Setting Realistic Homesteading Goals

Resilient Life Public Resilient Life
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My wife and I started at this in our 50’s, our homestead is 86 acres and came with a 110 year old ranch house. We built an off grid solar home and are working on another with a root cellar. We have had a blast together, making decisions every day.

We started out on a binge to grow our own food and found something on our plates every once in a while that we had grown. After 12 years here, it is pretty amazing to me how much of our own food we do eat. It takes time to learn the skills of resilience.

You are right, we did not connect to our community until we started a market garden and became the big dog at the local farmers market, we now run it.

Both my wife and I come from corporate sales backgrounds, city kids really, we are now immersed in beauty every day. The turkey and deer show just went past the kitchen window.

I love this lifestyle, it would be hard to go back. It is not for everyone.

 

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Northsheep
You stated that “Full analysis of the energy cost of … solar electricity reveals a net energy too low…”
But the same fascist global corporatists who have ruined our agriculture production systems by replacing natural processes with high profit top down corporate control, and who have ruined out health care system by replacing natural processes with high profit top down corporate control have ruined the alternative solar industry by creating very low EROI by avoiding zero cost natural processes and shoving high profit top down corporate control practices on us.
Like others here, you can dismiss me and say “you are passionate! therefore are wrong!” Actually I am not passionate about this and am focusing on radio. I published a book about my observations on this topic in order to clean house and move on to something more intellectually interesting (true digital communications). So dont expect me to spend endless time “debating” little golden nuggets via shallow keyboarding chit chat squirts. I did my time and published a complete story which is found at amazon booksellers. Of course I am happy to argue why I am wrong and why you think that fabulous corporatists like Prieto are right after you have read my book.
This is no longer my thing and I prefer talking about radio. I am merely pointing out the facts that thrust themselves onto me. I document this in my book “Take Back The Power!” wherein I explain a path to high EROI solar by turning our backs on corporate solar. Many industry practices and products are pushed on us for high profit- low EROI purposes and Prieto is the epitomy of this. Since very few people understand basic electricity (including most young people with “electronics engineering” degrees based on endless computer programming and only a single course in basic electronics and who often do not even know how a transistor works) this industry, like most of the present corrupt system, is dominated by MBA driven profit practices.
Prieto (often mentioned in these esteemed blogging posts) is an extreme corporatist who pushes the narrative that we must pay tons of money for unnecessary (but profitable) big industry practices because these extremely expensive and unnecessary corporate practices are (in his words) all “sine qua non” (ie. necessary) for solar energy. Yes I have contacted the authors and tried to discuss my criticisms but was met with a top down from superior corporate position with dismissal. As I said, I am moving on to work on water and communications and if you dont believe me I really dont care any more. I have better things to do and have put my observations out there for objective thinkers to discover.
Basically, the same corporate corruption that infects our medical system infects our solar renewable energy “system.”
If you dont have enough money to buy my book, I will arrange to lend a copy to you.

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northsheep:

As you say, direct mechanical use of small, local hydropower is the most permanent and economical solution. And waterways and sail transport will return.
I would add that rail will hold out for a while also. Maybe a return to light local rail and wood powered boiler engines? Steampunk we shall become.

 

Both waterways and railways are in my thoughts as I begin to setup on the Mississippi River 25 miles upriver/rail from Dubuque, IA.

There are tracks on both sides all of the way from MSP to the Gulf.

I’m betting that the Ole Miss is going to become a big part of the declining gasoline/electricity future in terms of trade and energy. At the very least it will set my children up geographically for a post cheap-energy future.

Time to consider buying an acre near the waterfront in town to go with the homestead up in the hills. Maybe a boat too.

 

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>>> "Liz Smith said:

I obtained a DC treadmill motor a while ago and was wondering what it would do if paired with a simple waterwheel. I don't really have a workshop, however."

 

You can probably get there with a hand-drill, and a friend who is a welder.

If you spend a lot of time on the drafting board, and have access to a local steel supply who will cut to length for you.

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Mots,

You’ve just made another customer for your book. Looking forward to reading it.

As an engineer, I’ve watched the very gradual increase in efficiency with solar energy but as far as I know the numbers don’t pencil out. I’d like to think there is a way to make it work out, so I’m looking forward to reading your take on it.

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he has done extensive work with charles hall . the father of eroei. yes he worked on large solar installations in spain.

he is attacked here personally ie an ad hom with no mention of data.

fail

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I live a sensible life in a sensible place. So I took some time to go to the driving range and perk up my Vit-D naturally. Folks here seem to want to make everything so difficult!

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Redneck engineer: the issue is this
until about 5-8 years ago, half of all money spent on solar electric used to calculate EROI was for the solar panels themselves. Pietro does not clearly show his panel prices vs total input but via looking at all his data, it seems to be about 25-50 of his total and about 3$ per watt. You should read his book. I had a Spaniard visit me a few month who lived through the solar bubble period that Pietro writes about. Banks were going door to door selling solar electric investments based on government price guarantees. It was real crazy and definitely non-market driven. As explained in his book they were actually flying in solar panels and deliberately over building and throwing out electricity in order to maximize average energy valuations as determined by ridiculous government pricing. I have a great deal of empathy with the tone and conclusions of his book. I would have felt the same way if I lived through that period as a financial manager during a crazy solar bubble.
NOW, after solar panel manufacturing has become very energy efficient (I provide references in my book by the way) and solar panel prices dropped 5-10 fold and are not supported by any govt subsidies for manufacture (China had a big shakeout of players as a result) the solar panel cost is only about 5-10% at most of the total cost of (corporate) solar electric. THE EROI CALCULATIONS have a cost/energy input that is almost all driven by big corporate bloat ware and NOT by solar panel cost or manufacturing energy input. Panel costs/energy to manufacture are a very small part of EROI. This is why the individual can beat the pants off the corporate guys on EROI. I explain this in my book. I also briefly explain how bean counters (speaking of Gail Tyberg here) refuse to alter their fossil fuel thinking of but dismiss solar purely on the basis that it needs a different way to calculate costs. The future is different from the past but some people cant let go of fossil fuel thinking.
I am trying real hard to avoid so called “debates” (keyboarding chit chat crap mud slinging?) with Mohammad and have already sent him information privately, which he ignored. I have much data and comparisons in my book. Because most people refuse to really lo0k at the data, which I have already summarized briefly at PP a couple times, I placed a detailed analysis of Pietros data in an appendix of my book. Keyboarding attacks are cheap and easy on this forum. I prepared and published my facts because I want them available to others. We have better things to do than get into our feelings and attack each other here. I will no longer respond to personal attacks such as “ad hom with no data!!!” Many people at PP are rational minded and I love conversing with. But I wish there was an ignore button on this site.
 

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>> Golf and Vitamin D

I live a sensible life in a sensible place. So I took some time to go to the driving range and perk up my Vit-D naturally. Folks here seem to want to make everything so difficult!
 

Good social distancing exercise.

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could not agree more.
interest in golf is exploding. unfortunately that means crowded courses

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you sent me a part of what you wrote I DID NOT IGNORE IT. i gave you my response and pointed out your deficiency in ignoring eroei. you said that was in another section but never sent that to me.

you come on pp and make assertions w/o documentation, tell people to read your book then opt out conveniently saying you don’t have the time. you cast an ad hom on pedro prieto w/o disputing any facts. yeah an ignore button would be awesome. that is one thing we agree on

just don’t misrepresent me or my position here or i will call you out again

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Re solar; my take away memory of setting up an off grid solar panel system (40! yikes) years ago, was primarily reducing energy use, to a lot less, finding all those current leaks, and paying attention to energy use; and having backup layers for when demands are high. It is however nice to have grid power, I have remained aware of the need for alternates. We all imagine ourselves somewhat immune, but a shaker here (mag 8 or 9) would loose our grid for several months, minimum.

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This was an absolutely wonderful article! What a joy it is to read a first hand account from a down to earth homesteading couple that didn’t have tons of cash to throw at it right away. I really appreciate your time and shared experiences/knowledge. Doing exactly what the author is doing on a limited budget, I find it really refreshing to see others going through similar journeys. This is a refreshing new idea from PP that I support- to have normal people contribute articles instead of hearing about how someone who bought 100’s of acres and $700,000+ to throw at homesteading pretending they are just like the common man/woman. It’s also great to see these types of articles instead of Adams constant stock market posts. Well done!

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Don’t know if you have read the “Anastasia” Books from Vladimir Megre. There is a lot about so called family country residences in ecovillages. Today there are nearly 500 ecovillages with an unknown number of family country residences, some villages have more than 100 families settled in the village. Most of the people in these village have not much money. The country residences are all about 1 Hektar (= 2,47 acre).
I have got a lot of good ideas from the following videos and the description about those lands & houses & people and wish you joy and good ideas by watching these videos.
Yours Regina from Northern Germany
Here is a documentary about one eco village called Slavnoje in German. English subtitles are autogenerated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XCDavhqVqw
And here another one from RT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esdh0wvdxck&t=38s
The Russian Government had since 2016 an Program called “The far east Hectar”, where Russian People can get 1 Hektar for free in serveral Provinces of the far East. By the way, not the whole Far east is snow & frost the whole year round -:)) There are regions, where there are harsh winters but good summers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNIjsbgO8so
 
 
 

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One inescapable problem with energy generation, distribution, and transmission is the fact that governments in every country exert tremendous control. That inefficiency distorts EROI analysis, on top of which go additional political wastes, costs, and inefficiencies.

There are massive, systemic inefficiencies in the top-down, centralized energy grids. Consumer costs and system reliability suffer as a result. I’d like to see today’s approach compared to a vastly decentralized network, with far more generation plants but located closer to consumers. Surely there would be efficiency gains in transmission losses alone, and the system as a whole would be far more resilient.

By analogy, look at the meat industry in the US, how centralized it is, and how it lead to empty store shelves as COVID took off last year. A more decentralized network of farms, ranches, butchers, packers, and shipping companies would be better able to handle a pandemic. If one meat packing plant were shut down for two weeks, the rest of a large network could pick up the slack.

The decentralized network is more resilient, in general. Let a network build up with a variety of sources, rather than concentrating on one or a few types, and that would add to the resilience.

Has anyone done this kind of analysis?

Further, for those on the grid, having some means of generating supplemental energy at home reduces the overall load on the grid and, if some power is sold to the grid, serves to be a minor source to the rest of the grid; both supply and demand on the grid are improved. The struggle is finding a reasonable ROI for home solar, wind, or other alternative sources.

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Redneck man
You raise a good point about the value of decentralized networks.
I have not seen a comprehensive analysis of local vs top down energy networks but believe that such analysis could be extremely meaningful in the context of Jeremy Englands mathematics/physics of how life evolves. This is because absorption of energy at many/multiple locations and use locally at those locations qualitatively differs from centralized absorption and then distribution to a larger area before use to create localized order at the expense of increased entropy in the surrounds. I have a hard time understanding Englands physics but it seems that the quality of localized order at the expense of dissipative entropy in the surrounds (which is a physics way of understanding life) is enhanced by decentralization of the energy gathering and usage.
I think that this is an extremely important topic and that local grid/decentralized networks for gathering and using energy is a fundamental organizing principle of rebuilding society after the collapse, which has already started. In other words, there is a physics rationale for local resilient communities.
Maybe Jeremy England has found a scientific basis for how us small resilient community builders can kick the shit out of the elite.
I would like to develop these ideas further (with you?) and communicate with members of Englands laboratory…

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We just moved to a lakefront property with a well. I have inquired about a manual pump, least expensive in 3500$. We have a deep rock well, 200 ft. Any suggestions on buying a pump online that we could install ourselves? We are a little nervous about screwing up the well.

Thanks for any input.

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We’ve heard favorable reviews over the years from the PP community about the Simple Pump

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Thanks Adam.

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Hi Eek,

I installed a Grundfos 11-SQF solar pump back in 2014 on a 200’ deep hard rock well that produces about 40 gpm. I installed the pump myself using a 100’ length of polypropolene pipe and connected the pump to 4 - 175 watt solar panels. It has produced all the water I need for garden, orchard (1/2 acre), potato patch (about 1/3 acre). It produces close to 7000 gallons per summer day although I only use about half that amount during peak season. The key to your pumping capacity is the static level of your well (my static level is 17’ which is unusual).

The folks at Solar home can help you with the pump curve calculations if needed.

You can find info here:

http://www.solarhome.org/submersiblepumps.aspx

I paid about $2600.00 for it in 2014 and I have had absolutely no trouble with it. And there is a level of comfort knowing that my water supply is completely off grid.

I do use a storage tank so the well is pumping into the tank during the day when the float switch calls. I irrigate directly from the tank by gravity and have about 18 lbs pressure. I use a booster pump for household pressure.

Hope this helps.

Coop