Living Energy Farm in Jamaica

(Editor’s Note:  Living Energy Farm is a community in Louisa, Virginia that I often describe as the ecological research station for the communes.  They are investigating ways to live as sustainably as possible and they have been using what they learn to help less privileged folks around the world. Debbie and Alexis are two of the founders of LEF. – Raven)

from Living Energy Farm’s May-June 2021 Newsletter

In May, Debbie’s sister Carrie went to Jamaica to do some work in preparation for expanding our renewable energy projects there. We taught Carrie how to make our solar cookers (see http://conev.org/ISECmanual14.pdf ), and she in turn taught folks in Jamaica how to make them. We received $1000 in funding from the work group at Cal Poly and sent down enough materials to make 10 cookers. The cookers are an adaptation of Insulated Solar Electric Cookers developed at Cal Poly, and we have found them to be the most effective solar cookers on the market. Now that technology has been transplanted, and we are pleased about that! Alexis and ex-intern Onyx will be going down in July to expand that project. We will also be installing our solar powered breadfruit equipment, and helping with the nickel iron battery kits we have been sending down. This is all very exciting for us. (See previous newsletters for more details about the history of our projects in Jamaica. For information about the Cal Poly project, see http://sharedcurriculum.peteschwartz.net/solar-electric-cooking/ ) 

Teaching folks how to build the solar cookers in Jamaica

We have been saying for years that a good DC Microgrid can provide modern services without any reliance on coal, nuclear, natural gas, or industrial renewable energy systems. But that’s a hard sell in the U.S. where consumerism reigns and centralized renewable energy promotion dominates. The grandiose vision is that we get a project started in Jamaica than can provide energy services to working class people, and we spread that model far and wide beyond Jamaica. But it is not all clear at this time how realistic that vision might be, how long it might take, or how much money might be necessary. We hope we are improving the lives of some working class people in Jamaica by providing them with durable solar equipment. If the grandiose vision of making the global electrical grid obsolete does not work out in any timely fashion, then we will at least do some useful things along the way.

Solar cooker workshop finale.