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Off Grid Via Slow Moving River?
einstein writes "I live out in the middle of nowhere, and I lose power at the drop of a hat. My house is right next to the Susquehanna river, and all the kinetic energy going past my house makes just want to go off grid. Most homebuilt hydro power is lower volume/high speed. What would be a good, unobtrusive way to generate electricity from a high volume/low speed body of water? I'm between two large hydro dams, so the water level is fairly constant, but does tend to fluctuate 4-6ft in the winter due to ice floes and melting snow. I think maybe a miniature version of one of the recent submerged tidal generators might work... Does anyone have some suggestions on how I might go about this project?" More than a few people have done this before.
Who is John Galt?
I think you mean "Western, post-Greco-Roman civilisation". All kinds of other cool stuff was going on in India, China, Japan, Arabia, Central and South America - you get the idea. In fact, the Arabic age of enlightenment pretty much corresponds to the dark ages west of Byzantium.
(Not to leave out Australia, Mongolia/Siberia, North America, Africa, but those were less interested in civilisation per se - which is not a bad thing at all given that there are pros and cons to the big C, often including and not limited to the mentioned centuries of darkness and misery.)
Given that the European Dark Ages were pretty much squarely the result of Christianity, I wouldn't necessarily say the trend has quite reversed yet...