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A wind turbine can be build from cheap materials and made big enough, today. People have built their own wind turbines that generate several KW/h.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Pr...

I may end up putting a solar pre heater on the system. In SE Alaska it's a pretty marginal exercise but for most of the civilized world, it's a no brainer.

coldwetdog - have you ever checked out http://builditsolar.com/ ?

a kazillion homemade solar designs, including a lot of variations on a simple drain-back system which doesn't require antifreeze, but instead uses an unpressurized system that simply turns off the circulator pump and lets the water drain out of the collector and back into the insulated holding tank under situations where you would face freezing or heat loss...

OR get a fridge that is actually efficient to begin with. front door fridges are a very dumb design.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Conservation/chest_fridge.pdf

From over 6 years ago.... this setup would keep food cold for several days without power. and at 100 watts used per day (4.2WattHour) a very small computer UPS will keep it running for most of the outage.

Do you have any good links on this regard? I'm quite interested in this. I've been looking at (though not building yet) distillation refrigerators using solar heat as fuel.

This is a good start. Earth tubing is easy to understand, easy to explain to luddites and is a fairly easy addon to an existing structure. And before anyone points it out I like the word easy.

(Use the 32 degree table if you prefer.)

Climate and weather in a particular area is more than just sunshine.

There's a big difference between UK sunny and sunny sunny. Trust me, the sunny you get there is a pale imitation of real sunshine.

I have left this country, you know ;-). Yes, we're at 53 degrees north or so, but there's still a completely clear sky and hardly any breeze right now.

According to these tables: 40 degrees, 56 degrees there's actually more solar radiation here than in, say, the USA at this time of year (because of the longer day) and only a very slight reduction in the peak sunlight -- 279 rather than 271 units.

There's a big difference between UK sunny and sunny sunny. Trust me, the sunny you get there is a pale imitation of real sunshine.

I have left this country, you know ;-). Yes, we're at 53 degrees north or so, but there's still a completely clear sky and hardly any breeze right now.

According to these tables: 40 degrees, 56 degrees there's actually more solar radiation here than in, say, the USA at this time of year (because of the longer day) and only a very slight reduction in the peak sunlight -- 279 rather than 271 units.

I doubt you could reasonably build a complex system from trash in a weekend, but it's quite possible to build small-scale wind turbines (a bunch of info here).

They also manage to have acceleration in linux with both VDPAU and VAAPI.

Yeah, I see how this is supposed to work, especially the VAAPI part. I am amazed at what Linux can do these days.

To actually think, here I am thinking that it's Linux' fault that they don't have the proper API for Adobe to use, when in reality Linux enables them to use, wait for it: Solar Cooking and Food Drying to achieve hardware acceleration of H.264 media! Who can match that? At the time of writing you're voted "3, Informative," so it must be true. Linux is freaking awesome.

XBMC has it integrated. 10.6.3 came out on March 29th. and XBMC had it a week later. Come on Adobe.

They also manage to have acceleration in linux with both VDPAU and VAAPI.

If everyone is so concerned about saving energy, why not consider some do-it-yourself solar projects? Here are some projects with 1-year paybacks: http://builditsolar.com/TopTen/tenoneyearpb.htm