ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
Because of our remote location in Dorset, our house and farm are not connected to the grid. We provide all our power from a large number of diesel generators. The main one being a Lister 6/1 set which is cheap to run and incredibly easy to maintain. That give 2.5kw which is enough to run our house. Some equipment in the Workshop requires larger amounts of power. This is supplied by a 1942 Lister JP3 set which was built for use in WW2 by the British army. Very reliable!
But all this dpendence on fossil fuels is starting to worry me. Although we buy our red diesel at 40 pence/gallon, it is still mucking up the atmosphere.
I have started to become interested in renewable energy because of this, and have currently built a darrieus windmill for my A level Design Technology project. Pictures and info here
My other main interest is micro-hydro power, mainly because of the small stream flowing through one of our fields. I am planning the construction of a Banki-Crossflow turbine to provide power for battery charging. This will hopefully be carried out in the near future.
Anyway, here is a list of small articles that I have written.