Occupy wallstreeters us Pedal Power!

originally http://www.politicususa.com/en/ows-generators

I LOVE THIS!!!! Build one of your own:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com/

Occupy Wall Street Counters Confiscation With Bike Powered Generators

October 28, 2011

By Jason Easley

In an attempt to freeze out and black out Occupy Wall Street, Mayor Bloomberg confiscated all electric generators. In response Occupy Wall Street is searching for replacement power including bike generators.
Bloomberg disguised his confiscation as a safety issue, “Our first two concerns are First Amendment and safety, and this was safety. People were courteous and understanding. The story of this morning is that there was no story.” However, it is not a coincidence that this raid was carried out just a day before winter weather is expected to arrive in the New York City area. What Bloomberg is doing is obvious. He is trying to both freeze out the protesters, and impose a blackout on their message.



Mayor Bloomberg has warned that the generators won’t be allowed back into the park, so a group of protesters have come up with a novel solution. New York City environmental action group, Time’s Up, is looking for volunteers and funds to help power the protests with bike generators. According to the Time’s Up website, “We’ve received funding for 5 bikes but need at least 5 more, and any donations above that will be used to build more energy bikes which will be sent to other occupations.” The bikes are already being used in some park locations, but with the generators gone more are needed.
Here is a video from Time’s Up:
The resourcefulness of these protesters should not be underestimated by anyone. When Bloomberg tried to evict the protesters because the park was dirty, they organized their own cleanup operation. Bloomberg who is the ultimate representative of the 1% in politics is pulling out all the stops in his attempt to silence the 99%.
Bloomberg can’t confiscate environmentally friendly green generators. Men and women on bikes powering the delivery of the message of the people just seems right. Check out Time’s Up, and see if you can give these folks a hand.
Bike generators won’t solve the whole problem, but they will give Occupy Wall Street a source of power that can’t be confiscated. The protesters are representing the interests of the 99%. Let’s make sure their message still gets delivered.

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9 Responses to Occupy Wall Street Counters Confiscation With Bike Powered Generators

1. 

   mack on October 28, 2011 at 7:30 pm

   Any possibility of using solar generators? No flammable smelly fossil fuel, no noise.

   Reply
   • 

     Reynardine on October 28, 2011 at 7:48 pm

     ¿Whaaaat? ¿In the concrete canyons of Manhattan? No way! I was whitern’ a raw drop biscuit all the time I lived there, because scarcely a solar ray reaches ground level. Try powering stuff with the hot air that comes out of (a) the subway gratings, and (b) City Hall.

     Reply
   • 

     Wendy Reed, AV Conservancy on October 28, 2011 at 9:17 pm

     Here is a great idea being used to charge phones and run computers in third world countries: http://www.toughstuffonline.com/

     Reply
2. 

   Fivemark RBE on October 28, 2011 at 7:44 pm

   KickStarter (dot) com might be a useful site to obtain funds for the ‘Bike Powered Generators’ project.

   Reply
3. 

   Charles Terry on October 28, 2011 at 8:12 pm

   Police may confiscate the bike power gens., too. Better to charge batteries offiste, like in you storage space, then bring batteries onsite and run them through inverters (you have to but them) to get AC power. Police can steal batteries and inverters but they are way cheaper than generators.

   Reply
4. 

   Charles Terry on October 28, 2011 at 8:20 pm

   Winter-ize! What is needed is a new garment that OWS people can wear that allows them to live and sleep outdoors regardless of coming cold weather. Closest now is a Snowmobile Suit, but it lacks integral pillows, helment, and mattress for sleeping on concrete. A new suit that fills these needs is possible and is a product opportunity for those now making snow-mobile suits. Get with it corps! Make money and help OWS!

   Reply
5. 

   Sarah Jones on October 28, 2011 at 8:35 pm

   talk about taking back the power….:-)

   Reply
6. 

   Rick Shreiner on October 28, 2011 at 9:02 pm

   When did you last see an old, overweight, TeaPartier riding a bike to produce power for their group ? ?
   I’m guessing that it wasn’t yeesterday.
   OWS is DWARFING the TeaParty. Keep up the good work.
   Rick Shreiner
   Stockholm, Sweden

   Reply
7. 

   ibwilliamsi on October 28, 2011 at 9:51 pm

   I LOVE these people!

   Reply

Waterbottle lights?

This is awesome. I wouldn't put it on a roof, but a south-facing wall with 10 of these would be beautiful.

So what's an Earthship?

Michael Reynolds came up with this concept when I was a teenager. being a wage-slave most of my life, I was never able to get to a position where I could build one, nor could I ever settle on a place I wanted to turn into a permanent home, but I'm over half a century old now - time to get serious about it.

Basically Michael takes old tires and cans and bottles and builds a house out of it by mortaring it all together, berming the earth up over and around it and creating a Hobbit Hole, insulated and protected by the earth, and built as inexpensively as your imagination will allow.

Their website : http://earthship.com/
describes it in detail.

They can be built anywhere, in nearly any shape, but in my eyes, form follows function. It catches the water off the roof and stores it for use. It uses the sun to heat it, thermal mass to store the heat during the day and release it at night, and the cool earth to keep it from getting too hot in the summer.

Having studied these for a couple decades, I have a few of my own ideas, and will probably illustrate them here just to get them out of my head and make room for more. Fortunately my drawing/3D modeling skills will make things easy to represent, in hopes that readers will bang on them with a hammer into an even better design :-)

I recently moved in with the only woman I've ever met who wants to do this. She's even worked out floorplans, as have I.We've both always felt that there will be a pretty big collapse in this world before we die, and we both have spent our lives focusing on different ways to deal with it. Earthships are one thing we have in common.

Here's the latest good video on the subject. Enjoy and learn. Most of these blogs will be about various practical applications that I would like to adapt to this concept.

Quick Overview



This video goes into the legal struggles Michael Reynolds had to go through just to get these off the ground so people could use the





Ahhhhhhhh - here's one for sale!


http://earthshipforsale.blogspot.com/

Human Power Waterpumps

 When you first get out to build your Earthship, you might want to live on the land to save rent/mortgage and devote more time to building. To do so, unless you're part of the 1% (not the 99% like the rest of us) You might have to use more inexpensive ways to do things. Electricity might not be the best if you can't afford to connect to the grid and haven't saved enough cash to connect to the grid or buy a lot of solar power.

Water pumps can be a drain on electricity that you might have better uses for - like power tools or computer and internet (if you're like me and need to work online for a living while you're building). Anything you can do to save electricity can help til you get a good solar pump.

Treadle Pumps:

Using your own weight to pump water is probably the easiest way. You just step onto the treadle and your weight pumps the water up. You'll likely use your arms more than your legs to build your home, so you should have a little energy left in your legs to pump yourself up a nice shower.




Here's an AutoCAD simulation to show how it works



Bicycle Pumps:

This looks like they took s treadle pump and attached it to a bicycle.
I wonder if it is easier than using your own gravity to move them.



Portable waterpump bicycle

Solar Pumps

A "must-have" for any Earthship

http://www.solarpumps.com/

175ft well - 5-6 gallons a minute - pump the water up to a reservoir when the sun shines, access the water any time by gravity-feeding it down to your house..

This is what I want for my earthship.

These rocket stoves require minimum amounts of wood to burn, and the heat can be routed any way you like - through a barrel stove and/or oven, through a hot water tank, through the floor, and even through thermal mass couches and beds before the exhaust is forced outside.