The 'Mother Earth News' handbook of homemade power Book

This book features firsthand reports from people who have found ways to beat the power crisis. This is priceless alternative energy information with many additional tips, facts and ideas that you can put to use now.Sections on wood, water, wind, solar and methane.Unlike most of the books, articles and TV reports on the developing energy shortage, this manual will not bore you with endless projections of gasoline consumption or the use of electricity in the year 2000. Nor will it rehash the virtues of geothermal power versus nuclear fission versus the so-called "hydrogen economy" versus other pie-in-the-sky "solutions" to our society's increasingly unsatisfied appetite for energy.Instead, this handbook is designed to help you sidestep the energy problem once and for all - on a very personal basis - right here and right now. In the pages of this guide, you'll learn how to heat and cook with that most traditional of all renewable fuels, wood. You'll find working plans for the construction of two kinds of water wheels and the dams and other hardware that go with them. You'll discover how to find and rebuild an old wind-driven electrical generator, build your own from scratch or - if you aren't that handy - buy a brand new unit and have it installed.This manual shows you how to construct a solar stove, oven and water heater. It explains, in simple, uncomplicated language just how Steve and Holly Baer heat their New Mexico home with ninety 55-gallon drums and the sun. It takes you step by step through the production of a usable fuel - methane - from waste... in both test quantities and batches large enough to heat your house and power your automobile.Read More