As the energy situation in this country becomes more and more frustrating due to a myriad of factors such as costs, aesthetics and a troubling amount of stonewalling by rich, organized fossil fuel and nuclear die-hards, it’s nice when research and development produces technologies that can answer some of the most frustrating objections to renewable energy.

Here in the western North Carolina mountains – where the wind blows stiffly enough on the high ridge lines to cause constant issues with the myriad tall radio transmitter and cell phone towers that mark them with flashing lights high above the tree lines, some pretty underhanded lobbying by rich developers and the Big Energy lobby (nuclear and coal from MTR mining) amended the state’s 1983 Mountain Ridge Protection Act to exclude the windmill exemption (but of course keeping the radio and cell tower interpretations in place). Now, the Act only applies to ridgelines over 3,000 feet in elevation, which would apply primarily to the Blue Ridge debarking the eastern continental divide and the “J” shaped ridgeline of the Black Brothers, including Mount Mitchell and several others among the highest peaks east of the Mississippi River.

We do not have any coal to speak of on here on the eastern side of the Appalachians, which means we aren’t suffering the environmental horrors Tennessee, West Virginia, Western Virginia and Kentucky are suffering due to King Coal’s wholesale flattening of whole mountains. Rather, our mountains are a $2 billion-plus economic boon for the ample tourism industry. Between the NC portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park – which boasts 10 million-plus visitors every year – and the associated Blue Ridge Parkway that winds its way toward Virginia along the ridge. The law was intended to keep the greedy developers from building unsightly high-rise condos for the filthy rich on those high ridges. Having been locked out by the Act from doing just that, they were more than willing to help prevent wind development when asked.

The only other really feasible commercial siting for wind generation in our state would be offshore wind off the Outer Banks, which are much more expensive to install and maintain, and would no doubt run afoul of the protected status of the barrier islands themselves as well as THEIR ever so important views from North Carolina’s historic lighthouses, national seashores, etc.

Not everyone finds the graceful lines of big wind turbines to be “unsightly,” and many here in the mountains are very much for development of ridge top wind farming even if they make most of their annual income off the tourism trade. Heck, most of us don’t even believe the tourists would be averse to seeing big wind turbines along their drive. But the law’s the law, serious homesteaders and small-farm organic producers/agri-tourism entrepreneurs are content to use a combination of solar, small wind and micro-hydro.

My homestead is nestled in a sheltered cove on the south side of Heartbreak Ridge, which descends due east from Mount Mitchell. The property encompasses a section of a side-ridge as well, which gets some wind we’d like to tap. Luckily for us the elevation is less than 3,000 feet on these ridges in immediate vicinity, so we could do that on the side ridge – and even on the top of the knob that marks its terminal if we wanted to. But I keep looking at Heartbreak, which runs to the piedmont just outside our closest little town, and thinking how great it would be if the county would site some turbines along for power generation. They already get the power from a dam on the Catawba River that created Lake James, as well as the tourism dollars from the State Park and lakeside vacation homes that have been built.

So I have been looking into developments in Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. Verticals offer all sorts of advantages over horizontals, though until recently their inefficiencies have been an issue. Luckily, researchers have been on the job. At the CalTech Field Laboratory for Optimized Wind Energy, John Daibiri has been able to increase power output of verticals by 10% and more. The turbines don’t require the height of horizontals, can be placed much closer together for more power per acre, and are as slender and unassuming a profile as your average radio tower – not even as ugly as a cell tower.

Thus there could be no objection under the Mountain Ridge Protection Act to these types of towers for commercial power production. At lower altitudes – like on Heartbreak Ridge toward my town – it would seem like combo units could easily be put to good use and supply much more energy than either vertical or horizontal stand-alone. Imagine one of those not very unsightly, very tall horizontals, the largest (3 Mw) size. Specially built vertical units could be placed on the tapered tower all the way to treetop height to gather wind as well, more than doubling the maximum power output of the installation.

Even better, there are efficient vertical designs any homeowner can build for themselves for less than $200 (plus the tower to put in on, lots of options there). Residential Wind Power has tested and reviewed some of those plans and kits, gave top honors to a nifty design by Earth4Energy’s design which can be built – with plans, videos and full support from the company – for about $150.

Some of the notable advantages of vertical wind generator designs are:

• No need to orient to wind direction. Vertical designs are ‘in the round’, always able to pick up wind from any direction.

• Will turn at much lower wind speeds, some even starting at 4-6 mph.

• Can generate energy much closer to the ground than horizontals.

• Can be sited in concentration much closer together than horizontals, even engineered to use waste energy from neighboring units simply by spinning in the opposite direction.

• Much lower profile and far less dangerous to migrating birds.

• With proper siting, wind generation provides a much steadier source of power because wind doesn’t just blow during the day or night.

So far the verticals don’t individually generate as much as the biggest horizontals, but efficiencies will continue to improve. But they could if certain site applications – like very tall radio tower size – making use of a stacked series of collectors to pick up air motion for the entirety of usable elevation. They could add wattage to the big horizontals by making good use of the vertical tower height. There is a whole direction in wind farming/harvesting here that is under development and definitely could be a big player in the renewable energy markets worldwide.

Any readers out there with experience in building, installing, or just getting homestead energy from wind are encouraged to respond with their thoughts. How difficult was it to build? What headaches came along with the tower, and how expensive was that part of the equation? How much average power do these things provide on a 24-hour basis? There is lots of information and testimonials on the internet about wind, some of them selling things, some of them just promoting certain designs. It would be good to get reports that don’t include the sales pitch, as well as individuals’ ideas on how to get the most energy from the buck (possibly with a little on-site re-designs and/or double-ups to take best advantage of the resources. Below are some links to good articles and manufacturer sites, so do your homework and get building!

Useful Links:

Mother Earth: Vertical Axis Wind Turbines
LA Times: CalTech FLOWE
Residential Wind Power Reviews
Clean Technica CalTech article
Century Wind Energy Vertical Turbines
Windspire Vertical Wind Turbines
Earth4Energy Vertical Wind Design

The Last Mountain is a new documentary film detailing the gross environmental destruction of mountaintop removal [MTR] coal mining, featuring interviews with some of the activists most involved in trying to save the beautiful Appalachian mountains from King Coal.

The subject of MTR has been covered previously on this blog in a number of posts, including EPA Halts MTR Permits for Review, with information about EPA administrator Lisa Jackson’s attempt to slow the destruction – a task that has been less than successful due to the power of King Coal. Old King Coal vs. Reality talks about some of the legislative actions attempted by states impacted by MTR to prevent the continued destruction of mountains and entire watersheds – which have also been less than successful. Old King Coal, a Filthy Old Soul described some of the environmental horrors being visited upon the land, water and people of the Appalachian highlands by a coal mining method that has succeeded in eliminating 40,000 jobs for those same people while burying more than 2,000 miles of once pure mountain streams and flattening 500 mountains.

The film’s fine website includes links and outlines of ways you can help end mountaintop removal mining, something people even well outside the Appalachian region should support. We must not allow these most ancient and abundant mountains on earth to be utterly destroyed to serve the bottom line of criminal enterprises like Massey Energy – which racked up more than 60,000 environmental violations between 2000 and 2006 and criminal charges for violations leading to the explosion at its Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia that killed 29 miners in 2008.

It’s not easy to stand against King Coal. Just in the last two years more than 200 people have been arrested in civil disobedience protests just in West Virginia and Kentucky, two states that are suffering the bulk of destruction and the loss of more than a million acres of forest and dozens of towns. This extreme form of coal extraction has turned the coal fields of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia into a moonscape of barren, toxic wasteland. What needs to happen, and needs to happen soon, is for so many people to make a stand that the unholy alliance of King Coal, state politicians on the take and law enforcement are forced to step aside.

Please see this film. Arrange a showing (can be done through the website) and invite all your friends and neighbors, maybe your co-workers and boss. Join or support some of the alliance groups that have supported the production of The Last Mountain. Some of these are listed and linked below.

If the Appalachians are destroyed for their coal thousands of homesteads will be destroyed along with them, along with the loving work all those homesteaders did to develop their little pieces of heaven on earth for themselves, their families, and all of us who are making the same effort in our own lives, wherever we are doing it. We all must stand with the people of Appalachia against the forces of destruction-for-profit. Thanks, Homesteaders! Let’s get together and end this outrage now, not later!

Alliance Links:

Appalachian Voices
I Love Mountains
Coal River Mountain Watch
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sierra Club
Waterkeeper Alliance
CREDO Action
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition

We’ve looked a bit at on-site electrical generation, transportation fuels and building technologies. In this installment we’ll look at some ways of putting things together into overall strategies for homestead independence.


Part 4: Hybrid Energy Systems

In a previous post a short video was offered about as small, 1Kw hybrid energy system using solar and wind offered by a company in Canada. Whether you’re planning to go off-grid with storage batteries or negotiate a price for your excess production with the local utility (and get a “backwards meter”), the same thing is true of energy supplies as is true of general homestead success – diversify. So Here are five hybrid systems, some good links and some cool ideas for planning your alternatives…

16. Solar-Wind

In addition to the previously linked hybrid system from Canada’s SEMA Technology, there are many other solar-wind hybrid systems out there at varying power ratings and costs. Best place to get an overview is from DOE’s Consumer’s Guide to small hybrids. Most homesteaders in areas where the wind isn’t a constant gale will find smaller, steadier units that work well in low wind situations best for their use, while avoiding the bird kill problems of the big 2 and 3-bladed powerhouses.

Some of these (and other hybrid systems) can also be supplemented with generators that operate on biomass, waste cooking oil or methane. The handy homesteader can also make their own waste oil burners to supplement household heat, make an outdoor oven/stove, or even supply the heat for a homestead ethanol fuel still.


17. Hydro-Solar

A micro-hydro system powered either by diverted head flow or sited directly in a flowing creek can supply steady power 24 hours a day. When supplemented by solar during the day, all it takes is proper timing of your consumption habits to live on your home-generated energy budget.

Again, if the homesteader avoids using electricity for thermal energy – home/greenhouse heat, cooking, etc. – a steady power supply from micro-hydro supplemented with wind or solar (or both!) should supply enough electricity for normal homestead uses. An alternative fuel generator can supply occasional heavy loads.

18. Solar-Geoexchange

This is a hybrid “space conditioning” system that doesn’t generate electricity separately, but makes use of clever design engineering to diminish a home’s energy usage year round by using a double wall envelope and below-ground heat sink. This keeps the space at a temperature that doesn’t require air conditioning or much heat in the winter. Since these are among any home’s greatest energy uses, these ideas can be put to work in various ways by the handy homesteader. There are construction companies in many states who specialize in this system, so look around if you’re building! And for an overview, see SolarGeo.

Homesteaders lucky enough to have property over sizeable cave systems, or in geothermal hot spots, have options the rest of us don’t. But eventually thermal gradient technology such as that currently used in today’s heat pump units may be refined to work on very little electrical input, making them a good choice for homesteaders who generate their own juice.

19. Combined Heat and Power Systems

Solar Air Conditioning:

Abbreviated CHP (Combined Heat and Power), systems that make use of the waste heat generated by fuel-powered systems (boilers, furnaces, wood stoves, etc.) to increase efficiency. Depending on where you live and how you’d plan to put the heat to use, a CHP mini-system might be a worthy option. If you live north, the heat can warm your toes and cook your bread. If you live south, consider engineering a version of the thermal energy conversion technology in solar air conditioning to keep your home cool! Solar could help on hot, sunny days, but heat is heat – your CHP system can provide it.

There are CHP home systems available and in development, or again a handy homesteader could rig one up with either an internal combustion or a Stirling engine.

20. Multi-Tech Systems

Most clever homesteaders will have recognized already that diversification of energy sources provides all sorts of hybrids they could hook together to ensure an ample, steady supply of energy to their buildings and property. But for a good overview of what’s being done out there on this level, check out the Hybrid Micro Energy Project [HMEP] home energy multi-tech system.

Making use of integrated photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind and biomass, it’s easy enough to add hydro to the mix. The technology is out there to hook things together, charge batteries or go straight AC to the house or grid. It won’t totally solve America’s energy crisis, but it will solve our homestead energy needs. Big changes always start out with small steps. We can do this.

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Electrical Generation
Part 2: Transportation and Motorized Equipment
Part 3: Building Technologies & Direct Alternatives
Part 4: Hybrid Energy Systems
Part 5: Collective Strategies for Communities

This series will provide an overview of the most promising energy systems and strategies for homestead or rural community independence. Most of these are available right now, some can be put together by the handy homeowner or community action group, and some will be available in the near future. Combined with common-sense conservation practices these can contribute a great deal to the independence of individual homesteads and rural communities willing to work together.

These technologies and ideas will be divided into particular technologies and presented together – 1. Electrical production; 2. Transportation alternatives – vehicles, fuels and power to operate the kind of equipment necessary to a rural lifestyle (trucks, farm and garden equipment, remote generators, etc.); 3. Building technologies and direct alternatives for heating/cooling and their applications; 4. Hybrid systems that can even out production and tie together for constancy of supply; 5. Collective strategies for small, cooperative communities striving for self-sufficiency and willing to invest together for alternatives that benefit all.

Part 1: Electrical Generation

We use electricity to light our homes and outbuildings, refrigerate our food, wash and dry our clothes, prepare our food, provide our in-home entertainment (music, television, computers), and sometimes to heat or supplement our heat during the winter. The “average” electricity use per home in the US (this is something we can personally adjust downward by conservation and appliance/heat alternatives) is ~900 Kilowatt hours per month. Get that down to ~700 for your home/homestead, and we’re talking less than 8,500 KwH per year.

What are the best alternative sources for that much on-site electrical generation?

1. Solar Panels

Quality solar panels and the accessories to properly install them, hook them together and get the energy available for use costs between $5 and $10 per watt with currently available technology. State and federal governments offer rebates on the systems (tax breaks), and some utilities will also rebate if you opt for the reverse grid tie-in that is in actuality a reasonable option for homesteaders and less expensive in initial outlay than storage batteries, converters, replacement costs, etc. to be completely off-grid. Here are some Fast Solar Energy Facts that may be helpful.

New solar panel technology from Colorado State University is expected to offer PV foil panels made of cadmium telluride rather than crystalline silicon, bringing the cost installed down to $2 per watt, in full production by the end of the year. Or, if you’re resourceful, you could Go Solar For Free.


2. & 3. Other Solar

(2) Making electricity (or power for other uses) using a Stirling Engine makes use of heat differentials… and guess what? The sun is hot! Check out this demonstration of a Stirling engine heated by sunlight through a Fresnel lens…

…just attach it to a generator and you’re in business! There are applications where geothermal heat could be used to power the engine, but most geothermal electrical generation will make direct use of the steam under pressure than simply the temperature gradient. This engine converts solar energy into mechanical energy, which in turn can generate electricity.

(3) The Fresnel lens can also concentrate solar energy in solar panel generation settings, or be used to generate steam for small steam generators using sunlight. Here is our friend at GreenPowerScience again with a solar steam engine…

4. Micro-Hydro Generation

Since water-power is a significant part of our overall national generation capacity, this source scaled down to generation of anything less than 100 Kw per hour is called “Micro-Hydro”. It’s really not that hard to find a water source with enough gradient drop to generate usable power for the homestead.

A micro-hydro generator system can be installed for as little as $10,000, and handy homesteaders can build many of the parts to save even more. The system can charge DC batteries or be wired straight into the home AC wiring. A 500 Watt AC system feeds a steady 500 Watts straight to the home/homestead’s wiring. 24 hours a day for 20 years or more. By choosing alternatives for heat gradient usage (home heating, clothes drying, water heating, electric ovens/ranges), using low-watt fluorescent light bulbs and getting low-watt appliances/gadgets, it’s possible to live all the way off-grid with a mini-hydro system.

5. Wind Generation

Wind generation isn’t practical for everybody, but if you live where the wind generally blows at a semi-steady 10 mph, it might just be the perfect answer. Like micro-hydro, electricity from the generator goes straight into the household wiring, while excess goes back to the grid. Wind turbines (and generators) can be purchased at about the same cost per KwH as micro-hydro, or again the handy homesteader can build their own.

When planning to generate electricity on-site for homestead or in dedicated systems for community use, it’s a good idea to negotiate with the local utility for the backwards meter set-up – the utility buys excess capacity so none of it’s wasted, the homestead or community purchases excess power during peak usage. This avoids the cost and fuss of battery storage (until something better comes along), and careful usage can even earn income for the producers! Buffer the interface and an outage won’t interrupt electricity, it’ll just limit available ‘trons.

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Electrical Generation
Part 2: Transportation and Motorized Equipment
Part 3: Building Technologies & Direct Alternatives
Part 4: Hybrid Energy Systems
Part 5: Collective Strategies for Communities

Here’s a short video demonstration of a hybrid home electrical generation system developed by SEMA Technology that we’ll be exploring in more depth later. While it does depend on a storage system (battery), it would only take one of these to power my homestead. I’d still have to weigh longevity of its capacity and cost of replacement before I’d change my mind about going with the backwards meter. Which might cost me less over time and avoids the necessity to either turn off the solar cells or send the wind energy to a heat sink as waste.

Next week I’m planning a series looking at the best and most affordable technologies out there right now, and what’s on line for the future.