Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category

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Innovative Solar Heating

Friday, December 11th, 2009

by Catherine Haug (original news item by Allyson Weller reporting for KPAX in Missoula)

I just caught the news item on KAJ tonite, about a Missoula man who made a solar box to augment his home’s heating system. He says it requires about $200 in materials and a week to put together. Many of the materials are recycled, including 280 aluminum soda cans.

Check out the article: Missoulian invents homemade solution for heating his house on the KAJ website, for more detail.

If you’d like the information to build your own solar box, email Jim Brewer at funwithjamess(at)kpax.com [email disguised for security).

Posted in Energy, Home & Ranch | Comments Closed

Root Cellar Ideas

Monday, November 9th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

In our video: Root Cellars, Gardens & Greenhouses Slideshow we presented several local root cellars plus a couple interesting ideas from the book Root Cellaring, by Mike and Nancy Bubel. (See above link for the gathering summary, including photos and sketches).

The Daily Inter Lake’s At Home section on Nov. 7, 2009 included another idea, from the Associated Press, by Rebecca Cole: “Storing your own fruits and vegetables for the winter.” (more…)

Posted in Energy, Food-Nutrition-Health, Home & Ranch | Comments Closed

Community Ice Harvesting

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

Ice Cutting on the Swan (Elmer Sprunger, Geo. Wells & brother)

Ice Cutting on the Swan

The Daily Interlake had a very interesting feature article in the October 25, 2009 Montana Life section, titled “Block Parties,” a history of local ice harvests and ice houses in Whitefish.

Elmer Sprunger had a great photo of an ice harvest on the Swan River near Bigfork, shown left. This photo features Elmer, George Wells, and George’s brother.

There may come a time in a not too distant future, when we will need to resume this activity to keep foods cool – when there’s no longer enough electricity to run our refrigerators.

At one time, ice houses and ice cutting parties were very common in the Flathead. We ‘grew’ very good quality ice here on our mountain lakes and slow-moving rivers like the upper Swan. Just about every community had it’s own ice house, managed by an enterprising entrepreneur.  Bigfork’s ice house was located between the Garden Bar and the old Wild Mile Deli building, and was still in use when I was a small child. It was both an ice house and a meat locker.

See The Essentialist: Refrigeration without Electricity (96 KB) for more information.

Posted in Community, Energy | Comments Closed

Gathering Summary: Communication in Difficult Times (September 23, 2009)

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

Presenter:  Edmund Fitzgerald

Edmund provided a comprehensive handout (Communication Discussion), so this summary will only include additional information from my notes, including questions and discussion from the audience. He also provided two informational handouts from the web:

You can find a printable pdf version of this summary at Gathering Summary: Communication in Difficult Times.

Edmund’s presentation was in three parts:

  1. The Collapse
  2. Current Emergency Services
  3. Communication between Citizens for Short, Mid and Long-Term

followed by a general discussion. (more…)

Posted in Community, Community Preparedness, Energy, Gathering Summaries | Comments Closed

Richard Heinberg on Sustainability

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

ESP’s Mission states, in part:

We build community, live sustainably, preserve and cultivate local resources …

So I thought it quite apt to discuss just what is meant by ‘living sustainably.’ How timely, then, when Edmund sent to his email list an article by Richard Heinberg from 2007, titled “Five Axioms of Sustainability.” This is definitely worth a read, as the meaning of the terms “sustainable” and “sustainability” get watered down by commercial interests and the media. You can find his article on his blog: http://heinberg.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/178-five-axioms-of-sustainability/ (more…)

Posted in Community, Energy | Comments Closed

What about Supplements, when Looming Fuel Shortages Become Reality?

Monday, August 24th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

Do you take dietary supplements?  I’m not talking about herbal tinctures, teas, salves or powders that you can make yourself. I’m talking about pills, capsules or gel-caps containing vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other supplement substances that are made in industrial facilities. If your answer is yes, listen up.

When the day arrives that the shelves are empty in grocery, drug, and health food stores, what will you do? If you rely on these supplements to optimize your nutrition, you’ll be out of luck at the store.

Oh, yeah, you can order off the internet.  Whew!

Nope. If grocery warehouses cannot afford to truck foods and other products to your local store, what makes you think an internet provider will be able to do this?  Well, they could raise their shipping charge from order-of-magnitude $5 to, say $500. But could you afford that? Heck, the supplement manufacturers won’t be able to afford the cost of fuel to produce their product, even if they could afford to ship it to you.

You’re just out of luck. Time to rethink the supplement game. (more…)

Posted in Energy, Food-Nutrition-Health, Health | 2 Comments »

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