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 Living "off the grid" is usually the choice of the hardened survivalist, the mountain man and perhaps the odd fugitive running from bounty hunters. But more and more Americans are now opting to disconnect from the grid — i.e., government, electric and other utility services — which delivers increasingly expensive fossil-fuel-based power and is, as millions in the Northeast learned during the 2003 blackout, anything but infallible.
In 2006, Home Power magazine estimated that more than 180,000 U.S.
homes were supplying their own power. "Some people want to minimize
their impact on the environment," says Dave Black, a disaster-response
consultant and expert in off-the-grid living. "Some people want to
ensure they have service if there's an outage. And some people just
want to look green." (S ee TIME's special report on the environment.
). Have you wondered if this is at all practical in Malaysia? Giving
that environmental devastation is approaching us, perhaps it is about
time we, Malaysians, attempt to explore living "off the grid" options.
But going off the grid isn't as simple as unplugging your
television. The grid isn't just electricity but water, heat, waste
management — even your cable signal. And then there's the gas that
powers your car, the government-funded roads you drive on and the air
in which you fly. That's where Black comes in. He has just written a
book called Living Off the Grid, a practical guide to weaning yourself
off the electrical milk of modern life. To Black, the benefits of going
gridless aren't just about the environment — though with electricity
responsible for about 40% of U.S. carbon emissions, disconnection has
real green value. Black sees it more as a way to promote
self-sufficiency on a national level — all the more important as the
U.S. grapples with its addiction to foreign energy, a geopolitical grid
it needs to disconnect from. "I'd really like to see us reduce our
dependency on resources from outside the country," says Black. ( Read
TIME's "Heroes of the Environment 2008." )
So how do you go gridless? Black has a few tips:
Conservation: The average American family uses 10,000 or so
kilowatt-hours of electricity a year; quitting that grid cold-turkey
can seem pretty daunting. That's why Black's first three words of
advice are conserve, conserve, conserve. Most of us waste electricity
in a hundred ways, both small (leaving our appliances plugged in and
drawing a subtle charge) and large (holding on to energy-wasting
appliances and lightbulbs). Reduce that waste by purchasing
more-efficient appliances and tightening up insulation to avoid heat
loss from your home, and you're already decreasing your dependence on
the grid. "Those things will significantly reduce your bills and you'll
[still] be able to lead a fairly comparable lifestyle," says Black.
Renewable Energy: As solar and wind-turbine technology improve, it will
become cheaper and easier for homeowners to provide much of their own
electricity. The truly dedicated off-gridder will try to use both solar
and wind, as the two energy sources are complementary — when the sun
isn't shining, the wind often blows and vice versa. The good news is
that Congress passed an extension to the production tax credits for
wind and solar power in the recent economic bailout package, which will
make installing your own electrical supply cheaper going forward.
Water: Clean water out of the tap is one of the great innovations of
the modern age — and something that billions of people in the rest of
the world lack. But if you live on the right kind of land, you can dig
your own well — as more than 17 million Americans currently do. The
process is simple — dig a hole into the ground and get a pump that will
pull out the water. Generally the deeper you drill, the better the
water — but the cost can range from $3,000 to $15,000 depending on how
far down you go. If you want to go cheaper, you can also build a
cistern to collect rainwater — but you should avoid this choice if you
live near heavy pollution, like a major expressway or factory.
By Bryan Walsh. Time.com , Monday, Nov. 10, 2008
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