Pillar 02
Energy
Heat, power and fuel produced at the scale of the place that uses them.
Centralized energy is brittle. A downed line, a distant market, a single fuel — and kitchens go dark. This pillar gathers working patterns for heat, electricity and fuel that can be built, repaired and governed locally: biogas from kitchen waste, mass heaters that sip wood, thermosiphon hot water, modest photovoltaics, and neighborhood microgrids that fail gracefully. Sovereignty here is not autarky. It is the capacity to keep the lights on when the larger system cannot.
Other pillars
5 records
Methods in this pillar
Kitchen-scale biogas digester
A sealed vessel that turns food scraps and manure into cooking gas and a liquid fertilizer, closing a loop that most kitchens send to a landfill.
Rocket mass heater
A high-efficiency wood burner whose exhaust is run through a cob or masonry bench, so a small stick-fire heats a room for hours after it is out.
Neighborhood DC microgrid
A handful of roofs, a shared battery, and a simple agreement — enough to keep lights, radios and a well pump alive when the utility is not.
Passive solar greenhouse
A glazed room aimed at winter sun, with mass inside and insulation behind, so plants and people take heat from the building instead of a burner.
Thermosiphon solar hot water
Collectors below a tank, no pump, no controller — water that rises because it is hot, and a household that still washes when the grid is quiet.