Jim and Joan, a real-world case study: 

Jim and Joan are a couple I first met more than 20 years ago in Colorado.  I have disguised their names because I haven’t cleared this story with them … but I can assure you they are real and every word I am going to type is as accurate as I can make it.  The two main reasons I chose them as a case study is because I know their story well, I’ve verified many of the facts “on site” and because they live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, at a bit more than 10,000 feet above sea level and ‘everybody” (especially anybody who has graduated from Harvard, or the University of Denver (what did they re-name that oil tanker to, Dr. Rice?) knows that of all places you can’t use alternative energy it’s in the Rocky Mountains where the sun is so frequently hidden by snow clouds and the winter temperatures can hit 40 below.

Jim and Joan met and married more than 20 years ago.  Jim was schooled as a welder and Joan had a lot of talent in pottery-making.  But, except for the pots Joan threw to sell to the tourist trade they literally didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.  By chance Jim learned of 80 acres of land that was available about 40 miles miles southwest of lake George, Colorado.  It was available because it was foreclosed … bank owned … and had been foreclosed on at least 6 times since the original pioneer Homestead Act.  It was 27 miles from the tiny seasonal village of 11 Mile, and coincidentally 27 miles from the nearest US mailbox and nearest commercial power line.  At the time they purchased the land the power company wanted $54,000USD to supply the property … with the promise that if anyone else came and bought land along the power line Jim and Joan would get a percentage of their money refunded.  Since they had nowhere near $54,000 to invest in a lifetime of electric bills the decision to “say no to the grid” was an easy one.

They build a south-facing house mainly into a hillside on the properly, made the entire south wall a greenhouse with surplus windshields for old Army trucks and had a well drilled.  To pump the water they used a conventional AC-powered water pump powered with an alternator (AC Generator) powered by a Ford Pinto four-cylinder engine that Jim converted to run on Propane.  Lights, satellite TVB/Internet/VOIP phone receiver and laptop computers were powered by a bank of deep-discharge golf cart batteries, an inverter and a bank of solar cells.  Solar cells do indeed cost money, but this was the setup that got them off the ground cost way, way less than the $54,000 the power company wanted and their trucked in propane costs were comparable to what their electric bill would have been, if they had one.

A part I found particularly ingenuous was Jim’s hot water solution.  He converted a surplus 600 gallon industrial tank to a water heater by running the cooling system water from the Pinto engine through coils in the tanks and insulating it in a shed next to the main house.  the shed was built about 4 feet bigger each way than the hot water tank and the extra space filled with straw.  They normally ran the engine/generator set up 3 or 4 times a week to fill the domestic cold water tank … and run a standard washer dryer setup to handle the clothes washing and while the generator pumper water from the deep well it also heated the domestic hot water.

Sounds a bit like genius but you haven’t seen nothing yet.  To avoid the monthly propane bill and power a pottery kiln that Joan wanted Jim invested in cows.  Actually he invested in corrals and feeding pens and neighbors, always looking for ranching space provided the cows.  Cows produce a lot of what, boys and girls?  That’s right, Mary Ellen, cowshit.  Do a Google on methane digesters … this article is getting too long already.  A couple commercial septic tanks buried in the ground, a solar-powered pump to collect and compress the methane from the waste from the feedlot and corral floors and presto … no more propane bills.

If Jim and Joan can live for years, and live well in their semi-hostile environment in the Rocky Mountains I guarantee anyone who isn’t hampered by too much knowledge of “why it can’t be done” can live, and live well in the benign climate of the Philippines. 

How much money could you have invested in the past 20 years if you paid no, none, nada, zero utility bills.  And how much will you and your heirs save over the next 20 years?  Still think alternative power costs too much?  Keep reading.

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