Backpack Hydroelectric Plant Gives You 500 Watts

Backpack Hydroelectric Plant Gives You 500 Watts

Backpack Power Plant: You ARE the Grid

Bourne Energy's BPP-2 puts a 30-pound, 500-watt generating hydroelectric plant on your back. That's like being able to walk around with 60 solar panels. And when civilization finally collapses, I'll be dragging mine to an as yet undisclosed location.

You can use the Backpack Power Plant in any stream deeper than four feet. It also operates silently, with no heat or exhaust emissions, and can be "bottom-mounted" for total invisibility: all good things for hiding from the roving hordes of the post-apocalyptic dystopia. The set-up is pretty straightforward as well:

To install the civilian BPP, you would dig two trenches on opposite sides of a river and insert a lightweight anchor into each. Then, you'd run a synthetic rope between the anchors and the BPP. [The] company designed the system to work like the high-tension mooring systems that hold up floating oil rigs.

There's a military version already in use that can operate in a variety of flow rates, but the $3,000 civilian edition is designed for streams moving 7.5 feet per second. The main target audience is developing countries, where a portable generator of this magnitude could make a huge difference for remote villages and towns.

It's a prototype for now, but you and I both know they've got a hard deadline of 2012 if they really want this thing put to good use. [Wired]

Comment:

The US-Dollar will collapse soon, and with it our civilization may collapse as well. The power grids may well be the first victims. Are you prepared to live off-the-grid? Unfortunately, there's also a military version out there. It is difficult to prevent the military from stealing good patents and abusing them for destructive purposes. What's the use of studying conspiracies if you don't draw any practical conclusions from it for your own life?

wikipedia:

The term off-the-grid (OTG) or off-grid refers to living in a self-sufficient manner without reliance on one or more public utilities. Off-the-grid homes are autonomous —they do not rely on municipal water supply, sewer, natural gas, electrical power grid or similar utility services. A true "off the grid" or "off-grid" house is able to operate completely independently of all traditional public utility services. The idea has been recently popularized by certain celebrities including Ed Begley, Jr.[1] who stars in Living With Ed[2] television show on the Home & Garden Television network. Actress Darryl Hannah also promotes "off-grid" living and constructed her home in Colorado according to those principles.