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How to Make a Solar
Power Generator for Less Than $300
www.rain.org
Using parts easily available from your
local stores, you can make a small solar power generator for $250 to
$300. Great for power failures and life outside the power grid.
Power your computer, modem, vcr, TV, cameras, lights, or DC
appliances anywhere you go. Use in cabins, boats, tents,
archaeological digs, or while traveling throughout the third world.
Have one in the office store room in case of power failures in your
high-rise. I keep mine in my bedroom where it powers my CD player,
turntable, lights, modem, laptop, and (ahem) a back massager. I run
a line out the window to an 8" x 24" panel on the roof.
1. Buy yourself a small solar panel.
For about $100 you should be able to get one rated at 12 volts or
better (look for 16 volts) at an RV or marine supplies store...
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Kids Build
Soybean-Fueled Car
Futuristic After-School
Project Wows Crowd At Philly Auto Show
CBS News
(CBS) The
star at last week's Philadelphia Auto Show wasn't a sports car or an
economy car. It was a sports-economy car — one that combines
performance and practicality under one hood.
But as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this
week's Assignment America, the car that buyers have been
waiting decades comes from an unexpected source and runs on soybean
bio-diesel fuel to boot.
A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than
50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's
interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No —
just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from
the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School
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here
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Build a Simple
Solar Heater
by Gary Reysa, Mother Earth News
This
low-cost plan lets you turn any south wall into a free source of
solar heat.
After walking
into my workshop one December morning and feeling a bone-chilling 10
degrees, I decided to install a heating system. Given the rising
costs of propane and my family’s environmental concerns about using
nonrenewable fossil fuels, a solar solution seemed fitting.
I’m a retired
aircraft engineer, but you don’t need a similar background to tackle
this project. In fact, a solar hot-air collector built into new
construction or added to an existing building can be an easy and
inexpensive heating solution. Following the simple principles and
plan outlined here, you can heat your workshop, barn or even your
home with free heat from the sun. If it works here in Bozeman,
Mont., it’s bound to work wherever you are...
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here
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You
Can't Eat Gold - Self-Sufficiency is the Secret
Or,
The True Nature of Wealth, and Its Sustainability
by
David Andrews
Defining Wealth
Recently I was speaking to a couple of friends about the gold market
and the US economy in general, and one of them startled me when he
said, "You can't eat gold, you know!" Of course not, I
thought, it would just break my teeth! On the other hand, I couldn't
think of anything more sickening than eating the usual tattered,
filthy Federal Reserve Note. But the comment did get me thinking.
Anyone who considers the US dollar (Federal Reserve Note) to be in
any danger of collapsing, or losing purchasing power at all, should
be thinking right now about dealing with that eventuality. And the
comment about eating gold brings up the question, just how would we
pay for food - not to mention the other necessities of life? We take
it for granted that everything from aspirin to D batteries to new
socks will forever be on store shelves, just awaiting purchase with
Federal Reserve Notes, which will always buy anything…
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here
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Self-sufficiency is Crucial for
Living in 'Green' House
by Mary Beth Breckenridge, Knight Ridder News Service
Mark
Tillack and Mother Earth coexist quite nicely on their little patch
of utopia.
On a
wooded hillside in northeast Ohio, Tillack has built a house that
depends more on natural forces and his own labor than on the outside
world.
It's
powered by the sun, protected by the earth and devised to give back
to nature in exchange for what it takes. Tillack created the design
and did almost all the construction work on the environmentally
sensitive house, which is essentially complete except for some
landscaping and a few other details…
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