Is This A Good Idea? Living Off The Grid?

August 17, 2009

This past Sunday not only was my birthday, but also the anniversary of moment that Elvis left the building, metaphysically speaking, back in 1977. In the King’s honor, I spent much of the afternoon enjoying his favorite grilled peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, washed down with Dr. Pepper—while repeatedly watching this YouTube video of Elvis practicing karate.

It may have been that harmonic convergence of prodigious amounts of lipids and macho energy that induced me suddenly to experience a transcendent, ecstatic vision. I glimpsed an alternate reality in which a still-living, septuagenarian Elvis was holed up somewhere in the desert outside of Vegas, taking care of business as ever, but now in an environmentally pious, non-industrialized, totally self-sustainable lifestyle. He’d traded in the opulent excess of Graceland for a sustainable mud-and-straw house, where there was nary a power line, utility meter or flush toilet in sight. Instead, the Green Elvis powered his guitar amp with electricity generated by an array of wind turbines and solar panels, drank and bathed in water from wells and cisterns, ate only locally-grown barbequed pulled pork, and wore jumpsuits resplendent with recycled sequins, woven from hemp grown in his personal indoor hydroponic gardening cabinet. He still avidly re-read Frank Adams’ The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus, the book he reportedly was still clutching, in our dimension, when they found him lifeless in the bathroom. But now he did so while perched on a water-conserving composting toilet. Elvis had not only left the building. He’d gone totally off-the-grid.

Okay, so I made all that up. But if alternate-universe Elvis did opt for off-the-grid living, he’d be joining in what might be a nascent trend. While precise numbers are tough to come by, Home Power magazine estimated back in 2006 that 180,000 American families were living off the grid. Becoming totally self-sufficient, and utilizing only sustainable resources that are carbon-neutral and don’t damage the environment, has some definite advantages. When you’re off-the-grid, you don’t have to pay electric, gas, water and sewage bills any more. You don’t have to feel guilty about leaving lights on because the juice comes from a coal-fired power plant that spews greenhouse gas emissions, and because the coal comes from mountaintop removal in Appalachia. You don’t have to fret that you’re squandering significant quantities of the world’s supply of fresh water to dispose of your poo-poo. And if you take the idea a step further and start cultivating your own food, well, homegrown tomatoes are a lot juicier and tastier than the pale-looking, rock-hard variety that you find in supermarkets.

The downsides? The equipment to generate your own energy isn’t cheap—a state-of-the-art rooftop wind turbine, for example, costs about $12,000, and a system of solar panels can cost $20,000 or more. And you’ll probably have to reduce your energy consumption. As this article in Mother Earth News explains, off-the-grid generating systems produce less energy than similar-sized ones tied into the electrical grid, because off-the-grid systems have to convert electricity from DC to AC current, and that exacts a stiff penalty in efficiency. Worse yet, if it’s cloudy or a windless day and your system’s batteries run down, you have no choice but to go dark. As a result, you better get used to canning your home-grown vegetables, since you never know when the freezer is going to stop running. If you like alternative-universe Elvis’s sewage composting toilet, be prepared to shell out $2,000 for a complete system. (Also be prepared for it to work very slowly in cold, damp weather, proponents caution.)

Like most ideas, this isn’t a totally new one. In the early part of the 20th Century, wide swaths of the U.S. were without electrical lines, because power companies thought it was unprofitable to wire them. As Paul Gipe notes in his book Wind Power: Renewable Energy for Home, Farm and Business, in the 1920s and early 1930s, farmers on the Great Plains installed hundreds of thousands of small wind turbines on the Great Plains to light their houses and charge the batteries on the energy-hungry vacuum tube radios that provided them with a link to the outside world. After the New Deal’s Rural Electrification Act of 1936 provided federal funds to wire remote areas, energy self-sufficiency was no longer necessary, and the old turbines and battery-chargers mostly were left to rust.

When the idea of living off the grid resurfaced in the 1990s and 2000s, it was driven less by the need for self-sufficiency. Some of the new off-the-gridders seem more intent on doing their part to slow global warming, which is largely caused by the burning of carbon-based fuels to generate electricity. Others, such as John Twelve Hawks, the reclusive author of dystopic anti-technological sci-fi novels such as The Traveler, perhaps are more interested in making a statement about the inherent evil of our postmodern culture. Some off-the-gridders go it alone, but increasingly, others are banding together and starting off-the-grid settlements such as Dancing Rabbit Village, a community in northwest Missouri whose 40 residents live in “natural” buildings made from straw, clay, adobe and recycled lumber, grow their own food, use electricity generated by solar panels, and drive biodiesel-powered "veggie vans."

So what do you think? Are you ready to spurn the utility companies and live a total DIY lifestyle? Or would you prefer to remain plugged in? Express your opinion below.

Comments

[Lyn Silarski]

Not me however I have a friend who has been talking for years about building a cob house in Maine and getting herself some goats. She's expecting oil to run out and the apocalypse happening soon afterward. There's a whole subculture up here in New England that seems to be thinking that way.

[Minh]

that elvis video was ode also WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:p :D

[Patrick J. Kiger]

Hey Lyn, I could see you raising goats someday. :)

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

I fear that someday we'll all have to live this way. Sigh.

[Natural Man]

I sort of live this way already!

[Jason]

I would love to do this! I am ready to stop relying on the greedy government and power companies for my needs and go back to what iss important.

[colin]

i would like to do this too. as soon as i get the funds to get what i need to get off the grid i would do it right away. no need to line the pockets of gready men who would cut you off and not think what it will do to your family if you dont have the power you need to cook to keep food cold and to heat water to get washed with.

[Cesar Anaya]

Hi, I am from Mexico!!!,

I believe most of the population will live that way. Already I have seen some engineers that resigned to their jobs and built a cabin on the few places that are available in this country: mountains and some others going the beach to live of sea food and coco watter as well as producing their own food, energy, just for themselves. Crazy but it's happening!!! Here the problem is that wages are too low and the cost of living in the largest cities keeps going up and up. Seems to be easier to start a life out there by Your own than trying to get into the "normal life".

I would like to do it some day too!!.

[Patrick J. Kiger]

hey, Cesar...welcome and thanks for offering your insights. I hope you'll become a regular commenter here.

[Astroboy]

I want to BLOW UP THE GRID!!!!!

[Futurist]

learning to use less energy is a vital part of living off the grid. We waste a tremendous amount of energy right now.

[Patriot]

This is a good way to escape the drinking water fluoridation conspiracy.

[Chris]

I think we should still go off the grid in order to save money for our pockets. Also to better the worlds air quailty. I think my allergies are always bugging me because of air quaility. When theres no wind or sun to make energy then we could use the grid. And that would be a small percentage of the year to use it.

[Mattole]

Living off the grid is taken for granted here in parts of the true northern California. Many have been doing it successfully since the '60s when they moved out of the Haight-Asbury District of SF after the Summer of Love. Deep cell batteries are the answer for those cloudy days as they store the juice to keep a house lit on the gray days. Living lite - meaning without lots of electrical gadgets is a big plus in keeping the blood pressure down and the seratonin up.

[I want to BLOW UP THE GRID!!!!!]

I want to BLOW UP THE GRID!!!!!

[book publishers]

As it happens, this is a good way of escaping the drinking water fluoridation conspiracy.

[Shox NZ]

Great news! In regards to the difficulties, I haven't believed about them additional.thank you particularly a whole lot best sharing i'm coming everday.

[probee]

Why all or nothing? Why let the perfect be the enemy of the good? Most folks resources have been drained and they just can't up and move and go totally natural. Start small and do what you can to move toward the degree of off griddedness you are comfortable with and can afford.