Straw Revolution

Renewable Energy

You can heat your house and generate all the electricity you need. Live in style and comfort no matter what the weather. The technology and design philosophy that can make this happen is available today.

The time to install solar or wind generated electricity is now! If you're hooked up to the grid — run your meter backwards. Nonpolluting, distributed generation is the future. We design, install, maintain and consult on all aspects of alternative energy. We live and work with the products and technologies and can tell you what works, what doesn't and how to get to total independence without sacrifice. We even know places ready to loan money for "renewable energy generation."

Alternative energy can be far more reliable and economical than "accepted" technologies that rely on a finite resource. Oil, Coal, Nuclear, even Natural Gas are far less reliable and economical if you factor in the huge subsidies that we pay up front (assuming you pay taxes), and the huge expenses of cleaning up after the toxic leftovers, and the huge sums of money spent on bombs and airplanes and rockets and propaganda campaigns to "secure" oil resources around the world (and to get rid of some of our nuclear waste by making bullets and bombs with spent uranium). This is fact, not politics. Politics would be something like an energy company executive, who's just sold $60 million in stock to "pay some bills," telling congress that he never knew his company was bankrupt. The money's tied up by 30+ lawsuits, so how did he pay his "bills"? Even if you don't pay taxes, you'll pay the price of this charade. It just won't turn up as a separate item on a monthly bill. And none of this needs to happen.

If you still think renewable energy is not economical, talk to us.

Renewable Energy Experiments

Not "reinventing the wheel," just teaching it a few tricks. We take an active role in combining new ideas with old technologies, and new technologies with old ideas.

Darrieus and Savonius Wind Generators

The "eggbeater" design is a Darrieus variation. The wind cups on a wind speed indicator a Savonius variation. The advantage of experimenting with both of these concepts lies in the small scale production of electricity — enough for 2 to 3 average homes when the wind's blowing. Also, they run quieter than "regular" wind generators, require less maintenance, and since the generator is mounted at ground level, no tower climbing. Currently, no small scale manufacturers in the USA use these designs, though some are "contemplating" it or "trying" to. We're about to just up and build our own at this point. We can supply imported VAWTs from Solwind and Ropatec.

Vanadium Redox Batteries

An amazing new development in batteries. The charge is stored in the electrolyte, not the plates. More info here.

Fresnel Lenses

Another French invention. The Fresnel lens gathers light from many angles and concentrates it. Excellent for heating or distilling water, or a solar oven for cooking.

LED Lights

A small diode that emits light extremely efficiently. Put enough together and you have more light with less electricity than anything else going — except lightning bugs and such. The price of LEDs is dropping, but so far they are not in fashion for much more than pricey flash lights. We hope to create a cottage industry through our mentor/apprentice program to change that.

Ammonia/Sun Powered Refrigerators

Go figure, any time the sun shines enough to heat up a pipe full of pure ammonia, and then stops shining, you can make ice. Hmmm, how good can it get? Something that won't eat up the ozone layer, and if it ever managed to get out into the environment would quickly dissipate and fertilize that environment. The electric refrigerator is the one appliance many off grid people can't afford to generate power for. Even super-efficient refrigerators need quite a bit.