We know how our homes are powered: big
generators running on coal, nuclear, or renewable power send us energy via the
national grid. But for many people, these methods aren’t exciting enough. Here
are some more unusual ways people have tried to power their homes:
Nuclear
power
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this image: http://backtothepredictions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/MrFusion1.png
If you were looking for the most dangerous
thing to try at home, a good start might be experimenting with the technology
that leveled Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl. As long ago as 1994,
17-year-old Daniel Hahn, (known as “The Radioactive Boy Scout”) was arrested while
attempting to build a homemade nuclear breeder reactor in his mother’s potting
shed. He had succeeded in collecting and refining so much radioactive material
that a geiger counter showed a dangerous background levels of radiation as far
as five houses away.
But it’s not just secretive boy-scientists
- today, home nuclear power openly experimented with by hobbyists around the
world. Nuclear fusion - the chemical process that powers the sun - has been
achieved by at least thirty amateurs. You can even find a step-by-step guide for creating your own
fusion reactor on the website Instructables.
The problem is, no home hobbyist has yet
figured out how to make fusion reactors produce more energy than they consume,
meaning a Back to the Future-style Mr Fusion machine is still years away.Milkman
Energy is creating a group of people who are looking to Save on Energy bills, Power bills, Gas bills. Energy suppliers then compete to offer members of
the group the best value deal.
Sewage
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Poo power could be our smelly future. Human
and animal farces contains a wealth of chemicals which could potentially
generate electricity. It can also be used in a number of forms including
biogas, and the unappealingly-named “dried and charred fecal sludge”, which
has properties similar to coal.
As a result, people have started using poo
to power their houses. One house in Navarre, Spain, powers it
heating, hot water and stove systems with sewage. TUnfortunately the humans in
the house don’t create enough feces for the system to fully function - it only
works if you include manure from four horses, which is not a solution your
average city dweller could implement.
But, poo power does work well on a larger
scale - one Somerset dairy farm sends enough
electricity into the national grid to power 6,000 homes; and Bristol has rolled
out poo-powered buses. Appropriately enough, they’re on route number two.
Home
oil wells
Oil wells are not particularly safe
environments. After the first gulf war, hundreds of wells were set alight, and
some took four months to be extinguished. And you don’t
have to look far in popular culture for reminders of how
dangerous oil extraction can be. Nonetheless, some people have
absorbed this information and decided that home oil wells are the hobby for
them.
There have been several reports of people
who have created home oil rigs, including one person who claimed to extract three barrels a day in his garden. But what to
do once you’ve drilled the oil? Powering a house would require a small
oil-fired power station to convert oil into electricity; using the oil to drive
a car would require a home refinery. Even storing the oil is incredibly
dangerous - unrefined oil contains hydrogen sulphide gas, which according to
one journalist who investigated the matter, “has a terrible
propensity to evaporate from crude, knock out your olfactory capabilities, and
slowly suffocate you to death.” So, if you have decided for some reason to buy
or build a house on an oil field, we recommend you keep the drills in the
toolbox.
Electric
eels
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this image: http://aqua.org/~/media/Images/Animals/Electric%20Eel/animals-electriceel-slide3-web.jpg
As a power source, Electrophorus electricus have the advantage of creating ready-made
electricity without needing any conversion through refineries or power
stations. Their feed is also considerably easier and safer to buy than
uranium-235.
Still, they are not the ideal power source.
They produce high voltages for very low amounts of time, and are inconsistent in the amount of electricity they
emit. Even so, one Japanese aquarium powered an entire Christmas tree using a
single electric eel.
However, before you rush to the Amazon with
a fishing net,, be aware that there are drawbacks. A US aquarium tried to power
a Christmas tree, and found they could only power very low voltage
lights using their eel. This would restrict the amount of home applications eels
could fuel, unless a transformer was used...and even so, a huge volume of eels
would be required before an entire house could be powered.
Something
just as innovative, but less dangerous
You don’t have to make a nuclear reactor to
power your home in an innovative and cheap way. Milkman
Energy provides crowd-switches - bespoke and ultra-cheap tariffs for
consumers who essentially buy their energy in bulk. This allows you to save
hundreds a year on bills - all without the risk of blowing yourself up.
Our switches are free, fast and completely
no obligation. For more information about our model see our homepage,
or the video at the bottom of this page. To sign up to the next switch, put
your postcode and email address into the box below.
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