Wind Power for Home & Business: Renewable Energy for the 1990s and Beyond (Real Goods Independent Living Book)

Wind Power for Home & Business: Renewable Energy for the 1990s and Beyond (Real Goods Independent Living Book) Review

In 1993, Chelsea Green published Paul Gipe's landmark guide to the newest and best techniques for harvesting wind energy with small and medium-sized turbines. Now in its fourth printing, the book has sold more than 10,000 copies and inspired countless independent power producers to take control of their own electrical supply.

The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy: Achieving Energy Independence Through Solar, Wind, Biomass, and Hydropower

The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy: Achieving Energy Independence Through Solar, Wind, Biomass, and Hydropower Review

Energy bills have skyrocketed in the United States, and traditional energy sources can be as damaging to the environment as they are to your pocketbook. The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy will show you how to slash your home energy costs while dramatically reducing your carbon footprint.

Completely revised and updated, this new edition describes the most practical and affordable methods for making significant improvements in home energy efficiency and tapping into clean, affordable, renewable energy resources. If implemented, these measures will save the average homeowner tens of thousands of dollars over the coming decades.

Focusing on the latest technological advances in residential renewable energy, this guide examines each alternative energy option available including:

• Solar hot water and solar hot air systems
• Passive and active solar retrofits for heating and cooling
• Electricity from solar, wind, and microhydro
• Hydrogen, fuel cells, methane digesters, and biodiesel

This well-illustrated and accessible guide is an essential resource for those wanting to enter the renewable energy field. Packed with practical tips and guidelines, it gives readers sufficient knowledge to hire and communicate effectively with contractors and is a must-read for anyone interested in saving money and achieving energy independence.

Dan Chiras is the author of twenty-nine books on residential renewable energy and green building and the director of The Evergreen Institute's Center for Renewable Energy and Green Building, where he teaches workshops on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and green building.

Natural Home Heating: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Options

Natural Home Heating: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Options Review

Natural Home Heating is the first comprehensive guide to heating your home with renewable energy sources. Greg Pahl offers a well-organized, easy-to-understand tour of all available renewable home-heating options, including wood, pellet, corn and grain-fired stoves, fireplaces, furnaces and boilers as well as masonry heaters, active and passive solar systems, and heat pumps. Learn how to burn environmentally friendly biodiesel fuels, not just in your car, but in your furnace or boiler. Included is everything you need to know about the fuels, systems, technologies, costs, and advantages and disadvantages of each option. Pahl teaches homeowners how to retrofit existing heating systems and choose renewable replacements, or design an entirely new house that can be heated comfortably with minimal environmental and financial impact.
Consider:

95% of American homes are heated with fossil fuels or electricity (which is generated mainly by fossil fuels).

Oil and gas prices will continue to rise as supplies dwindle and sources become less reliable.

Home heating costs could double or even triple in the event of a fuel crisis.

The use of fossil fuels is the primary contributor to global warming.

There are viable, clean, healthy, and affordable home heating alternatives!
Learn how to burn environmentally friendly bio-diesel fuels, not just in your car, but in your furnace. Find out how a ground-source heat pump works and why it can achieve 400% heating efficiency. Discover what it takes to make burning wood truly sustainable. Natural Home Heating explains all these details and more, making it unique in the marketplace.

New Green Home Solutions: Renewable Household Energy and Sustainable Living

New Green Home Solutions: Renewable Household Energy and Sustainable Living Review

New Green Home Solutions: Renewable Household Energy and Sustainable Living Feature

• Renewable Household Energy and Sustainable Solutions
• Solar Electricity
• Wind Power
• Financing, Rebates and Tax Credits
• Passive Heating and Cooling

Green living begins at home, and New Green Home Solutions tells you how. Most of the energy-derived pollution we produce comes as a direct result of our homes - how we heat them, how we cool them, how we keep them well-lit and full of things that make our lives so comfortable. The good news is that we have tremendous power to create change. Renewable energy design, better insulation and more efficient appliances could reduce energy demands by 60 to 80 percent. By embracing conservation and renewable energy, we can win our energy independence and help save the planet. 

Dave Bonta, president and founder of USA Solar Stores, the largest alternative energy retailer in the Northeast, has written about alternative energy and sustainable living for Green Living, Back Home Magazine, Alternative Energy Retailer and The Vermont Guardian. Bonta has studied renewable energy and energy efficiency for more than twenty years, is a frequent speaker at major green energy conferences across America and is a tireless advocate for green living. Also president of BioQuantum, Inc., a bio-fuels company, Bonta is the creator of BackHome chapters in America and is president of a renewable energy community organization, The Sustainable Valley Group.

Stephen Snyder, communications director for USA Solar Stores, is also the author of The Brewmaster's Bible (HarperCollins), The Beer Companion (Simon & Schuster) and The Brewmaster's Recipe Manual.

The Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Techologies and Sustainable Living (9th ed)

The Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Techologies and Sustainable Living (9th ed) Review

It is arguably a form of cultural insanity that industrial civilizations constantly bathed by free and clean energy from the sky (the sun and the wind) continue to depend upon dirty and limited chemical fuels that poison the people, their foods, and the land upon which they depend.

Happily, this comprehensive sourcebook provides those of you with foresight a way out of this madness; it includes products ranging from simple energy-saving devices such as compact fluorescent lights to home-scale energy-harvesting systems that utilize the sun, wind, and water to make electricity for people living "off-the-grid." Chapters focus on Independent Living, Land, Shelter, Harvesting Energy, Managing Energy Systems, Heating and Cooling, Water, Energy Conservation, the Nontoxic Home, Home and Market Gardening, Mobility and Electric Vehicles, and Livelihood and Learning. Committed to selling only products that promote environmental responsibility at an honest value, The Real Goods Trading Company is one of the fastest-growing companies in America. Many of the products listed in another of our favorites, the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, can be purchased by mail from Real Goods.