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Around the beginning of August, I was lucky enough to get a free copy of Nick Rosen’s new book, “Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America“. Nick runs the website Off-the-Grid, and lives part-time off the grid himself.

Basically, its a documentary of his travels around the U.S. as he visited loads of different people who were living off the grid. How “off the grid” they were varied from “off the grid ready” to completely off the water AND electric grid.

To tell the truth, the book didn’t draw me in at first. After a brief introduction to what living off the grid means, and some info about himself, he goes into the history of the electric and water grids. Although the information itself was neat, it was not the most attention-grabbing stuff.

But as I kept reading, I got more and more into this book. We meet different “classes” of off-grid people, from people who have vacation homes that are off-grid (but live on the grid themselves) to people who live full-time off the grids in tiny houses.

It was interesting reading the conversations Nick had with the off-gridders. A lot of them seemed intelligent and nice, but some would come off as a bit paranoid. This is where we get to see Nick’s dry British humor, as he describes what he’s thinking as the person is telling him their strange ideas.

But most of the people did seem “normal”. Many of them moved off the grid to save money, or because they wanted a nice house on nice land, but couldn’t afford it if it was connected to the grid. Some people did it for ecological reasons, some for paranoia, but almost all because they felt a detachment from the consumerism-dominated American culture.

There were two main parts of the book that were my favorite:

Earthaven and Turtle Island

The first part was when Nick traveled to two places very close to where I grew up in Asheville — Earthaven and Turtle Island, where we meet the (figurative) mountain of a man Eustace Conway. I haven’t been to either of those places, but after reading about them, I definitely want to go and stay for awhile.

Jim Juczak, Sultan of Scrounge

The second part was when he visited the Sultan of Scrounge, Jim Juczak, who lives at the Woodhenge Self-Reliance Campus. This guy sounds like a genuine eco hero. He never pays full price for anything, and gets most things for free, and the rest at insano discounts. His house (which is round and sounds awesome) is built from reused or very discounted materials, and he even gets his food for very cheap. Anyhoo, it seemed like this guy alone could fill a book. Here’s a nice article about him, with pictures of his bodacious casa.

How to Get a Free Copy of
‘Off the Grid’

To sum it all up, I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s tired of the rat race, tired of debt, tired of the mindless consumerism that too many people succumb to. In fact, I will send a free copy of this book to the person who:

• Writes a post on THEIR site (linking to this article) best describing how they save electricity and money
• Tells me about their post
• Gets chosen by me when this contest ends on October 1

So that’s that. I hope you give this book a shot. I thought it had great information and was pretty cool, but you don’t have to take MY word for it.

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Have you ever wanted to charge your cell phone, but didn’t want to waste precious electricity that you had to pay for? Well now you can get some exercise AND charge your phone for free, because good ol’ Nokia just came out with a bike phone charger!

How do I Charge my Phone with a Bike?

The Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit is attached to your bicycle. As you pedal your bike, it powers a small generator that transfers electricity to a charger on your handlebar. Voíla, just that easy.

How Much Pedaling To Charge Cell Phone?

I’ll let Nokia answer this question; Nokia, the floor is yours:

“To begin charging, a cyclist needs to travel around six kilometers per hour (four miles per hour), and while charging times will vary depending on battery model, a 10-minute journey at 10 kilometers per hour (six miles per hour) produces around 28 minutes of talk time or 37 hours of standby time. The faster you ride, the more battery life you generate.”

That sounds pretty good to me. Plus, it only costs around $20. So if you’re down for biking and charging your cell phone at the same time, this might just be the ticket for you.

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To see the video and read more about the Zephyr-6, head on over to BBC News, and tell them EcoJoes sent you.

A solar-powered plane flew for a little over 82 hours, shattering its old record. The lightweight plane, known as the Zephyr-6, was flown as a demonstration for U.S. military, which is looking for new ways to provide air support for its ground troops.

Dang, 3 days in the air just from solar power. This might be even better than the solar powered bra. Pretty amazing. If they could somehow make solar-powered passenger planes, we could cut down on air pollution while also reducing our dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels. It’s a win-win situation.

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I don’t have much to say about this, except that if I was a girl, I would be wearing one all the time.

Triumph International Japan has finally done it; our world’s environmental problems are as good as solved now, for they have done the un-possible — invented a solar powered bra. I haven’t seen a “green” invention this innovative since the new milk jug design came out and confused some people.

The bra is green (in color and philosophy), and has a solar panel attached to it that can be worn around the stomach. It generates enough energy to charge small electronics, like a mobile cellular phone or mp3 player or what have you.

Not only does this bra collect solar power, but it also has plastic pouches that can be filled with water in case you get thirsty. So I guess it might save some water bottles?

But alas, this ingenious invention has some downsides. It can get messed up if it rains on the solar panel, and also, it doesn’t work if it’s covered up with actual clothes. To me, it looks like someone just glued a flexible solar panel to a tanktop. We will be closely monitoring Triumph International’s continuing work on this creation…

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Earthships are houses made with discarded tires, bottles, and cans, put together with lots of dirt. Many of them are self-sufficient, creating their own energy, and capturing their own rain-water. Since they’re made from reused/free materials, and supply their own electricity, heating, and water, they help conserve natural resources while also saving chunks of money. I’m down for anything that helps the environment AND saves me some dinero.

But I digress. I now present to you, courtesy of Earthship.net, “Earthships 101″.

Earthships 101: Part One:

Earthships 101: Part Deux

:


Dang I want one.

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Amory Lovins, who won a MacArthur Genius grant back in 1993 (and an Eco-Hero Award just right now), has been living in a house he built since 1983. It looks like a very nice and comfy house, especially when you consider that, despite living 7,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains (where it gets pretty dang cold), he pays $0 a year on his heating. Not only that, but his house actually generates more electricity than he needs — so he sells the surplus energy to the power company for some extra cash. Here are three ways to cut your electric bill like crazy.

CLICK HERE TO SEE AN INFORMATIVE YET FUN YET NEAT VIDEO OF HIS HOUSE

Insulate, Insulate, Insulate

His secret (one of them) is that he designed his house to be very well insulated. His walls are 16 inches thick, and his large super-insulated windows (made with special glass that insulates as well as 14 normal panes of glass) mean that his house can retain heat quite well.

Passive and Active Solar Heating

Lovins’ house is heated in two main ways: both from sun-rays passing through his many windows, or by means of Amory’s solar panels, which supply his house with more energy than it even uses.

Energy-Efficient Appliances

Much of Lovins’ house is naturally lit by the sun. Besides that, motion-detector lights and energy-efficient bulbs help to cut down on electricity use. His fridge is thickly-insulated, which reduces its energy consumption by quite a lot. His dryer is solar powered, and looks like it uses no electricity at all (watch the video to see how).

Amory Lovins’ home took some extra thought to design and build. It also cost a little bit extra ($6,000). But by cutting his power bill to zero, the extra planning and money spent were easily worth it. If more and more contractors start building this way, you could kiss our “oil prices” and “energy crisis” problems good-bye.

Thankee to Sam for telling me about this homey

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There’s a new craze that’s sweeping the nation. Tiny houses. Many of them even smaller than this converted bus. Instead of living in a big, energy-consuming, resource-using McMansion, some people have chosen to live in small houses of about 100 square feet. It might sound crazy, but after looking at pictures and video of them, a tiny house doesn’t sound too bad.

Martin House-To-Go has finished their 2008 tiny house model, and they call it Fresh Start. At $29,900, it only costs as much as a nice car, but offers all the modern comforts of home. Their tiny house includes these following features:

• 11′ high ceilings!
• solid bamboo floors!
• no toxic, gas-emitting materials used in construction

Anyhoo, it’s worth taking a look at their galleries. Marvelous, they are.

Moving on, we find Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed. He’s been building (and living in) tiny homes since 1997. Most of his tiny houses are about 100 square feet. He claims that the reason he started living in small houses is because he hates sweeping and vacuuming big houses. Also, since they use less natural resources (both in construction and in upkeep). Without further ado, I present Jay Shafer’s guided tour of his tiny house:

One day I might have to take the plunge and live in a mini-house. They look cool, are cheap, and are environmentally responsible. What more could ye ask for?Thanks to Tiff for telling me about this here thing.

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