Lately I’ve been thinking of other ways to satisfy my power needs.  At our home in the Mountains we are very close to being “off the grid”.  We have our own water supply, our own sewage system, we could burn wood exclusively for heat, but we are far from being self sufficient.

Electric power is critical for our lifestyle.  

We have a stream flowing through the property, which could supply some power following rain storms or during Spring run-off, but continuous supply of power from it is not possible.  We have limited Sun access for much of the day.  We have lake breeze many afternoons.  We have tremendous temperature differences during the Winter, between Air temperature and Lake temperature.  Geothermal is being used by neighbors via old wells and heat transfer systems.

The hope is that with sufficient energy storage (perhaps my electric car), using the sources available we might be able to be “off the grid”.

Now … how do I turn that hope into reality … hum … 

For many years people around Mendocino county, California lived remotely with plenty of resources to explore off-the-grid existence.  Much of their effort was recorded and directed by a magazine Home Power.  I look forward to searching through the archived issues in the local library.

I have obtained a WaterLilly and will explore it’s use next year.  I might even tow it behind the canoe to charge the cell phone (which probably would have no service bars).

We have installed a new fireplace insert which makes the living room very comfortable.  A additional feature is the Fireplace Fan which requires no external power and is driven by converting fireplace heat to electrical energy and using that to turn two fans.  Hopefully more than the living room will be comfortable.

The concept of Gravity Weight attracted me sufficiently to install a series of LED lamps powered by a falling weight.  We get about 20 minutes of light per pull.  You could get a lot more time if the weight were falling from a tree (and the chain were long enough, and …)

The Stirling Engine represents for me the most promising alternative energy source for small applications.  The temperature differences that we have, particularly in Winter, offer possibilities for future exploration.  The video guy in the link above, is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) of Science Education fame.  If you’re either too old or young to remember him it would be worth your while to Wiki him.

A Mendocino Motor is just too beautiful to ignore.  The combination of Solar energy and magnetic levitation is very exciting.  An example of the kind of Engineering you would expect to find in Mendocino County, California, USA!

I have a rotating wheel device using a Memory Wire for power.  This wheel a very fragile structure requiring short (duration and intensity) use.  A robust application is the Muscle Wire (spring) robotic muscle simulation.  This video discusses in flowery expressions the possible future where Nitinol plays a primary role in energy production. While this video attempts to explain the atomic structure responsible for the memory ability.

The possible uses are so numerous as to be “low hanging fruit”.

All of these approaches hold promise of ‘scaling up’, but in their present state, there are trade-offs that are not that easy to make.

Here are videos of my explorations thus far: