I will look up the "homemade generator" instructions (on the GoldenMotor site?).
Where can you get off-grid? 99% of the earth surface!
Take a look at the night-sky maps (such as
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/ ) to see where there are no lights at night. Most of those places also have no grid-power. Even in the US... even in relatively urbanized areas, grid power is not always already at one's fingertips, *somebody* has to string come copper wire (with attendant transformers, breakers, etc.) to electrify a new room, building, subdivision.
This is a social/political as much as technological question.
Many electric bike enthusiasts want to decrease their footprint on the earth. By not sucking electrons out of the wall-socket , at the expense of line and transformer losses all the way back to (the hydro-electric dam that many resent for it's mere existence; the coal-fired generator for its egregious pollution, the nuclear power plant for its potentially devastating effects, etc.)
I happen to live in the mountains of the southwest of the US where there are still plenty of places where grid-power is at least miles if not tens of miles away from otherwise desireable places to live. Rather than cut a swath of trees 100 feet wide, it seems like a good alternative to simply ignore the electric company/coop and build a somewhat more self-sufficient home-power complex.
I am a tinkerer (like many others here, including you?) and I do these things for their own entertainment as well. I actually *do* have grid power. I and 3 other homes have a 3 mile power-line attaching us to the regional electric co-operative. It is convenient but not efficient. I have a good professional job so the electric bills hardly mean anything to me. I can go out and buy a fancy electricity generating windmill for thousands of dollars, or enough solar panels & batteries to run my household w/o much conservation for tens of thousands... but I'm interested in "doing more with less". I'm interested in how a DYI aesthetic/ethic can transform our culture in many aspects.
My professional work includes distributed energy systems. In particular distributed energy grids. I like the idea of a distributed system for electric power where my windmill(s) fill my batteries, then lift water into my pond and domestic storage until, and some combination of these sources can be used to irrigate my garden, power my tools, power my home appliances, light my house, etc. I also like the idea that if my system(s) generate more (peak) power than I need, my neighbors will get the advantage of it... and if collectively our capacity exceeds our needs, our regional neighbors will get the advantage, etc.
Urban (and suburban) settings don't make as much sense or aren't as obvious... but I think that combinations of spot-generation/distribution combined with efficient utilization (e-bike vs motorbike vs automobile) could make our energy systems much more robust and less dependent on centralized/foriegn/industrial sources.
OffGrid is a (convenient) misnomer, while I like/support those who are (or aspire to be) off the grid, I'm even more interested in those who augment or even reverse their grid usage...
- OffGrid
