
Hard Lessons in Living Off the Grid - kawera
https://longreads.com/2017/08/08/hard-lessons-in-living-off-the-grid/
======
Mz
_It took about a year for Luke to regret his move off the grid. “It’s not that
it wasn’t what we expected,” he explains. “We wanted the difficulty of it.”
But he also wanted to show people it was possible to live with a smaller
carbon footprint; instead, he was burning gasoline and watching the island’s
electric utility outpace him, installing solar power and cutting carbon all
over the island.

“That was all happening, not because of me,” he remembers thinking, “but
despite me and my efforts.”_

He wanted to be a pioneer, a leader of some sort. This was more important to
him than "saving the planet." His goal of going off grid was to position
himself as a hero, a frontrunner. Instead of being happy that the island is
converting to solar at a pace that exceeds its stated goals, he just feels
cheated of his goal of being a role model.

But, I like the ending:

 _Walking me out past the taro patch, back across the swinging bridge that
spans the creek surrounding his property, Luke points out one last thing.
“It’s funny,” he says, “it was only recently I learned that Thoreau had his
mom bring him food out in the woods.”_

~~~
cbr

         He wanted to be a pioneer, a leader of some sort.
         This was more important to him than "saving the
         planet." His goal of going off grid was to position
         himself as a hero, a frontrunner. Instead of being
         happy that the island is converting to solar at a
         pace that exceeds its stated goals, he just feels
         cheated of his goal of being a role model.
    

That's harsh. If you put hundreds of hours into doing something you thought
was really valuable, and it turned out that it wasn't actually valuable, I
think you'd be sad too.

~~~
lsh
it may be harsh but I feel it's accurate. the same lone hero sentiments that
causes the "not invented here syndrome" led this guy to toil hundreds of hours
when he could have stashed that ego and contributed to the island's efforts of
renewable energy.

~~~
mvindahl
As I read the article, he went off grid to show everyone else that it was a
viable idea. Meanwhile, the island power grid did some pretty awesome things
with solar cell parks and battery storage, rendering his pioneering efforts
futile. To his credit, he seems fully aware of this.

The whole story thus boils down to a nice, illustrative all-other-things-equal
experiment of how off-the-grid self sufficiency stacks up against a renewable
energy power grid "done right". The latter winning by a large margin.

That being said, there are plenty of sunny places on Earth where the power
grid is dysfunctional, or is hard to access. Those would be more obvious
places for DIY solar panels.

~~~
grogenaut
My thought is that sometimes you do make big social impact by working for "the
man" instead of going it alone.

------
substack
It sounds like the refrigerator is the problem here:

"But they still have rainy weeks where they run out of power and have to run
their gas-powered generator to keep the refrigerator from spoiling."

You don't need to run any other appliances all night when the sun isn't
shining. Also, why would you even have a microwave, toaster, and ELECTRIC
dryer? Those all use obscene amounts of power.

I live off-grid and we run laptops (using boost converters) and lights
directly off 12v DC. A big part of making an off-grid system work is reducing
your consumption drastically in ways that you can't even do if you're plugged
into the grid.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
" Also, why would you even have a microwave, toaster, and ELECTRIC dryer?"

To me, only the electric dryer might be optional because the alternatives are
even worse.

A microwave or toaster would be replaced by another appliance, which has its
own problems. Toaster ovens would run longer than the microwave. You can have
a propane baking oven or propane burners on a stove, but this isn't all that
efficient either. Or you can make fire and cook there, just to warm up your
leftovers from yesterday. A Microwave or toaster seems like a comparative
smart choice.

The electric clothes dryer seems the wasteful bit, since you can just hang the
clothes on a drying rack. I haven't personally used a clothes dryer in years.
It is most definitely a luxury, even if one has children since folks can just
buy a few more clothes to make up for drying time.

~~~
magic_beans
Air drying is pretty useless in a humid, tropical climate --- you end up with
perma-damp, mildewy clothes.

~~~
substack
The sun is also very intense when it shines and it dries out clothes very
quick. We have problems because the sun dries out the soil too much for plants
so we have to put them in shadier areas. I live in an area with 300+cm of
annual rainfall.

------
apozem
Environmental problems seem intimidating to me because by their very nature
they require so much collaboration. My ability to live in a green way is more
or less irrelevant to the planet- what matters is whether I can convince large
groups of people or policymakers to do the same. Getting everyone on this page
seems challenging.

~~~
fpgaminer
> My ability to live in a green way is more or less irrelevant to the planet

I noticed something one day. I had recently built a home gym and gave some
friends a tour of it.

The next week I hear that they're now working out and going to their local
gym.

That moment made me realize the positive effect our actions can have on
others.

It'll be the same with living green. Just by doing it, you are convincing
other people that it's possible and that they should give it a try.

My home is now 100% powered by solar (just got the Tesla batteries installed a
few days ago). It cost less than a kitchen remodel, will be paid off in 10
years, is 100% off-grid 100% of the year, and we've sacrificed no amenities
(still got the A/C going comfortably :) ).

I'm one small fish in the pond, but my house is now a blaring advertisement
for a greener future.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
There's been some research that suggests neighbours with solar is a big
predictor for who gets solar next, which backs this up.

And in general, the theory of "social proof" suggests people like to follow
the crowd in lots of ways.

~~~
ams6110
Well, that's the reason we have so many people driving huge SUVs too.

------
vinceguidry
What I love about technology is that "real" high technology doesn't have
mountains of transistors and actuators. It has lots of the most abundant
materials the planet has to offer. Soil, rock, sun, air. Technology harmonizes
with all these things because if it didn't, there could never be enough of it
to make any kind of difference.

The amount of scale involved simply boggles the imagination. Grid-scale
battery banks, that's something you would think was perfected back in the
fifties or so. But the best we could come up with was pumped storage, and
that's simply not an option everywhere.

China can't have the same Industrial Revolution the West enjoyed. It has to
figure out how to leapfrog past it simply because oil just isn't what it was
in the 1900s. Africa is going to have to leapfrog past what China does.

We look at cars and computers and think that technology is always going to get
more sophisticated, harder for the average joe to work on. But the pendulum is
swinging in the other direction now. We are going to have to value things like
repairability and durability, aspects that are meaningless inside tech
bubbles, simply because when one of your 500lb batteries breaks, you can't
exactly get another 500lb battery out there. You _have_ to fix it. Swap it out
for a spare, sure, but you need to be able to repair it to return it to the
pool.

~~~
dreamcompiler
> Grid-scale battery banks, that's something you would think was perfected
> back in the fifties or so.

Until very recently (and maybe even now) the electric utilities spent less on
R&D than the dog food industry [0]. Because they didn't need to. There was
virtually no need for storage before PV became cheap and fossil fuel became
expensive and the regulated monopolies had to start thinking about competition
from renewables. Although most of them still haven't recognized this.

[0]
[https://thebreakthrough.org/archive/dog_food_beats_energy](https://thebreakthrough.org/archive/dog_food_beats_energy)

~~~
cardiffspaceman
And yet pumped storage has been on line for decades. According to this brief
reference [1] Castaic Lake in the LA DWP system has been doing pumped storage
since 1972.

[1]
[http://globalenergyobservatory.org/geoid/282](http://globalenergyobservatory.org/geoid/282)

~~~
dreamcompiler
True. Peaking load was one of the few reasons (maybe the only reason) for
storage before renewables. Pumped hydro was just about the only option. It
works great as long as you have an elevated lake nearby.

------
Animats
From the article: _“Only recently I learned that Thoreau had his mom bring him
food out in the woods.”_

Robert Frost on Thoreau:

 _Well, if I have to choose one or the other,_

 _I choose to be a plain New Hampshire farmer_

 _With an income in cash of, say, a thousand_

 _(From, say, a publisher in New York City)._

Lesson: sustenance farming sucks. Farming has big economies of scale and you
get none of them.

~~~
prawn
"subsistence farming"?

~~~
sbierwagen
Small plot farming, done to feed yourself.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture)

What 90% of humanity did, for centuries. Classic peasant stuff, you know.

It's not fun. You depend on the food from your land to eat, so you can't
afford to experiment with new methods of doing anything, or grow "cash crops"
that you can't directly eat. If the rains fail, you starve. If there's a
locust swarm, you starve. If your plow oxen dies, and you can't get another
one, you starve.

~~~
prawn
Sorry, I know what it is. The comment I was replying to wrote "sustenance
farming". I wasn't sure if this was a term where they lived, autocorrect or a
mistake.

------
pjc50
Makes it very clear how hard it is to make it practical; grid, even a small
one, is just better.

An interesting insight further down: "It turns out that most remote islands
are powered like ships are"

~~~
epistasis
One thing that a grid depends upon is all the transmission and distribution
infrastructure. This is an incredible expense, but it is amortized over a very
long long time.

On the mainland, investment in that infrastructure has gone in a cycle, I
think we're coming off a decade of very large investment after a decade of 5x
less investment in that infrastructure.

What's going to replace the expansion of transmission and distribution will be
storage. It's often cheaper to buy storage at today's (relatively high) prices
than to continue to size the transmission infrastructure for peak demand,
rather than something closer to average demand. It's that peak demand that is
the most costly to serve, batteries help with this immensely. In NYC, Con ED
is delaying $1.1B in substation upgrades through the use of storage:

[http://www.utilitydive.com/news/coned-seeks-efficiency-
distr...](http://www.utilitydive.com/news/coned-seeks-efficiency-distributed-
energy-to-avoid-11b-substation/284255/)

And on the smaller scale, in Arizona, a community that's growing is getting
batteries rather than upgrading the transmission lines:

[http://www.utilitydive.com/news/aps-to-deploy-8-mwh-of-
batte...](http://www.utilitydive.com/news/aps-to-deploy-8-mwh-of-battery-
storage-to-defer-transmission-investment/448965/)

~~~
Scoundreller
> It's often cheaper to buy storage at today's (relatively high) prices than
> to continue to size the transmission infrastructure for peak demand

Electricity billing is fundamentally flawed: Industrial users will pay a
demand charge according to their peak usage, when they should really pay their
contribution toward the local/regional/national utility's peak usage.

Residential customers may pay a time-of-day generation rate, but still pay a
flat per-kwh rate for transmission and distribution. All 3 should be time-of-
day, at the minimum. Wires sag more when you use them during the hottest part
of the day and when they're already running hot. Upgrades need to happen to
handle peak usage, not off-peak usage.

~~~
msisk6
An additional complication is that generation and load aren't evenly
distributed in a typical energy grid. This can create "traffic jams" that
aren't reflected in a typical residential electric bill but something
utilities and large business get to deal with.

In open energy markets like those in California and Texas there's things
called "Locational Marginal Pricing" and "Congestion Revenue Rights" to deal
with this.

------
chrismealy
If your idea of living off the grid relies on the products of a complex
industrial society, then what's the point? Just to create the illusion of
total individualism? If you want sustainability (and I do!) just be
sustainable, and leave phoney hermit play out of it.

~~~
davedx
Needlessly harsh. This guy started his project way before current large scale
energy storage was even being considered. He genuinely tried to do his best to
minimise his footprint.

It's so easy to read the story from the comfort of your chair and criticise,
isn't it?

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Just commenting on the discourse - I actually agree with you that GP was
needlessly harsh. That said, given that sentiment, your comment would have
been a lot more effective if you left out your last sentence.

~~~
colordrops
The last sentence serves a purpose though. It urges the commenter to reflect
on their own industriousness or lack thereof perhaps causing them to modify
the standard by which they judge others.

~~~
ImSkeptical
Insults tend to make the recipient defensive. If you want the commenter to
rethink things, there's not much benefit in insults.

~~~
colordrops
It's hardly an insult though. You have to have at least the slightest
thickness of skin to survive on the internet or to even just to practice self
reflection.

~~~
ImSkeptical
There are two, not exclusive ideas here. First, when you are reading comments,
you need a tough skin. I agree. Second, when writing comments, you can try not
to be needlessly antagonistic. I hope you can agree with that.

------
driverdan
> Inefficiency is the ultimate downfall of any individual effort to address
> climate change.

This is a great summary of the problem with homesteaders and people who want
to live off grid. Efficiencies of scale are very real.

I've personally been living off the electric grid for about 2.5 months in my
bus with solar and batteries. I've only had to plug into shore power for a few
hours once due to a few days of rain. I don't have enough power to run AC 24/7
though which isn't great in 100+ F TX weather.

------
wffurr
Hard Lessons in misleading titles of Tesla advertisements / PR puff pieces.
The submarine at work.

Don't get me wrong, that Tesla battery plant and the amount of solar Kauai has
installed is amazing. I just wasn't expecting the obvious product placement
given the story title.

------
spraak
I have a few pedantic criticisms of the article. I'm not a local to Kaua'i,
but I've lived there a long time.

The article uses the correct spelling of Moloka'i, but incorrect spelling of
Kauai and Hawaii, which should be Kaua'i and Hawai'i. The ' symbol is an
actual letter in the Hawai'ian language. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOkina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOkina)

The article mentions Luke growing taro [1] and their daughter mostly eating
poi [2], but it doesn't explain that poi is the mashed taro root, usually
fermented.

1\. “The only real success I’ve had is taro,” Luke says. 2\. ... Finley,
subsists largely on homegrown poi.

~~~
krallja
Regarding spelling, the Wikipedia article notes that:

“The United States Board on Geographic Names lists relevant place names both
with and without the ʻokina and kahakō in the Geographic Names Information
System. Colloquially and formally, the forms have long been used
interchangeably.”

------
jldugger
Another rugged individualist discovers that the living as espoused by Walden
is essentially the road to poverty.

------
unlmtd1
Solar is an extremely specialized tech that will not provide even a small
fraction of our electricity. Refrigeration is insane. 1kwh would take a man
about two to three days of pedalling to produce. There will be practically no
electric motors post-petroleum-glut. How many people know the amount of energy
they use? Our society is energy-oblivious. The average post-petroleum-glut
person will afford no more than 50-100kwh per year. That's the optimistic
scenario. Lights and communication. No motorised transport, no motorised
washer, no motorised refrigeration, no motorised water utility. 95% (plus)
decrease of our society's energy input in two generations. And don't forget
that nuclear power = nuclear disaster/war on a long enough timeline. Nuclear
power is mankind's surest suicide path.

~~~
gcb0
most countries use fluvial power and will be oblivious to petroleum going away
if not for cars.

some (I can only think of Canada) even export it.

------
missbit
One problem with this off grid in Kauai story is that he must have friends &
family & when you live in the middle of the Pacific in Hawaii, that means
friends & family flying 1/4 around the world to come & see you. That's going
to sink any green savings for quite a while.

------
bdcravens
I can't help but consider that modern science and medicine has enabled a large
amount of adults whose continued life depends on continued access to that
science and medicine.

------
mhb
Shortread - Meandering story about man trying to live off grid. Discovers that
100% solar not practical without energy storage. Also large scale energy
infrastructure not such a crazy idea after all.

~~~
manmal
Or, say, medium scale. I've taken away that communities of a couple hundred-
thousands homes could now create their own grid, using wind/solar with
batteries.

~~~
yourapostasy
Islands are special use cases. Many non-US islands still run bunker fuel, some
of the nastiest hydrocarbon fuel available. It is still eye-bleedingly
expensive to burn that per kWh. Diesel gets you to ridiculous cost levels, and
that's just fuel running costs. Add in personnel, and maintenance and repair,
and solar looks good to a lot of island residents.

But self-sufficiency is a capital-intensive effort, and most residents cannot
afford the up-front capital, nor have access to the credit necessary. That's
yet another reason scaling up is the way to go for self-sufficiency.

> ...sometimes you end up with more power than you can use in the moment.

This is simply solved by co-generation, but it isn't easy: capital and/or
credit availability drives this solution path. Excess power on an island can
_always_ be put to use somewhere, but it requires intensive capital equipment
investments. Make potable water. Desalinate water. Push potable water uphill
into a reservoir, then let it flow down through a hydroelectric generator at a
minimum constant flow rate; constantly moving the water up and down hill keeps
mosquitoes from settling in it. Many islands are in tropical zones, and there
are always chilling needs: chill sea water in ocean-side reservoirs to drive
central chillers. Even with efficient reuse and recycling, there will still be
unreusable, unrecyclable trash: pull the surplus energy to drive a plasma arc-
based garbage gasification plant (which generates more energy). Still more
energy to use? Drive automated excavation machines with it, building out more
reservoir capacity.

> Other than the fruit trees dotting the property...little else has taken
> root.

Permaculture techniques might assist here.

> ...the utility is offsetting some panel owners’ bills for their (less
> efficient) solar power...

This will take time (decades) before building construction habits change to
regularly accommodate panels. Anywhere there is more climactic heat than
desired for comfort levels, panels can be blocking the solar irradiation, but
we don't have commonly-accepted construction idioms for moving panels to where
they are needed around a building, and everyone _ad hocs_ their own. I'd
prefer to see people continue to use panels for the secondary and tertiary
benefits, despite the reduced efficiency compared to utility-scale
installations, for as long as real estate asset valuation remains high.

~~~
missbit
Yup. Diesel is so expensive, I don't understand why they are making 2030
plans. Why not 2018 plans? Solar panels are now about 40c / installed watt or
less. They will have trouble getting much below that with even Chinese panel
manufacturers barely breaking even. Interest rates are still very low.

Just get everyone involved & roll that solar out. Not a biggie. The savings
will be immediate over burning diesel to generate electricity.

All your ideas were spot on & good for using excess energy.

Heck they can even mine some bitcoin if they have extra energy.

------
marknadal
There is a difference between wanting to live alone, and wanting to be "off-
grid". It is perfectly possible, as the article itself establishes, to be able
to live "off-grid" but not alone. I.E., a small community.

If this is kept in mind, it means it would be possible to build resort-style
communities in fantastic/beautiful locations that are fully self-sustainable
(for energy, not necessarily food, entertainment, water, etc.).

I could easily see these types of communities being co-op or "hacker
communities" run by small private (think YC) companies, that allow for digital
nomadic living around the world.

Is it self-sustainable if food/entertainment isn't included? I say yes,
because as humans we enjoy a diverse range of food than our own ecosystem
anyways. So I don't think importing food is a bad thing. Could you survive
off-grid if you stacked up on a bunch of beans in a basement? Yeah, but we
want quality of life.

Finally, what if you don't want to be in a community? What if you do want to
be alone? Well, that is still possible, it just means that "off-grid" (as the
article states) means sometimes running a generator. Not as efficient, but at
least it gets you what you want.

~~~
hueving
>Is it self-sustainable if food/entertainment isn't included? I say yes,
because as humans we enjoy a diverse range of food than our own ecosystem
anyways. So I don't think importing food is a bad thing.

This is not sustainable. Setting up an island that constantly has to have food
and people shipped in and people and trash shipped out is going to be a loss
sustainability-wise compared to just living mainland and using renewables
there.

~~~
mistermann
Can you explain why that isn't sustainable?

~~~
truthexposer
the goal is off the grid and environmental sustainability...

~~~
mistermann
Once we are on completely renewable energy, something like this should be
completely sustainable, no? (Once we get to that point)

------
carapace
These folks are idiots. Nice Tesla ad though.

(Edit: Small-scale alcohol fuel production integrated with a permaculture farm
can supply food and energy in a reasonable footprint. Cf. "Alcohol can be a
Gas" [http://permaculture.com/](http://permaculture.com/) )

------
MrTonyD
I'm the only person I know who doesn't like solar power. The lifespan of
panels and batteries are both too limited - they will require complete
replacement at too high a frequency for a society. In contrast, I'd like to
see wind turbines continue to evolve - so that they can be maintained over
many lifetimes. Seems like a no-brainer -- but I'm the only one I ever hear
saying that.

~~~
wongarsu
Lifespans of panels and batteries is limited, but so is the lifetime of
everything else. Current panels are designed for ~15-20 years lifetime. Wind
turbines are designed for 20 years lifetime. Coal power plants are designed
for 30 years lifetime.

Of course solar panels pretty much need to be completely replaced while wind
turbines and coal plants can be refurbished, but isn't that mainly because
solar panels require next to no permanent structures? Refurbishing wind
turbines is a thing because support infrastructure and the towers are already
standing. Refurbishing coal plants is a thing because they are very complex
and buildings are expensive. Solar power consists of next to nothing except
the panels, the batteries and a few cables.

~~~
cesarb
> Solar power consists of next to nothing except the panels, the batteries and
> a few cables.

You forgot the inverter, the supports, and optionally the solar tracker. Also,
batteries are optional; many installations, including in the megawatt range,
don't have them. In fact, it's better to treat battery storage as something
completely separate from solar power, since it can also be used with wind, or
even with other sources like thermal.

~~~
wongarsu
>You forgot the inverter, the supports, and optionally the solar tracker

That's why I said "next to nothing", not "nothing".

You're right that in a grid-connected setup you won't have batteries in the
setup. Ideally, you don't want batteries anywhere in the grid and instead do
pumped hydroelectric storage, but that's not possible everywhere.

------
justaaron
I find the tone of this article to be a bit silly, dour, and clueless... Did
this person mention having to "give up an electric toaster" wtf????!!!!!! any
electrical heating apparatus is a short circuit and just dumping amps away
like nothing....

6 panels!??? holy moly, I live on 2 poly 250w and 2 mono 100w panels + 400ah
of battery and a 1k inverter...

this is just reads like a moaning pansy whiner paeon to bloat and consumer
stupidity.

if you go off-grid, that's pretty easy. if you think to produce all your own
food, that's going to take some time- permaculture is a lifetime pursuit.

sheesh look at these photos, that's a gazebo built from a kit or hired labor
or what?

hello!? roundwood timberframe, onsite stones, baled grasses, mud render, etc

it's like the citiest slickers ever decided to try to become instant
permaculture heroes and were disappointed...

~~~
wott
> it's like the citiest slickers ever decided to try to become instant
> permaculture heroes and were disappointed...

It looks so, he probably never saw a farm, since he didn't think that poultry
and vegetable garden should be separated by a... poultry netting (hence the
name)

