A week off the grid and in touch with energy -- CNET

There's nothing like living off-grid for a while to make you aware of your environmental and energy footprint. During a family vacation to Belize last week, I got a flavor for what's needed to function, albeit at a leisurely pace, when you're far beyond the reach of power lines.

... The most vivid environmental lesson came to me when we visited one of the islands, or cays, that pop out along the 240-mile barrier reef off the coast. Bringing power lines to a place that takes 35 minutes to get to by boat obviously doesn't make sense, so most of these types of resorts rely on diesel generators. Our location, by contrast, relied largely on solar power.

When Americans buy rooftop solar photovoltaic panels, the total output when the sun is shining is typically anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 watts or more. But the individual cabins at this resort ran on just one or two solar panels, making maybe 200 to 300 watts. You could barely run a home computer and television with that much juice.

Read on ...