Let’s talk about energy. Why is energy consumption so important nowadays and why are we so used to it in our daily life?
We depend so much on energy that we can’t really picture our lives without it. Why have we become so dependent on electricity and petrol?
Our houses always seem to be too cold or too hot. We need AC or central heating just to feel ok. If we have a problem with our house lights, water or gas most of the time we can’t do much more than calling someone to fix the problem for us.
How did we become so dependent on this?
We are certainly living an interesting time for our world, for our society and humanity. The idea of comfort we followed with such intensity is doing us bad, and probably for the first time in our history, we are finally understanding that. Like a boy who has been spoiled for years in his childhood and now demands more than he needs, we want more than we have because we replace wishes with needs.
Now that prices are rising so quickly while salaries are not, we struggle to pay bills.
Many of us had to leave the house where they stayed for a long time. Others changed drastically their lives by going completely off the grid or nomadic, away from the demanding society that only wants from us without really giving anything we may need. It asks for our most beautiful energies, our youth, our beliefs and what gives us back? Just problems, things to be stored in a rented house, bills and fake communities of people who pretend to be family, just because you share an interest.
The real problem is how much we rely on companies that can dictate our lives. As an example, they have the power to give us energy to keep our houses warm or not. But we don’t have to be their slaves, we can be in control of our needs and be self-sufficient.
Self sufficiency can be the answer to many problems we are currently experiencing now. We can be more in control of the electricity, gas and water we use by increasing our awareness on the consumption. And what’s the best way to increase awareness than having more control towards it?
That’s what we need. More control.
More control on our lives.
More control towards our energy consumption.
To take actions and to be in control of our expenses, our bills, it’s not that difficult.
A first step towards it is to be a little bit more off-grid than what we are probably used to. How? Building things, finding sustainable solutions, thinking outside the box when it’s about insulation and how we can keep our house warmer or colder.
That’s exactly Luca Nicolini’s mission. With his project Consapevolmente – Energia Libera (Awareness – Free energy) he travelled all over Italy (on an old RV) to show others how to build solar collectors and similar devices to disconnect from the grid as much as possible.
How do you make a solar air collector?
We met Luca in Sardinia. He first gave a talk on how we can change our minds in thinking outside the box, being more independent and disconnect from the grid. Then we followed him on a full day when building a solar collector with (almost) only recycled materials.
Luca was living in an old RV with the mission of driving up and down Italy to help others in becoming self-sufficient. Because being aware of what you can do is the first step towards the action of doing it.
So spent a full day watching Luca and others making a solar collector. The process took a long time, too long for what we were expecting. But maybe that was part of the game too. Leaving the participants to figure out the best way to make this thing: this solar collector that had to be done in one day. Luca was there just to give some help, from time to time, never in a hurry. If you think of a typical workshop where you pay money to attend it and expect some tangible results, this was quite unsatisfying, even for us who were waiting hours to see a minor change in the solar collector. But again, maybe that was the plan: to break the concept of “I’m a teacher and I’ll show you how to do things and you just watch and talk when I say so”. Maybe Luca wanted to do something different, more like a friend visiting and throwing tips and ideas to the people present there. Maybe.
But we still got the feeling of a workshop not that well organised. Reason why we had to rush them to “do something” as the day was almost over and we were about to leave the house with not much filmed. They did a demonstration of how the collector will be when properly finished by stacking things together and giving us a little explanation of the process. It did work at the end and if you are not convinced by this poor review you can judge yourself by watching the full video down here.
During the day we spent in this nice house in Sardinia we learnt more than just how to make a solar connector. We learnt about the communal aspect of living. How do we gather together in a group to do things ourselves, showing the desire to go beyond our capabilities as individuals.
That’s what we saw there: people helping each other, individuals happy to work together to make a sustainable change, something to disconnect from the grid (that one imposed by the government) but to connect to other people, to form a community where the same values are shared.
The path towards living off the grid, or on being partially connected to the grid, is not simple. First, you need to understand how to do things differently and be happy with what you achieve, then you need people, you need connection, in other words the presence of a community. This is very important as the more comfort we have the more isolated we are. On the other hand the less we have the more we want to connect to others.
Second, you have to study. Take the time to learn new things: how they work and how can you use them for your specific needs. Maybe your house needs a better insulation more than a powerful stove for example.
If using energy still means being dependent on something maybe you can get rid of that dependency too.
What if you are fed up with mainstream society and how it plays a big role in your everyday life? What if you want to stay as far as possible from society dictatorship?
Well you can do it.
A group of 24 year old put some money together and managed to buy a piece of land in Normandy. Now they live in this land growing vegetables, which surplus they exchange for other needs with the neighbour. But the most exciting thing is that they don’t use electricity at all.
They follow the principles of sustainability and self sufficiency. They grow their own food and exchange the surplus with what the neighbours have to offer. They don’t use cars or any other vehicles that burn fossil fuels. They go to places with their bicycles. They don’t watch tv (for obvious reasons), they cycle to the nearest village to watch a movie by the local cinema instead.
Who said we need electricity to live happily?
We might have gained quicker access to information and a higher level of comfort but what is that costing us?
We gave away the best days of our lives in the name of progress and comfort. Trying to be everyday more productive than the day before.
Maybe we need a clean cut, like these guys have done by consciously not using electricity. Maybe this will help us to re-focus and drive our attention to using less but more meaningful things.
In their commitment to not using electricity they are taking control of their lives. They use candles at night (they even make their own wax). They don’t play computer games (as they used to when living in cities with their parents). They leave space to things that matter: working for what they need and nothing more. They don’t need air conditioning to keep warmth but have built their house with ecological materials such as hay and straw to maintain that with better isolation.
