Producing Your Own Power: How to Make Nature's Energy Sources Work for You

by Carol Hupping (Editor)

Investigates the underlying principles and potential of new approaches to small-scale power production involving wind, water, organic wastes, wood, and solar energy

Genres: Nonfiction

322 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1974

Reviews

[Osie Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book Producing your Own power was a very informative book that was full of good information. Although this book is very slow moving and dry but the information was still good, just like this reveiw. This book discusses ways to harness earth's natural energy through homemade projects and instructions. There are also parts of the book that explain simple ways in order to make energy systems at your house more efficient. Some of these projects included how to build solar water heaters and also how to make fireplaces more efficient. The book divides all of these projects into sections of the book live water power, wind power, wood power, methane power and lastly solar power. When explaining these projects, the author gives a little background information on the specific projects for example in the water power section there is one section that explains how to build a hydraulic ram. A hydraulic ram is a simple system that makes it able to pump water up a hill using water pressure and a system of pipes and valves. Then the author states the main components that make the particular design work which also includes the basic principles that make it work, and in the hydraulic rams it is mainly having enough water. Next after the basic explanation for what this system does the author continues to then explain where the best place for this certain system to be placed an with hydraulic rams the best place is a place with plenty of water and on a hillside and the right pipes. The book also gives a very detailed illustration of the particular system that makes it able to visualize how the system better. There are also explanation on how much the particular model of the system they are showing you how to build on how much water it will be able to pump through with a certain amount of pressure and etc. Then of course the book gives a detailed explanation for what materials you will need to build the system and how to install it properly. At the end of the section the author even gives a list of common things that will break and how to identify them and fix them. In general this book is full of information but is a very bad book if you are reading for fun. This book is meant mainly for people who are interesting in creating a systems that helps improve energy efficiency and relying completely of the earth's natural energy.

[Jehiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I quite possibly owe my engineering mind and my perspectives on the possibilities of renewable energy to this book from 1974. I have fond memories of day dreaming about all sorts of things as a direct result of reading this book as a child.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a bit dated but it has a lot of good information.