There are different alternative energy sources we can use for our everyday needs. It is great to know that we can get electricity from these sources when SHTF.
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Native American Indians believe the earth is alive and pulsing with energy. Scientists found that the earth does indeed resonate (at a frequency of 7.8 Hz).
Our brain resonates at the same frequency, and when people become “tuned” with nature, many become healthier and actually heal from ailments. This suggests that “earthing”— connecting your body to the ground may have merit.
Are people healthier when their bare feet touch solid ground or fingers touch plants and trees growing in the soil? Perhaps life is related to the energy that flows in the earth and in our bodies.
It is such a marvelous symbiotic relationship.
Nikola Tesla also believed the earth has energy. His work in 1909 showed the earth resonated with energy.
It wasn’t until 1952 when a German physicist, W. O. Schumann actually measured its 7.8 Hz base frequency. Tesla wanted to know how to make free electricity using invisible energy in electromagnetic fields.
He joined others seeking ways to produce electricity from the energy that is all around us. Today, we recognize eight technologies that can be used to produce electricity and are considered alternative energy sources — chemical, solar panels for homes, fuel-driven generators, steam turbines, hydroelectric, wind, thermal, and EMF.
This article will introduce you to each.
1. Chemical Sources of Electricity
Storage batteries are popular for producing electricity. They have been around for years generating electricity, and the technology is consistently improving.
The chemical interaction between the battery cells and electrolyte produces a voltage that can drive the current through a connected device. Battery power can energize lighting, drive small motors, pump water, and even provide electricity to an entire home.
This is one of the best alternative energy sources for off-grid living.
Batteries are sold in multiple capacities — 2V, 6V, 8V, 12V, 24V, 36V, 48V, 72V—and are constructed in various shapes using materials such as manganese-dioxide-zinc-nickel, carbon-zinc, nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal-hydride, and lithium.
Batteries can be made of dry cells, wet cells, or gelatin oozing sludge and be single-use or rechargeable depending on the application.
Homeowners typically use dry cells for flashlights and small electrical devices, and wet cells for driving inverters to produce AC power. A special battery is the fuel cell.
It converts chemical energy from the oxidation of fuel into electric DC energy. You can even build small voltage, low current batteries to light LEDs or operate MP3 players, and they are fun to make.
Check out the lemon battery, potato battery, bleach battery, earth battery, and crystal diode. These typically generate 0.6 to 1.9 volts and 0.58mA to 0.95 mA.
The earth battery can produce 12-14 volts and 200mA of current. You are never without a way to generate battery power.
Crystal Diode Definition:
Also known as Cat’s-whisker diode, it is a microwave semiconductor device where current flows in one direction.
2. Solar Power
By placing a panel or module covered with solar cells in direct sunlight, photon energy can be converted into DC voltages between 1V and 46V with a current from 20mA up to 9 amps depending on the module.
An array of solar modules can be applied to a high voltage inverter to produce AC that can be tied to the local electrical grid. A smaller solar panel can charge a landscape light or drive a DC motor or lamp. Solar panels can charge a whole bank of batteries.
At night, the batteries can provide power to the home. Some solar homeowners have added a transfer switch and a battery bank, so they don’t have to be without electrical power when the solar panels are not active.
Several new inverter products can convert solar energy into electrical grid AC with a grid power-out feature. It allows the homeowner to draw solar DC through a transfer switch in the inverter and provide up to 1500 watts of AC.
This lets the homeowner continue to use solar power as long as the sun is shining while the grid is down. Solar power is one of the greatest sources of renewable energy.
3. Wind Power
Moving wind can cause a propeller to rotate and turn a generator shaft producing electrical energy. Harnessing the energy in the wind is like harnessing the photons in a solar array to produce electricity.
Like solar, wind energy is available and is one of the best renewable sources. You can install home wind generators that typically create 400-800 watts for charging 12V batteries.
New bladeless wind turbines operate without large rotating propellers endangering passing birds. The wind can be put to good use to generate electrical power.
Photons Definition:
The basic unit of light particles in constant motion. Photons are responsible for transmitting light.
4. Water Power
Moving water has performed useful work for thousands of years. It can move great objects, turn wheels that process grain, pump water uphill, and rotate turbines to generate electricity.
You can create your own electrical power using flowing water that turns a turbine or propeller shaft with a generator attached. It converts water action to electricity.
If you have moving water on your property, consider a simple hydroelectric generator. They produce about 100W of power 24/7 and can charge a bank of batteries for your home.
Small voltage hydroelectric power also includes a submersible propeller generator you can place in fast water environments and a submersible sailing boat turbine generator that produces DC.
A piece of related technology is the Tesla turbine. It uses closely-spaced disks that rotate when fluid or gas enters and exits.
Holes in the disks cause a connected shaft to rotate providing kinetic energy to a generator or alternator creating DC or AC electricity. The shaft must rotate at 16,800 RPM to produce 12V DC, so it can be noisy.
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5. Fuel-Based Generators
Fuel-based generators produce AC, although many units have a DC output available for charging batteries. You can use them as independent standby power sources during emergency conditions.
Standalone gasoline, diesel fuel, natural gas, or propane (LP gas) generators convert burning fuel into AC electrical power. A stationary generator can produce up to 200 kW of AC.
For example, I have a 15 kW stationary generator that runs on propane and backs up the utility grid power to my home. This generator provides power to my whole house if the local grid fails.
Portable generators can produce 140 W up to 30,000 watts of power.
I also have a portable 2,000-watt gas-driven generator that provides up to 13.7 amps of 120V AC. The gas tank is good for 5 to 9 hours of operation before refill.
It’s been a reliable power source for camping and even for energizing field lights during school activities.
6. Steam Power
A steam power generation system uses fuel such as wood, coal, gas, wood gasification, or nuclear energy to heat a liquid in a boiler producing high-pressure steam.
This steam passes through a turbine rotating an attached generator that produces electricity.
Many power plants today use geothermal energy function on this principle. Steam power is an excellent source of renewable energy.
While steam engines were common in the 1800s, only small demonstration steam power generators are currently available for the home user. They can produce 10V to 15V of DC power for charging a 12V battery.
7. Thermoelectric Power
A thermocouple or thermoelectric module can convert heat to DC voltage which you can use to charge a battery or bank of batteries. The Stirling engine also runs on heat.
It produces DC power based on heat applied to a cylinder containing a movable piston. A nitinol wire can become a heat engine that uses the temperature difference between the same wire immersed in two tanks of water to turn a generator and create electricity.
These all produce low voltage and current, but enough energy to charge a wet-cell battery.
8. Invisible EMF Power
This is an up-and-coming technology, although the concept has been around since Nikola Tesla conducted his first experiments to transmit electricity without wires.
Tesla’s experiments included energizing light bulbs spaced out from a power source without connecting wires.
After Tesla died, no serious research and experiments followed until recently. Now, Tesla coils can cause wireless light bulbs to glow in your hand and high voltage electrical sparks to fill the room.
We are just beginning to exploit this technology. Products are now available that use invisible EMF energy to charge mobile phones.
Perhaps, soon, we’ll be able to harness Wi-Fi energy to create electricity that can drive appliances and even vehicles.
9. Hydrogen Power
Hydrogen power is another up-and-coming technology, focused to give power to motorized vehicles. As one of the cleanest alternative energy sources for cars, hydrogen mixed with oxygen can power up a car through its fuel cell.
10. Biomass Power
Biomass is one of the alternative energy sources that produce power through combustion. In usual cases, renewable organic waste is used to create carbon-neutral electricity.
In the process of burning these wastes, the combustion will produce high-pressure steam that will then turn powerful turbines to spin and power up a generator creating electricity.
When SHTF, we need to find alternative energy sources of electrical energy to increase our chances of survival. Watch this video from Alltime10s and find out the new yet somewhat weird ways to harness energy:
The earth is a giant source of energy, both renewable and non-renewable — ready at our disposal. Thanks to the work of Weber, Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz, Edison, and Tesla, we have electrical power to make our lives easier and more comfortable.
As technology developed, some of the innovations from those days were neglected. Today, those technologies are being revisited, refined, and reintroduced, giving us multiple ways to generate electricity at home thru alternative energy sources.
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Know other alternative energy sources? Tell us about it in the comments section below!
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on July 24, 2015, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
