-The Great Change – Albert Bates’ appropriate technologies library. Great place to find out about different technologies with illustrations, but often not enough info to build it yrself. Several useful items are linked below.

Heating and Cooking (Passive Solar & Wood-Fired)¶

-Solar Radiation Data – from Albert Bates’ appropriate technologies library
-Capturing Heat: 5 Earth-friendly Technologies and How to Build Them – from Aprovecho Research Center. Instructions on how to build a plywood solar cooker, a conical cooker, a winiarsky rocket stove, an insulated cooker, and a rocket bread oven.
-Capturing Heat 2: How to Design and Build Fuel-Efficient Cooking Stoves with Chimneys, A Pizza Oven, and Simple Water Heaters. Also from Aprovecho.
-Aprovecho Research Center offers 3 free design manuals (yr supposed to pay for the ones above) for a cookstove, a heatstove, and a poop-fueled stove here. There are also some great learning opportunities at their research and education center.

SOLAR COOKERS
-Parabolic Solar Cooker

WOOD-FIRED STOVES
-Wood Burning Basics by Albert Bates
-How To Build A Rocket Stove – video
-Building Woodstoves – zine
-How to Build a Small Smokehouse by Albert Bates
-Outdoor Oven from earthen and salvageable materials – also from Albert Bates’ library

FOOD DRYERS
-How to Build A Winiarski Wood-Fired Food Dryer – Another great design manual with diagrams from Aprovecho
-Super Easy, Super Low Cost Solar Dehydrator – made from cardboard and plastic wrap.
-Solar Chimney Dehydrator – from Albert Bates’ library

HEATERS
-Solar Hot Water Basics – A clear description of the different types of systems and their components from Home Power Magazine. No plans for construction here, just a solid introduction.
-Composting Hot Water Heater
-Build A Simple Solar Heater
-Solar Heat Collector
-Natural Air Conditioning

Sustainable Biofuels¶

A biofuel is sustainable if its source is grown locally on a small scale, organic, diversified farm system and its processing wastes are returned to the soil of that system. Reclaimed veggie oil is also a great fuel source.

VEGGIE DIESELS
Useful Commercial Sites
-Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems
-PlantDrive – Berkeley-based shop sells components and does installation for Veggie Oil Fuel Systems.

Recommended Reading – Sliding Home: A Complete Guide to Driving Your Diesel on Straight Vegetable Oil, by Ray Holan. 7th ed. Cleveland: Ray Holan, 2006.

ETHANOL
-Building A World Class Home Distillation Apparatus – a step-by-step guide
-Convert Your Car to Alcohol (aka ethanol)

Recommended Reading: Alcohol Can Be A Gas!

METHANE
-Build your own biogas generator – detailed, kid science project style instructions on how to build a small methane generator

Small Wind Power¶

GETTING STARTED
-Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States – detailed maps and analysis of wind data for the continental US, in order to help determine if wind may work as a power source in yr area.
-Wind Electricity Basics http://www.homepower.com/basics/wind/ , from the folks at Home Power Magazine. Clear description of components.
-Helpful tidbits from the Department of Energy (overgrow the government!)
DIY Home Energy Audits – How much electricity do you consume?
Tips on researching yr local codes & requirements
Small Wind Electric Systems – site evaluation, sizing, components, things to know before installing.
-Getting Started in Wind Power – from the folks at otherpower.com. Do not miss this page if you want to build yr own turbine!
-Wind Power Chart – based on blade size and wind speed.

AXIAL FLUX WINDMILLS
-From otherpower.com
Homebrew 10ft Wind Turbine Construction
-User’s Manual for a 10ft Diameter Axial Flux Wind Turbine – from the folks at otherpower.com
-Homemade Wind Turbine Experiments – All kinds of wind experiments, including discussion of alternators and generators, either converted or made of wood. May not want to try these at home without further reading, but they give a sense of what is possible. See also their books, kits and parts.

-www.scoraigwind.com – Hugh Piggot’s site
A Wind Turbine Recipe Book – detailed plans
See also Home Built Windpower – includes tips on carving yr own blades, making yr own alternator, and more with drawings and diagrams.

MAGNET-POWERED WINDMILLS
-Windmill Plans – for a brakedrum permanent magnet alternator. Manual (somewhat dated, but free) by Hugh Piggot. Then build your own permanent magnet generator with this manual we.riseup.net/blooming-in-space/permane..., also by Hugh Piggot!
-Hard Disk Drive Magnets for Wind Turbines!
-How I Home-Built an Electricity Producing Wind Turbine by Michael Davis, 2006. Detailed plans for constructing turbine out of mostly recycled parts for under $150! Blades from PVC pipe, alternator from recycled permanent magnet motor.

SAVONIUS TURBINES
-Photos of ingenious designs

BLADE CONSTRUCTION
-Wind Rotor Blade Construction – Construction manual by Sunith Fernando and Hugh Piggot
-Simple Wind Turbine Blades – make your own!

USEFUL COMMERCIAL SITES
-Dragonfly Wind Generator – sells plans for a simple, low-cost wind generator for $10.

Recommended Reading:
Homebrew Wind Power: A Hands-On Guide to Harvesting the Wind by Dan Bartman and Dan Fink. Buy it here.
-Windpower Workshop by Hugh Piggot
-Wind Energy Basics: A Guide to Home and Community-scale Wind Energy Systems by Paul Gipe. Available from Chelsea Green Publishing. A ton of free information on wind is also available at www.windworks.org.

See also the WATER section for designs of wind-powered water pumps.

Biochar (terra preta) / Biomass gasification¶

-What’s that?
-http://techsci.msun.edu/cots/biomass_gasification.htm
-Gasifier Experimenters’ Kit!!! DIY-style, from the folks at allpowerlabs.org. How to build a gasifier, with instructions, technical resources, and a wiki.

Microhydro¶

-Microhydropower Systems – helpful info from the Department of Energy. Site evaluation, sizing, components, things to know before installing.
-Microhydro Electricity Basics from Home Power magazine – clear description of components and types of system.
-from otherpower.com:
General info on micro systems (scroll down)
Homebrew Hydro Electric experiment from the folks at otherpower.com
Simple Home Built Waterwheel experiment

Bike Power!¶

BIKE-POWERED ELECTRIC
-Homemade Bike-Powered Generator the folks at otherpower.com describe their experiment with lots of pics
-Electro-Bike – may be enough info here to make yr own. this describes hookup to PV system.

Useful Commercial Sites
-DIY Plans for Pedal Powered Generator! $50 – i wish it were free, but someone else is selling a design for $350 so i decided to link this guy

TRANSPORTATION
-How to Build a Bamboo Bicycle – no, you don’t have to pay $2500 for one
-How I made a bamboo frame

Post-Petroleum Transportation¶

Sustainable modes of transport, aside from bikes.
-Escape from Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means necessary) http://www.escapefromberkeley.com/ – hopefully some of the participants will share their designs!

Other Alt Fuels & Experiments¶

-John Bedini’s complete plans for a battery charger made from a bike wheel rim, magnets and other stuff you can find, powered by radiant energy. From peswiki.com
-Algae as a fuel!
Algae can rapidly and efficiently convert waste water and the greenhouse gases in exhaust into food, fuel, and fertilizer, without using up our limited resources of arable land and fresh water. Algae offer a sustainable way to expand our agricultural base while removing pollution from our environment, and because they are far more productive per unit area than conventional crops, they are a great possibility for urban areas. No plans or designs up yet, but contact the folks at http://www.algaelab.org for more info.
-Engine powered by liquid air – from powerlabs.org (see this site for other interesting experiments, like tesla coils, induction heaters and more). Says you can email him for detailed instructions on how to make it.

Nonelectric¶

-How to make a grain mill – from a can and some pipes. From Albert Bates’ site.

Useful Commercial Sites

Lehman’s nonelectric catalog – tools, appliances and more