More on Solar

On the heels of Wednesday's post about solar-powered radio transmitting, yesterday a friend sent this link to a blog post from a fellow who's gone quasi-off-grid while living in Los Angeles.  Only quasi, because most of the energy intensive things in life – cooking, heating, cooling, transportation – he has merely outsourced.  Naturally, he follows up with a defense of his outsourcing.

While I agree with almost none of his specific choices – soylent?  bleh, forget it man, I need red meat – I agree with his decisions to follow them.  In many ways, he seems to have applied Pareto's principle consistently and thoroughly.  Possibly to the point of idiocy as well, but then that is his problem, his life.

He did blow some of the math, but still got the gist of things right.  For starters, his storage battery is about 3x undersized.  He'll figure out that part in a year or so when he's wrecked it by over-discharging on a regular basis.  Or conversely, he may have enough battery but 3x the panel he needs, in which case he's a little poorer but will be OK.  His blog post is vague on the numbers.

Either way, he's sort of a nut who can't do math worth a crap.  But it is an interesting read, and it does show what is possible.  If anything, it is a high-tech version of what Phil Garlington has pulled off.