Free Renewable Energy

Where would we be without electricity? Our modern world uses electrical power for computers, like the one I’m writing this article on, for televisions and radio that entertain and inform us, for music amplification and recording, for the fridges and freezers that keep our food fresh, for light to read by and a million other things.

However there is a cost, financial of course, is there any such thing as free energy, free renewable energy that goes on and on? And of course there’s an environmental cost, what about free renewable energy or free green energy if you prefer?

Of course free energy IS available, but is it in the interests of power generating companies and governments to tell you about free energy. In the case of power generating companies, energy that’s free to you is anathema. Governments may set targets for green energy and reductions in harmful emissions, but most of them are too dumb to see that they can still make their tax buck, or too indebted to big business for campaign donations to have the will to make a change.

Their argument goes that renewable energy simply cannot replace nuclear, or oil, gas or coal fired power stations, we simply need too much power. Well, I’m here to give you some simple logic, I hope you’ll agree with my deductions and take action.

First of all, ANY free renewable, green energy reduces our reliance on dirty, and/or dangerous large power stations. Any free energy is part of the solution, not part of the problem. What may surprise you is just how much of a contribution you can make to solving the pollution problem while saving large amounts of hard earned money. A dollar, pound or euro saved, is a dollar, pound or euro earned right!

For the last six years I’ve been living on a small yacht. Now I’m not an electrician and I don’t know about ampere hours and all that stuff. What I do know is this, I have two relatively small solar panels on the wheelhouse roof and one wind generator mounted on a pole on the stern of my boat. I have six batteries, two large truck starting batteries for the diesel engine on the yacht and four deep discharge batteries from a golf cart for the domestic supply.

Batteries don’t make power of course, they just store it. Now, when I started living on my boat I didn’t have much money, so I would use marinas in winter, when the price comes down and I would anchor out in bays or rivers pretty much the whole summer. For emergencies I took a petrol generator along and of course if I run the diesel engine then the alternator will make power. However what amazed me was that I could sit around on anchor for weeks on end, running a fridge, using my computer to write, watch DVD’s, go on line if WiFi was available, run an anchor light at night, all night, and light the cabin in the evening and I never needed to run the generator or the diesel engine.

Admittedly I used bottled gas to cook or make hot drinks, but that’s because I would need to run an inverter to get the voltage up for an electric kettle or hotplate. However, from time to time I would sail to a new location, sometimes a day sail and sometimes going through the night. I would protect the engine starting batteries for emergencies, but there was enough power in the domestic batteries, even after weeks at anchor to sail and use the autopilot, the gps and even navigation lights at night AND that’s without turning the fridge compressor off either.

What I’m getting at is that my experience demonstrates, that two small solar panels and one wind generator can produce enough power to pretty much cover the normal domestic needs of one careful individual. So what happens if you’re a family of four or more? Well for a start you probably live in a largish house, so if your entire roof was covered with solar panels couldn’t that provide a fantastic amount of free renewable energy for your family. As a family do you use four times the power of one individual, no, there will be times when you are all in the same room, sharing the light and heat, maybe watching the same TV show. Not always of course, but four people in four dwellings will always use more power than four individuals living in the same property. Free solar and free wind power can make a huge difference to your bank balance and you’ll be making an investment in the future of the planet for your kids.

Don’t just take my word for it, information on the subject is widely available. You can even buy plans to build your own solar panels and wind turbine at home. You may not get your power charges down to zero, although it could be done with enough solar panel area and a number of wind turbines, but if you and your neighbors all start using these technologies, if more and more people adopt free renewable energy systems the trend for more and more power stations will be reversed. There could even be a new hobby or business opportunity for you. Free power, look into it now, because the world is a changing place.

Tagged as: Energy, Free, Renewable