This is a FREE event
Date: Sunday, March 10, 2013
Time: 4pm
Location: PM for details

This event is the first part in a series of meets-ups specifically designed to educate our users on off-grid or self-reliant power systems which I've coined as the Electricity in the Forest series.

In a post-electric situation/society, whether a temporary blackout or a zombie apocalypse(!!!), you may want to know different ways to generate electricity. I'm working on several systems from vertical access wind turbines to hydro-electric solutions and could probably spend a day going through them. Given how long the food meet was we’re only going to focus on one way of generating power and it will be much shorter…:) Thermoelectric generation is practical and easy to implement/create/acquire.

Have you ever thought about the different ways you would generate electricity if you had no power? What items would you need power for?

Technically you don’t need any electricity to survive. But just imagine if you had a way to recharge batteries and power some items. Take a moment to think about the advantages of having power...

Communications – radio, short wave radio, weather radio, walkie talkies and other devices…

Light – flashlights, lighting within your location at night and other situations…

Knowledge – access to books and educational videos through a laptop or ipad…

Security – access control to locations, sensors and alarms, night sights for hunting…

Entertainment - music, movies - great for moral in what could be a daunting situation...

These are just a few things that came to mind and we’ll be expanding on this during the event.

Using the Fire to Create Electricity

In part 1 of the Electricity in the Forest series we’re going to be focusing on thermoelectric power generation. I’ve had my thoughts and inventive mind lately on generating power through fire or heat. I’ll be demonstrating this largely unknown but very effective and practical way through my own thermoelectric power generating devices. We're going to be reviewing and experimenting with a few thermoelectric products including:

TPOD1

PowerPot

Biolite Stove

Before you run out and buy any of these you may want to hear about the many hours of research I've done into thermoelectric generation in addition to the pros and cons of these devices. I have been speaking with a manufacturer of thermoelectric technologies and will also be bringing in a much stronger unit in terms of power to this event. We will be using some of these devices in house during the presentation so that you can see how they work.

Please note: I do not work for any of the above noted products/companies and as such I am in no way endorsing them.

If you have a pda, notebook, ipad, smartphone or other device that you might be thinking about using in the event of a blackout then I encourage you to bring it to this event. We be testing and charging things during the presentation so this would be a great opportunity to test these devices out first-hand.