Green-Trust.Org

Want to build an inexpensive greenhouse, out of recycled soda bottles? By cutting off the bottoms of the bottle, and stacking them on sticks, then mounting the sticks vertically to a frame, an inexpensive greenhouse from recycled materials appears before your eyes. Simple and easy enough for young teens to participate. Download the construction article at http://www.reapscotland.org.uk/reports/greenhouse%20v1.pdf, and if this is helpful, please consider a donation at http://www.green-trust.org/wordpress/why-donate-to-green-trust/.

Welcome to the most remarkably efficient, surprisingly simple, and downright affordable home cidermaking system ever devised!

You’re going to find a wealth of homemade sweet-cider inspiration on this web site. Don’t leave without checking out the Whizbang Cider Photo Gallery and my My Newest Whizbang Cidermaking Technique. Pictures tell the story better than words. Now, let me introduce you Whizbang Cider…

http://www.whizbangcider.com/

Welcome to The Deliberate Agrarian.
This blog is all about Faith, Family & Livin’ The Good Life. If you explore the extensive archives you will discover a rich resource of down-to-earth inspiration & how-to information.

http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/gardening-bits-continuing-series.html

Could you and your family get off the grid and survive in a panic? Do you have enough seeds to plant a survival garden and feed your family? Do you have the right kind of seeds to plant? If you’re answering no to these questions, you need to stop wherever you are and ask yourself… “What would I do if the grocery stores closed?” The answer sadly is that you’d probably go hungry.

Here’s What You Should Do Right Now…

First, you need to have the peace of mind knowing that if things were to get scary, that you and your family could still eat. Listen: having enough non-hybrid seeds to plant an acre or two could be the difference between life and death. With our new “Survival Seed Bank,” growing your own survival food becomes easy. Remember, our hand-picked seeds are not genetically modified in any way. You simply save some of your harvest seeds from year one and have more than enough to plant in year two. You’ll never need to buy seeds again! You just can’t do that with man-made hybrid seeds.

It’s been very difficult to acquire high quality, open pollinated seeds lately. We’ve had a lot of our Food Storage Secrets’ customers asking for a good source and we finally have seeds we feel comfortable offering folks whose lives may depend on exceptional germination rates.

These seeds are authentic strains which are NOT genetically modified in any way. When the going gets tough… you’ll only want this special type of seed which will produce not only outstanding nutritional plants but will allow you to plant the seeds from the plants you grow unlike sterile hybrids. Most seed companies are now selling only “terminator” seeds which have been genetically modified and will not reproduce themselves.

A Thermal Electric Generator, these devices produce electricity when heat is applied (the Seebeck principle). They usually are very inefficient, but can be practical in some applications. There’s the thermocouple, which is twisted wires of dissimilar metals, or the solid state type unit known as a Peltier module. This effect is reversible, generating heat and cold when electricity is applied. See the following resources:

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/POWER/thermoelectric/thermoelectric.htm
http://www.green-trust.org/thermoelectric.htm

Here is an instruction manual on how to build a simple pressurized alcohol burner from tin cans. While building such burners are common from aluminum soda cans we found that aluminum soda cans were not available to people we visited in Kenya. Using another material was the inspiration of this design. It is becoming the “microwave” in the bush!! I hope it is helpful to you.

http://www.fastonline.org/content/view/69/29/

Making a small dc charger with a small engine and a car alternator is a common, and fun project. It doesn’t take much to put one together, and with scrounged parts, it can be very inexpensive. The picture here shows a 6hp horizontal shaft engine, turning a 60 amp 12v alternator, but mounting brackets are available for vertical shaft engines, and a push mower not only donates an engine, but also the portable chassis to move it around. We discuss these generators at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DIY_Generator/ and kits are available at http://www.green-trust.org/products/. Donate at http://www.green-trust.org/wordpress/why-donate-to-green-trust/ and I’ll send you the construction guide and methane/propane conversion guide.

Jean Pain – The Power of Compost

Jean Pain – A French innovator who developed a compost based bio energy system that produced 100% of his energy needs. He heated water to 60 degrees Celsius at a rate of 4 liters a minute which he used for washing and heating. He also produced enough methane to run an electricity generator, cooking elements, and power his truck. This method of creating usable energy from composting materials has come to be known as Jean Pain Composting, or the Jean Pain Method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Pain
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1980-03-01/The-Genius-of-Jean-Pain.aspx
http://www.permacultureactivist.net/PeterBane/Jean_Pain.html
http://www.jean-pain.com/
http://www.taranakifarm.com/blog/?cat=13
http://www.worldchanging.com/local/washingtondc/archives/005919.html
http://www.appropedia.org/Jean_Pain_system

From Kinetic’s web site:

This is MAX, which stands for Mother’s Automotive eXperiment. No, we’re not done with it. It needs a streamlined body, for one thing, since we’re shooting for 100 miles per gallon. The engine is a turbocharged 1100cc Kubota diesel, and and even sans streamlining MAX is surprisingly peppy. Peppy enough to win the inaugural Escape from Berkeley race in October ‘08 (Berkeley to Las Vegas without petroleum fuel) thanks to good performance, great mileage, and the ability to run on cooking oil straight out of the bottle. We intend to run the same team this year, when Escape from Berkeley takes us from Berkeley to Mexico; Yours Truly behind the wheel and Sharon Wescott behind the map…unless by some fluke we get a diesel motorcycle whipped together for Sharon, in which case we’ll be calling for volunteers in the right seat.

http://kineticvehicles.com/

More references:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/100-MPG-Car.aspx
http://www.locostusa.com/
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Locost_North_America/

Let’s look at the typical Central Air Conditioner. You have an air handler and heat exchanger indoors, and a condenser sitting outside. Your house is hot, and you want to cool it down. The air conditioner pumps the heat from your hot house to the outdoors. But wait a minute. Why is your house hot? Because it’s hot outside! So why does the outside want the heat from your house when it’s already hot?

Let’s look at the typical air source heat pump. Looks like an air conditioner. It is, but it’s reversible. If it’s cold indoors, it pumps heat from the outside into the house. But wait a minute. Why is your house cold? Because it’s cold outside. Where is the heat going to come from? Many manufacturers put electric resistance heat strips in their units to make them more effective. And you thought this was going to save you money?

Enter the Ground Source Heat Pump. This expensive piece of machinery does a couple of things. When it’s hot indoors, it pumps the indoor heat into the relatively cooler ground. When it’s cold indoors, it pumps the heat from the relatively warmer ground indoors. The ground is always cooler than hot outdoor summer air, or warmer than cool outdoor winter air. This greatly increases the efficiency of the process, and no more electrical heating strips. A common secondary byproduct is domestic hot water.

Read more at http://www.igshpa.okstate.edu/geothermal/geothermal.htm