By Author and survival expert, Ted Wright!
Fifteen years ago when I began my odyssey as a "Domestic Survival Specialist" I began compiling the educational materials I felt were necessary for the layman to fully grasp the scope of "Successful Survival." In routine fashion, I searched my own memory banks recalling the many systems and hard lessons that I learned by trial and error during my time both in the London bomb shelter and as a Special Forces combat soldier. This led to what I considered was a complete educational package of survival material covering all aspects of survival needs.
High on the list, of course, was "Food & Water." Following a life long practice, my research led me to the study of the successful in this field; those who had conquered the very challenges facing today's post disaster survivor. I was led to the Native Americans and the early Pioneers who overcame the very problems we face today; storage and lack of refrigeration, both of which limit our efforts when it comes to food inventories.
Since 1980, when I started teaching others, the priorities have changed. Oh, we still need to put away supplies of food, but the urgency is now more focused on the amount required due to circumstances other than natural disaster. Since we live as we do (under the computer processed bottom line), happily on the trail of increased profits, the inventory of "ready-to-eat/ready to sell" food in the pipeline has been reduced to the barest minimum possible. As a result, grocery stores no longer have a stockpile of goods in the "back room." We notice that every few days the supermarket is stacked up and down the aisles with boxes of goods waiting to be stocked directly onto the shelves. Given this information, the fact that we must all face is that throughout the whole country there is less than a few days food supply readily available. If the truck does not roll on time, we are plumb out of luck!
Back in the 80's I developed my "Pallet Root cellar" to face the existing problems. This is obviously patterned after the old, rural storage system some of us still remember seeing way back when. The root cellar system allows for the storage of a great amount of food (and some beer, inside joke!) in a small space that is naturally regulated at a constant temperature of about 63 degrees year round. The only proviso is that the lid must be kept on at all times. Back in the old days it was a door.
All food stored in the root cellar should be of the dry variety, tightly sealed in dry containers. Rice, grains of all kinds, beans of all varieties, as well as packaged food items such as soups and similar items. The product of our food dehydrator is also stored down there. A typical meal example could be to select some beef stew base packets, boil some white beans, put in some dried carrots, tomatoes, and potatoes and with sourdough rolls enjoy a fine "backyard stew!"
The #3 video I have just completed fully outlines the treatment of food and water including, of course the preparation of food for the root cellar, all as an extension to Chapter 4 in my book, "The Home and Backyard Survival"
Construction of the Pallet Root Cellar is very simple and can be made and put into use in a weekend. Here's how:
Collect six pallets from outside stores and garbage pick up points or the local furniture movers.
Measure your pallets (usually 4'x4') and dig a hole several inches bigger all round than the pallets. Be sure to allow enough depth for the top pallet to be below ground by 6" when it is put on. The Root Cellar hole, larger than pallets.
Line the hole with a sheet of good thick plastic, the plastic should loosely drape in the hole. Hole lined with plastic.
Place one pallet flat on the bottom for a "Floor." Be careful not to tear the plastic liner. The floor installed.
Standing on the floor pallet in the hole place the other pallets around the sides to make "Walls." You will find that the pallets do not support each other because they are all the same size. Walls installed.
Cut 2 pieces of 2'x4' the same width as the floor pallet and attach it to the top of the end pallets or side pallets (it does not matter which) using bailing wire or thick string. Now the pallets will not cave in. 2x4s installed to hold walls.
Secure the four corners of the pallets to each other with wire or string and you will have a sturdy box to work with.
Pull the plastic inside the box and, as you stand inside, pull loose dirt down around the sides of the box taking up the space between the outside walls of the box and the sides of the unit. Pack the dirt down and "firm up" the box before you get out. Then, from topside, walk around the box tamping down the dirt with your feet. When finished pull the plastic back out of the box and roll it up. Now you are ready to stock the box with food. I use 30 gal plastic trash bins as containers and fill these first. Once food is placed in the storage unit, the top pallet should be put on. Pull the rolled plastic over the top to keep the inside cool.
You may decide to put hinges on the "lid," as well as make shelves or other improvements to my basic design.
As soon as the unit is full, cover the lid with a good 3" of newspaper, pull the plastic liner back in place and cover with a good strong plastic tarp. Then put rocks, bricks, or soil over the tarp to keep it in place.
That's it. You are now the proud owner of your own "Root cellar" full of food. If you are careful in packing the items, you should have many months of food down there. This item is good for most natural disasters (except, obviously, floods) and as can be readily appreciated. Even if the house is flat, your food is still there waiting to be used. I am sure many of you have already envisioned many "Root cellars" all over the yard, some with food, some water, or clothes or?
Good luck! And, as always, please Think Survival!
Ted Wright.
http://theepicenter.com/tow1102.html (You can see sketches at the link)
Root cellars thrive as food prices riseMichael Tortorello, New York Times
Sunday, November 16, 2008
(11-16) 04:00 PST New York --
In a strictly technical sense, Cynthia Worley is not transforming her basement into a time machine. Yet what's going on this harvest season beneath her Harlem brownstone on 122nd Street, at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, is surely something out of the past - or perhaps the future.
The space itself is nothing special: Whitewashed granite walls run the width and depth of the room, 16 feet by 60 feet. A forgotten owner tried to put in a concrete floor, but the dirt, which takes a long-term view of things, is stubbornly coming back. "It's basically a sod floor," Worley said.
What's important is that the shelves are sturdy, because Cynthia Worley and her husband, Haja Worley, will soon load them with 20 pounds of potatoes, 20 pounds of onions, 30 pounds of butternut and acorn squash, 10 heads of cabbage, 60-odd pints of home-canned tomatoes and preserves, 9 gallons of berry and fruit wines, and another gallon or 2 of mulberry vinegar.
The goodies in the pint jars and the carboys come from the Joseph Daniel Wilson Memorial Garden, which the Worleys founded across the street. The fresh produce is a huge final delivery from a Community Supported Agriculture farm in Orange County, which they used all summer. Packed in sand and stored at 55 degrees, the potatoes should keep at least until the New Year. The squash could still be palatable on Groundhog Day, and the onions should survive till spring. Cynthia Worley, who counsels and teaches adults for the New York City Department of Education, and Haja Worley, a neighborhood organizer and radio engineer, will let their basement-deprived friends store vegetables, too.
The Worleys, like a number of other Americans, have made the seemingly anachronistic choice to turn their basement into a root cellar. While Cynthia Worley's brownstone basement stash won't feed the couple through the winter, she said, "I think it's a healthy way to go and an economical way."
According to a September survey on consumer anxieties over higher fuel and food prices from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University in Ames, 34 percent of respondents said that they were likely to raise more of their own vegetables. An additional 37 percent said they were likely to can or freeze more of their food. The cousin to canning and freezing is the root cellar.
"I've been doing local food work for a long time," said Rich Pirog, associate director of the Leopold Center, who conducted the study. "And I'm seeing an increase in articles in various sustainable ag newsletters about root cellaring."
According to Bruce Butterfield, the research director for the National Gardening Association, a trade group, home food preservation typically increases in a rotten economy. In 2002, the close of the last mild recession, 29 million households bought supplies for freezing, drying, processing and canning. Last year that number stood at only 22 million - a figure Butterfield said he expects to rise rapidly.
Root cellars have long been the province of Midwestern grandmothers, back-to-the-landers and committed survivalists. But given the nation's budding romance with locally produced food, they also appeal to the backyard gardener, who may have a fruit tree that drops a bigger bounty every year while the refrigerator remains the same size.
While horticulture may be a science, home food storage definitely can carry the stench of an imperfect art. According to the essential 1979 book, "Root Cellaring," by Mike and Nancy Bubel, some items like cabbage and pears do best in a moist environment below 40 degrees (though above freezing). To achieve this, a cellar probably needs to be vented, or have windows that open. Winter squash and sweet potatoes should be kept dry and closer to 50 degrees - perhaps closer to the furnace.
Other rules of root cellaring sound more like molecular gastronomy. For example, the ethylene gas that apples give off will make carrots bitter. As a general principle, keeping produce in a cool chamber that is beneath the frost line - the depth, roughly 4 feet down, below which the soil doesn't freeze - can slow both the normal process of ripening and the creeping spread of bacterial and fungal rot. These are the forces that will turn a lost tomato in the back of the cupboard into a little lagoon of noxious goo.
But if you leave that green tomato on a vine and drape it upside down, it will gradually turn red in three or four weeks. "I've had fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving," said Jito Coleman, an environmental engineer who practices the inverted tomato - which should be a yoga pose - in a root cellar he built in the house he designed in Warren, Vt.
People who squirrel away vegetables tend to be resourceful, and they do not limit themselves to the subterranean. Anna Barnes, who runs a small media company and coordinates the Prairieland Community Supported Agriculture in Champaign, Ill., says squash hung in a pair of knotted pantyhose stay unspoiled longer than others.
Here, the cold is optional, too. It's the bruising that comes from a squash sitting on a hard countertop, she said, that speeds senescence. ("You wouldn't want to do it in the guest closet," Barnes said. Or, presumably, wear the pantyhose again.)
Taken to a do-it-yourself extreme, lots of places can become stockrooms. Margaret Christie has surrendered countless nooks in her 1845 Federal-style home in tiny downtown Whately, Mass., to laying away the crops she grows in the family's half-acre vegetable plot. Christie, 44, a projects director for Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, a nonprofit that supports community farming in western Massachusetts, also feeds her husband and three children from their milk goats, laying hens, pigpens and lamb pastures.
This year, she swapped a lamb for 40 pounds of sweet potatoes, 40 pounds of onions and 40 pounds of carrots from a neighbor's farm. This cornucopia has colonized the basement, along with the family's own potatoes. "They're sitting next to the Ping-Pong table," she said, in "5-gallon buckets with window screens for the lids."
Onions, garlic and pumpkins dwell in an uninsulated attic - except in midwinter, when that space drops below freezing. Then the vegetables move into the guest bedroom. If that space has already been claimed, they occasionally hide out under the bed of her 11-year-old son. Their homegrown popcorn kernels have a way of turning up everywhere, courtesy of the neighborhood mice, which have developed their own taste for locally grown year-round produce. The contemporary American, for whom a pizza delivery is seldom more than a phone call away, is an oddity in the annals of eating. Elizabeth Cromley, a professor of architectural history at Northeastern University, said that at one time, "just about every house had special facilities for preserving food."
Harriet Fasenfest, 55, who lives in Portland, Ore., has been playing with her food for a long time. A semiretired restaurateur, she started "hacking up" her small city lot in the Alberta Art District to grow food. (Her husband asked, "Where will we play Frisbee?" and Fasenfest replied, "The park.") She also teaches classes on canning and created the Web site portlandpreserve.com.
There is no digging a dry refuge from the seep and suck of a Portland winter. So in lieu of a traditional cellar, she applies the scientific method. "Last year I tried an experiment with four different varieties of apples," she said, "to see how long it took them to rot. So I put them in a box in my shed and then they rotted. It worked!"
When she's not filling her 10-foot-by-10-foot shed, she experiments in the cubbyholes that sit alongside the outdoor cellar stairs. Copra onions, Fasenfest has found, store better than Walla Wallas.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/16/MNJF13V5CS.DTL&type=printable
A Root Cellar for Your Homestead by Victoria Ries Long before the first light bulb, "miraculously" illuminated our lives-almost everyone owned a root cellar. The root cellar kept apples, carrots, turnips, potatoes and squash, through the winter, sustaining the family through those cold and bleak months. Salt pork and smoked meats, milk, cream, butter and cheese were also kept in the root cellar to stay cool and fresh, ready for use.
It is thought that the first root cellars originated in the United Kingdom before colonial times. Immigrants then brought with them their country skills, including the functional and practical root cellar.
An earth-friendly, root cellar is the natural choice for the homesteader, whether or not you're, "on the grid." The low-tech root cellar, will keep your harvest fresh for two months or longer, depending on what you store, without ozone-depleting refrigeration, or electricity. In addition to the above mentioned foods, you can store your canned tomatoes, peaches, pears, green beans, peas, fish and meat, in fact, any type of canned foods in your root cellar. They will provide a pleasing array of natural colors; the result of a summer's hard work and patience, all neatly lined up on shelves.
There are several types of root cellar and different ways in which to construct one. There's the Hatch Cellar, Hillside Cellar and the Above Ground Cellar.
The Hatch Cellar usually consists of a large hole dug into the ground then lined with rocks. The floor is left in its natural state, just plain dirt. Beams and plywood sheets are securely laid over the hole, with a hatch door incorporated into the ceiling/floor, along with the installation of a ladder for safe and easy access. A shed is then built over the top of the cellar, overlapping the walls by about three feet each side.
The Hillside Cellar is dug out of a hillside, lined with rocks, and then a plywood ceiling is attached to overhead support beams. This type of cellar has a regular insulated door to walk through.
The Above Ground Cellar is made from a wood frame, covered thickly with sod on the outside, lined inside with rocks, with a regular insulated door at the front.
Shelves are installed in each type of cellar, three inches away from the walls, to allow air to circulate freely and inhibit the growth of molds. An exhaust pipe is installed through the ceiling to allow hot air to escape from the cellar. Installation of an intake pipe ensures fresh, cold air to enter, forcing the hot air to escape from the exhaust pipe. You must try to maintain an ideal temperature and humidity ratio to provide optimum freshness for your bountiful harvest.
Humidity is a major factor in your root cellar, whatever type you decide to install. Humidity will vary, depending on which part of the world you're located. If you're located in the arid, southwestern area of the United States for instance, you will experience high temperatures and low humidity. This will need adjusting with a pan of water on the floor of your cellar and possibly damp towels over your bushel baskets, to raise the humidity and prevent your harvest from shriveling. If, on the other hand, you live in the tropical regions of Australia, you will be faced with both high temperatures and high humidity. These extremes call for a deep, insulated root cellar with steps leading down to an insulated entrance door. As most of the harvest in your root cellar, will stay fresh in moderate temperatures and humidity--it will spoil quickly, given too high temperatures and humidity.
Preparing your Harvest for the Root CellarFRUITS AND ETHYLENE GAS
Fruits like apples, plums, pears, peaches and tomatoes release ethylene gas in storage, and while small amounts will not affect other stored foods; it speeds their aging process, and makes some vegetables like carrots, bitter.
To store fruit successfully, only pick the best of the bunch; neither too ripe, nor under ripe. Use the bruised fruits for sauces and for stewing or fruit salad. Wrap individually, each piece of fruit and place carefully in cardboard or wooden boxes. An alternative method would be to bury the fruit in boxes filled with sand. Be gentle, as one bad apple will spoil the whole bunch!
IN GARDEN, EXTENDED STORAGE
Mulching root vegetables thickly with pine needles, straw or other suitable mulching materials whilst they're still in the garden, will stop them from freezing and keep them for up to a month. At which time, such veggies as carrots, can be transferred to your root cellar.
POTATOES
When the green tops on your potatoes die off, the potatoes can be harvested. If you are experiencing hot weather at this time, you may want to keep them in the ground for a few weeks longer, until temperatures go down to 60-70F. The potatoes can then be dug up and cured in the shade for two weeks. Do not cure in the sun, as this will produce toxic, solanines (nightshade). This will turn your tubers green, and harmful to eat-especially for babies and pregnant or nursing moms; so please cure in shade only. Just remove excess dirt from the potatoes, as a layer of dirt helps extend their life; on NO account, wash them! When your potatoes are cured, you can move them to the root cellar. They keep best with high humidity of 90%, in a temperature of 38-40F. This temperature slows respiration, delay their sprouting, and will ensure the starch doesn't convert to sugar. Store them in a bin or a pile covered with straw or burlap--NOT plastic, to stop water condensing on the potatoes. These potatoes will now keep from four to six months in your handy root cellar.
PUMPKINS
Pumpkins should be harvested with a few inches of stem attached to help prevent pathogens from entering the pumpkin through the cut scar. Pumpkins should be left to sit outside for a few days to harden their shells. They will then be ready for the cellar. 65-70% humidity is perfect for these vegetables and cool temperatures, above freezing are ideal. Your pumpkins will now keep for up to six months.
ONIONS AND GARLIC
Onions and garlic are ready to pull out of your garden, when the tops are dead and brown. They need to be cured, however, by tying or braiding their tops together, and hanging them up outside to cure. The porch or a handy tree can be used to serve this purpose. A few weeks of curing and they will be ready to hang up in your root cellar or somewhere cool-ideally 60-70% humidity with a temperature of 35- 40F.
APPROXIMATE STORAGE TIMES:
Cabbage.......3-4 months
Brussels Sprouts.....3-5 weeks
Jerusalem Artichokes..1-2 months
Carrots........4-6 months
Chinese Cabbage...1-2 months
Eggplant........1-2 weeks
Parsnips........1-2 months
Rutabagas......2-4 months
Squash........4-6months
Radishes........2-3 months
Tomatoes.......1-2 months
Cauliflower......2-4 weeks
Broccoli.........1-2 weeks
Beets........4-5 months
Pumpkins......5-6 months
Potatoes.........4-6 months
Turnips.......4-6 months
Although the above stated storage times are approximate, check periodically for spoilage. Copyright 2001 © Victoria Ries All Rights Reserved
About the AuthorVictoria Ries is a freelance writer living in the rural mountains of Arizona. She has been writing since age nine and has been multi published in print and online. Her newsletter, Rural Country Living, is especially for country folk. Visit her at http://www.ruralcountryliving.com
By Scott Gentleman
For eight years, Tracey and I lived in a solar powered home and for eight cloudy winters, we ran a small Honda generator every week to recharge our batteries. We understood that the original owner of our home had operated a small hydro system from the property's year round creek but we never investigated this option because the creek ran through dense forest. Besides, we could just tell there wasn't sufficient drop over its course.
Site Level
We finally decided to use Backwoods Solar's Site Level just to confirm hydro didn't make sense. Much to our surprise, our traverse through the woods from a potential turbine site to a convenient intake location revealed about 80' of drop. Not possible, we declared, assuming our technique must have failed. To double-check our method, we used the same Site Level to measure the drop from our water cistern to kitchen sink. We knew this drop equaled 56 feet because we had used a transit to measure it when this gravity fed system was installed. The review with the Site Level gave us about 60 feet and confirmed we knew how to use the level.
Voila, hydro potential. At the driest time of year, our creek measures about 3 feet wide by 3-4 inches deep and a five-gallon bucket and stopwatch suggested we had over 300 gpm flowing past our intake site. Wow, lots of potential. With 80 feet of drop, a nozzle flow chart indicated we could theoretically pass 134 gpm through a Harris 4-nozzle turbine equipped with 7/16" nozzles. Next, we turned to Don Harris' Motorcraft alternator watts output chart. With 134 gpm and 80 feet of drop, we extrapolated that we could generate 725+/- watts. However we would have an 1100 foot penstock to install. More charts. To reduce friction loss and maintain close to maximum output potential, we determined 4" pipe would only sacrifice about 9 feet of gross head if all four nozzles were in use.
Flume Creek
A quick assessment of the benefits of this quantity of energy convinced us to proceed with an installation. However, the year was 1999 and Backwoods Solar was incredibly busy catering to allot of Y2K hype leaving Tracey and I with little time for an install. And at that time, my hydro expertise wasn't exactly expertise. So we called on Lee Tavenner of Solar Plexus of Missoula, MT to develop a turnkey system which would include his installation labor. Lee graciously pieced the components list together even though he understood we would provide the majority of the components; we agreed on a price; and he found time in his busy schedule for an install over one weekend in September.
Prior to that weekend, Tracey and I had to develop the route for the penstock through the woods through which the creek meandered. The path of least resistance followed old and overgrown logging skid roads as well as dense forest. We used survey ribbon to mark a path and hired a neighbor with a bulldozer to cut and clear the path. Another neighbor with a backhoe was hired to dig the intake pond, 4' deep trench, turbine site, and discharge channel to the creek.
Lee recommended we use high-density polyethylene pipe given its resistance to crushing and the fact that it doesn't crack when frozen. His Missoula distributor delivered thirty 40 foot pieces of the 4" pipe to our remote homesite but could only get to within 1000 feet of our trench line. A Honda three wheeler could drag three pieces at a time to within 300 feet and Tracey and I carried each piece the balance of the distance. Not unbearable labor but a 40' pipe can develop some great bouncing waves in it if your mutual pace isn't synchronized properly!
Hydro Intake
These lengths of pipe must be fused together rather than glued as with PVC. Lee would rent the small machinery for this procedure and bring it with him when the installation weekend arrived. Our Honda 3500 watt generator would power the fusion machine.
Next, we gathered and installed the various power system components. Given the distance from the turbine to our battery bank measured 350 feet, we chose to install a 24 volt system. (Even though the PV system powering our home was 12 volts and many of our loads were 12 volt DC, we knew an EQ12/24-20 would enable us to maintain our 12v DC circuits and insure our 24v battery bank remained balanced.) The 350 foot distance from turbine to batteries and our 700 watt generating potential led us to select 1/0 direct burial copper cable in order to minimize transmission losses.
Other items ordered included: a 4 nozzle Motorcraft turbine from Don Harris sized for our site's parameters; a Trace SW4024 inverter; a Backwoods Solar Powercenter kit built around the Trace DC250 disconnect box and Bogart Engineering's Trimetric battery meter; a Trace C40 with digital display; two Enermax 900 watt airloads designed for 24 volt systems; an inline analog amp meter for measuring hydro current at the powershed; four Trojan L-16HC batteries; and miscellaneous cabling, fuses, etc.
Hydro Turbine
Conveniently, we decided that our new system would be located in a workshop 100 feet from our home. The 12 volt PV system was confined to our home with solar modules on the kitchen roof, and inverter, batteries, etc in our living room. By relocating, we would remove the ever-present hum of that SW2512 inverter from our living space and significantly increase the distance between our wood stove and the batteries' hydrogen gas. By installing our 24v system in the workshop, the only interruption in electrical service to our home occurred when we disconnected the SW2512 from our AC service center and reconnected the SW4024 to it; and when we disconnected our 12v fused power distribution box from our home's Lineage batteries and reconnected it to the 12v half of our 24v Trojan battery bank in the workshop.
Lee arrived on a Friday night and stayed with us. First thing Saturday morning, we began the process of fusing the 1200 feet of 4" HDPE pipe. Fusing is mostly a one-person chore, which Lee undertook. It consists of pulling together two ends of pipe and fitting them into the generator-powered fusing contraption's housing. Once inserted, the pipe ends get locked in place and a lever controls their movement. A rotating cutting device with blades facing each pipe end is inserted between the pipe ends and the lever is moved, pulling the pieces into the blades which squares them to each other. Once squared, a heating element is placed between the ends; the generator brings the heating element up to proper temperature; and then the pipe ends are simultaneously pulled against it with the lever. The hot element is allowed to soften about ¼" of each pipe end; the element is removed; and the lever pulls the pieces together where they fuse to one another. The seam cools for a few minutes and onto the next junction Lee would go. Initially, I doubted the strength of this joint but repeated attempts to break the freshly fused seam failed.
While Lee fused, Tracey and I moved individual pieces of pipe to appropriately spaced fusing areas. As Lee finished a seam, Tracey and I would drag the ever-lengthening section of pipe away from Lee so he could fuse the next piece to it. Initially, Tracey and I could drag 200 feet of fused pipe towards the next staging area, but by mid-afternoon we groaned for Lee's assistance after the fifth piece of pipe was attached. This process was exacerbated by the fact that the trench wandered from side to side of the cleared path as it achieved the straightest line from intake pond to turbine site. We repeatedly had to cross the trench and it's mound of excavated earth as we moved pipe and the generator, as required. By nightfall, we were exhausted and still had 200' of pipe to finish fusing. Had we known better and had Lee's schedule permitted, I would have chosen to fuse the entire penstock prior to the trench being dug and utilize the three wheeler's horsepower to pull pipe without the obstacle of the four foot deep trench and its entrails.
Hydro Shed
Back to the trenches Sunday AM. We finished fusing; threw the completed pipeline into the trench; and then attempted to insure that the pipe continually descended over its length. Of course, a four foot deep trench in often soft, moist soil sluffs, causing innumerable high spots which we painstakingly lowered by hand shovel. And then we buffered the pipe by hand with about 6" of soil prior to the dozer pushing in the majority of fill over it, and threatening to cover us as well if we didn't buffer quick enough.
At last, we could connect the turbine to the pipe. At the turbine housing (i.e.-a hole in the ground), we installed a pressure gauge, 2" clean out, gate valve, and universal joint, in line before the turbine. Lee provided a custom-built plexi-glass catch basin with 6" discharge coupling on which the turbine mounted. We fitted the turbine to the plumbing; attached a 6" discharge pipe to the basin; connected the alternator to Battery (+) and (-); and opened the gate valve just after our beer. The pelton wheel buzzed; a quick push of the start button on the turbine's control panel energized the alternator's field; and its ammeter jumped into action.
However, our happy hour rapidly deteriorated. As we picked up, the almost fully charged Trojan L-16HC batteries quickly reached the bulk voltage setpoint, which we had programmed into the C40. As it should, the C40 would have begun to divert power but unknown to us, it immediately went into over-current shutdown. Unregulated, the battery voltage continued to climb. Eventually, we wandered into the powershed; detected an incredible smell of hydrogen; heard tremendous bubbling from the batteries; noted the C40's orange LED yelling overcurrent; and raced to shut down the flow of water to the turbine.
Mystified, we double-checked all connections; confirmed polarities and voltages; and decided to start it up again just as the neighborhood began to wander in for a demonstration. Gate valve opened; current developed; voltage rising; C40 observed; and as the C40 began to divert, boom, overcurrent shutdown. More hydrogen; more bubbling; another race to the turbine; no power; and confused owners, installer, and neighbors. Even worse, we knew Lee had to leave for Missoula. He had already delayed his departure by a couple hours to get us to this point. Fortunately our batteries were full; we had the Honda generator if needed; and we could troubleshoot by phone.
Hydro Powered Home
Eventually Lee solved the problem. We had ordered a one ohm 900 watt Enermax airload. At 30 volts, this load would divert roughly 30 amps. However, when we measured the ohms of the installed Enermax, it registered only 0.5 ohms. Half an ohm and 30 volts resulted in an instantaneous 60+ amp diversion, hence the C40s overcurrent shutdown (our early model C40 was designed to shutdown above 62+/- amps). We exchanged the culprit for a one ohm version and the system immediately worked as advertised.
After a couple weeks of running two nozzles, we realized we had an abundance of energy. Our turbine had four nozzles and our creek could support all four if required but on a daily basis, we couldn't use the energy two nozzles created. So we sold our solar panels; sold our 8 cuft propane refrigerator; replaced it with a 14 cuft Kenmore electric unit; brought home our 23 cuft chest freezer which had always lived at a neighbor's with grid power; disconnected our 120v AC well pump from the generator circuit and reconnected it to our inverter's AC load center; and we installed a 120v AC water heating element in our hot water tank. When it's too warm for wood heated hot water, we open a third nozzle and switch on the AC water-heating element. Not unlimited hot water but enough for showers, dishes, and laundry for the two of us on a daily basis, if needed.
To date, we haven't had to run four nozzles. Hard to believe that our creek with "so little potential" enables such a luxuriously powered alternative homestead and lifestyle. We're delighted and reminded on a daily basis how fortunate we are when we speak with folks who struggle to make electrical ends meet on an off-grid budget.
(The article acan be found at the Backwoods Homes articles)
Teen feigns death to escape massacre
A 17-year-old boy has survived a Taliban massacre of bus passengers by pretending to dead while he lay among the corpses of shot men.
In a hospital in the southern town of Gereshk in Afghanistan's Helmand province, the Afghan teenager described how he had hidden wounded among the corpses of five men shot dead by Taliban after they were accused of being police recruits.
The youngster, known as Shukrullah, said he was among about 40 men pulled off a bus travelling through southern Afghanistan last week and split into smaller groups.
"Taliban made us kneel in a ditch and fired at us. Five other people who were with me died and I survived," he said.
Police confirmed they had found five bodies after six others were discovered Sunday in Helmand. They believe around 30 men were killed.
The Taliban has claimed to have killed 27.
The US condemned the reported Taliban attack on the bus.
"This is a heinous act. It just goes to show that the Taliban are ruthless killers who would do anything they can to stop progress in Afghanistan," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said.
Yesterday was a day of bloodshed in the toubled country with a British aid worker, two German soldiers and five Afghan children were killed.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the killing of aid worker Gayle Williams, who was shot dead in Kabul, as well as the deaths of the German troops and children in a suicide attack in the north.
He said the murder of Ms Williams, 34, who also had South African nationality, was cowardly and unforgivable.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon also condemned the killing of Ms Williams, and aid workers in Somalia, urging respect for the neutral and impartial status of humanitarian personnel.
Ms Williams was gunned down as she walked to work at SERVE Afghanistan, a British-based Christian charity that helps disabled people.
"Two armed men sitting on a motorbike shot her dead. Some bullets hit her body and some hit her leg and when police got there she was dead," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
The attackers had fled and their motive was unknown, he said.
The Taliban, which has carried out similar assassinations in the southern city of Kandahar, said it was responsible.
"We killed her because she was working for an organisation which was preaching Christianity in Afghanistan," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said by telephone.
SERVE Afghanistan rejected the charge of preaching. "We have a specific policy against proselytising," said the London-based chairman of the board, Mike Lyth.
Mr Karzai also expressed condolences for the deaths of five Afghan children and two German soldiers killed in a suicide attack in the northern province of Kunduz for which the Taliban claimed responsibility.
German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung confirmed the deaths of two German soldiers, saying it was a "cowardly ambush" that showed the "Taliban contempt for human life."
Germany has about 3300 soldiers in a 40-nation NATO-led force helping Afghan forces tackle the Taliban insurgency.
This year 232 international soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, more than in the whole of 2007, most of them in insurgent bomb attacks.
Attacks in the post-Taliban era are agreed to be at an all-time high this year with the UN special envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide saying last week that July and August recorded the most incidents since 2002.
A security watchdog, Afghanistan NGO Safety Group, said last week that insurgent attacks on aid workers were at the highest level in six years. In other incidents, 10 Taliban were reported killed in clashes, one near the town of Lashkar Gah which has come under repeated attack in the past week.
The Helmand government claimed 34 had been killed but the defence ministry said only six bodies were found.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24528925-23109,00.html
Teen thrown under train for writing love letter
Reuters | Thursday, 20 November 2008 A teenage Indian boy was thrashed, paraded through the streets with his head shaved and then thrown under a train for daring to write a love letter to a girl from a different caste, police said on Thursday.
Fifteen-year-old Manish Kumar was kidnapped by members of the rival caste on his way to school, had his head shaved and was thrown under a train as his mother begged for mercy, police in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar said.
One man has so far been arrested and a policeman suspended.
The victim's mother Lalit Devi told police she had watched "helplessly" as the wheels of the train passed over her son.
"The accused persons killed the boy for writing a love letter to the girl of the same village," superintendent of police in Kaimur district, Rajesh Kumar, said by telephone.
Police said the girl belonged to a washerman community, considered a lower caste, whereas the boy came from the slightly higher dairymen Yadav community.
Love across caste lines is often violently opposed, especially in rural northern India, and it is not uncommon for outraged families to kill to "save the family honour".
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4767518a6443.html
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/11/indian-teen-thr.html
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