theotherwaldo
Well-known member
Is anyone else going the alternative energy route?
I've been messing around with it since the 1970s... well, actually, the 1960s.
My Grandpa whittled up a little water wheel for me when I was four, back around 1961. I built my first Pelton power wheel four years later to charge car batteries so that Dad could listen to the Dodger baseball games. We lived five miles past the end of the power lines in Northern California at the time.
Since then I've been involved in alternative fuels development - alcohol, gasohol, methane, wood gasification, wood waste, biodiesel and some others, electric and hybrid vehicles, waste-based industrial fuels and nuclear power.
Oddly, I'd rarely applied these technologies to my own lifestyle until recently.
Now, I'm adding more and more stand-alone solar power devices to my property as well as some solar power back-up installations - which came in very handy during the recent blackout.
This month I'm using my tax return money to expand my installations as well as adding some other non-grid power back-up systems.
Anyone else jumping on the non-grid power band wagon?
I've been messing around with it since the 1970s... well, actually, the 1960s.
My Grandpa whittled up a little water wheel for me when I was four, back around 1961. I built my first Pelton power wheel four years later to charge car batteries so that Dad could listen to the Dodger baseball games. We lived five miles past the end of the power lines in Northern California at the time.
Since then I've been involved in alternative fuels development - alcohol, gasohol, methane, wood gasification, wood waste, biodiesel and some others, electric and hybrid vehicles, waste-based industrial fuels and nuclear power.
Oddly, I'd rarely applied these technologies to my own lifestyle until recently.
Now, I'm adding more and more stand-alone solar power devices to my property as well as some solar power back-up installations - which came in very handy during the recent blackout.
This month I'm using my tax return money to expand my installations as well as adding some other non-grid power back-up systems.
Anyone else jumping on the non-grid power band wagon?
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