 posted on 08/12/2010 5:15:42 PM PDT by Names Ash Housewares ( Refusing to kneel before the "messiah".)
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To: posterchild
"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"

Total crap. The Lake Julian steam station was converted to a scrubber stack years ago.


44 posted on 08/12/2010 5:20:47 PM PDT by Rebelbase (Political correctness in America today is a Rip Van Winkle acid trip.)
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To: posterchild

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.


45 posted on 08/12/2010 5:32:06 PM PDT by businessprofessor
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To: posterchild

if you have to ask; you have no business posting this thread.


46 posted on 08/12/2010 5:34:56 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: SteamShovel
Nothing wrong with making sure they weren't stealing electricity.

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.

47 posted on 08/12/2010 6:38:47 PM PDT by Arrowhead1952 (Remember in November. Clean the house on Nov. 2. / Progressive is a PC word for liberal democrat.)
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To: freekitty

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.


48 posted on 08/12/2010 6:52:19 PM PDT by posterchild (Endowed by my Creator with certain unalienable rights.)
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To: posterchild

That’s what I thought. You are the one making accusations; not me.


49 posted on 08/12/2010 7:02:41 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: stevio

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.


50 posted on 08/12/2010 8:52:01 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: businessprofessor

“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.”

.
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.


51 posted on 08/12/2010 8:57:02 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: cicero2k

Regarding the Co-op, I’m gunna wait until the neighbors beg.


52 posted on 08/12/2010 9:01:33 PM PDT by super7man
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To: editor-surveyor

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.


53 posted on 08/12/2010 9:03:52 PM PDT by super7man
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To: editor-surveyor

????


54 posted on 08/12/2010 10:03:36 PM PDT by Professional Engineer (Conservative States of America has a nice ring to it.)
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To: posterchild

Excellent!


55 posted on 08/13/2010 12:04:47 AM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: Professional Engineer

They have always had a love affair with “much ado about nothing.”
.


56 posted on 08/13/2010 1:59:02 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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