Six ways on how to heat your home with out electricity and fossil fuels?
369509
1.) Solar heat collectors that store sun energy in oil or water. Walls that are a foot thick will heat up during the day and release the heat into the house at night.  \n2.) Burn renewable fuels like alcohol/ wood/ charcoal/ biogas/ natural fat candles\n3.) Compost/fermentation - Decomposing organic material generates heat, it was used to heat greenhouses years ago. The irish used to make poteen by fermenting potatoes, sugar and water. The pot filled with the mash gave off heat so they would put the pots in their beds to warm them up.  \n4.) Body warmth - fill your home up with animals or friends (humans generate about 60 watts depending on size)\n5.) Reversible exothermic (give off heat) chemical reactions - certain salts and water mixed together generate a lot of heat. The japanese are developing self heating cans using this concept. \n6.) Friction rub the house walls to warm them up.\n7.) Drop heavy objects from a height and when they hit the floor the kinetic energy turnms into thermal energy\n8.) If you are not living n the house fill the house up with radioctive material like plutonium that will make the house hot.
191053
There are lots of technology options, from all sorts of companies in all sorts of countries. My company has one, check out \nwww.compactpower.co.uk\n\nCADDET has a (not very recent - 1998) review of the advanced thermal conversion market, you can download it here\n\nwww.caddet.org/reports/display.php?id=988\n\nJuniper is consultancy that offers a similar report, but at a large cost.\n\nDon't forget to consider pyrolysis as well as gasification.
1102710
Probably you would not notice much of a difference. In fact if you used electric heat you wouln't notice any difference at all (at least in the winter). The reason is the amount of electricity an appliance uses is pretty much proportional to the amount of heat it generates. If you really want to save electricity get rid of your oven, refrigerator, toaster, hair dryer, basically any appliance which generates a lot of heat.
232210
heat coal in an oxygen free atmosphere. without oxygen it will not burn but bond of the carbon and hydrogen atoms will be broken.\n\nCheck out an aquarium store.
70676
Natural gas is a very good source for energy, but it is non-renewable with our current technology. \n\nHydro-electric is a viable energy source for electricty. It will always be available unless the water cycle ends.\n\nCoal is a good source for heat and power, but it does have some polluting characteristics in its natural state.\n\nNuclear is good for electricity production, steam generation and heat (from steam), it does leave residual waste, that is more concentrated radioactivity than what occurs naturally.\n\nFuel cells require power to produce but they work very well. They use readily available materials and can be scaled to the power output that is needed.\n\nGeothermal is good for heating houses and on a large scale in some areas for producing electricity. It is also a renewable power source.\n\nWind and solar are two more options that are becoming readily available for the end user. They are generally coupled with a battery system for calm periods of weather and night time.
627569
It's a simple matter of adding up the power required by everything, EVERYTHING, you want connect to your supply.\n\nMachines, tools, heating, cooling/air conditioning, ventilation fans, lighting, computers, printers, copiers, telephones, fax machines, answering machines, refirgerators, freezers, water coolers, security devices, etc, etc, etc.\n\nChoose a generator with a capacity at least a bit greater than your total load, but preferably quite a bit more to allow for future load increase.
434185
The original way was to have animals live with us - body heat.  Solar and water power also work.  Lighting many many candles home made from animal fats was also used in the past.  There is also the ever popular fireplace and franklin stove burning wood (not a fossil fuel) but not coal (which is a fossil fuel).  If you are lucky to live near a hot spring - that also can be used.
913273
Geothermal heat would help a lot.  First we should be certain that our homes are well insulated.  If everyone was to install a ground water heat pump, it would lower heating bills (and fuel consumption) and make it cheap to cool in the summer.  Heating and cooling are two of our biggest energy demands.  What you are suggesting makes a ton of sense.
865400
Get some power generators.
96708
The one that I would be most interested in using is geothermal energy. There are some really exciting new applications of geothermal energy for use in heating and cooling homes that essentially involve putting a heat pump deep enough underground that it reaches the soil zone where the temperature is constant year round. This results in having a source of heat in winter and a heat sink for cooling in summer. Every house should have one!!!\n\nSadly the new energy plan proposed by the administration cut geothermal energy research to ZERO.
343286
First off..  forget every air conditioner...  all of them.  Then forget your water heaters.  Then, forget almost all your appliances, including the 'fridge. As a matter of fact, for the size house you have, where you are, and what you use it for, forget photovoltaics altogether.  If I were you, knowing what little I know about your situation, I'd probably put up some solar hot water collectors, and maybe look into some wind power.  But it sounds like you are on the grid already...  why do you want solar?  If it's to save money, as they say on the sopranos... 'fuhgedabboutit!!!'  A grid-tied panel or two might give you a warm fuzzy feeling about helping green up the earth or something.. but the reality is that your payoff time is about 20 years on that..  and likely never given your location.  Solar panels get very inefficient when they get hot.. and hot is what you have.  Solar hot water will help some, depending on how much you use.  Go to homepower.org and educate yourself on the reality.  For remote locations it makes sense, but if you already have city power there, it usually doesn't.  Good luck, and be smart.
192432
1. Take public transport\n2. Carpool\n3. Bike\n4. Use alternative methods of fuel for homes\n5. Shut down bad factories
937863
using steam and a turbine are only practical for a large application, please dont try to make pressurized steam on a campfire, try to find a small refrigerator unit from a camper trailer  that runs on propane, it would be possible to use campfire heat instead of propane to power the refrig unit, but only a small flame is needed, about the size of the average pilot light flame, or just throw some ice in and add a little sea salt, the salt melts the ice faster and absorbs the sensible and latent heat in the ice causing a colder cooler, same principal for making homemade hand turned ice cream.
131070
"2. Use less power - take a shower!\n\nSometimes a Myth, but sometimes True\nThe Government pushed this one heavily in the mid-1990s; I have a nice badge showing a dinosaur taking a shower. But in practice the answer is a lot more complex. The easiest way to test this out is to put the plug in the bath next time you have a shower, and see how much it fills up. If, at the end of the shower, there is less water than you would usually have in a bath, then you will probably save money by taking a shower. But it's not quite that simple... \n\nThe simple answer assumes that you are using the same source to heat water for the bath and the shower. This will be the case if you are using your central heating boiler or an immersion heater. But a lot of British homes have a "Power Shower" that uses electricity to provide a powerful and instant shower. Not only do they use water more quickly than a shower fed from a hot water system, they also use on-peak electricity that costs around 7p a unit, compared to 2p for gas. At this point it gets complicated, as to give a firm answer you would also need to know the efficiency of your heating boiler, the amount of insulation on the hot water tank and the losses on the pipework between the tank and your shower.\n\nIn fact, it may not make any difference either way, if you are using the central heating boiler to warm the water. For in most cases, especially in summer, we leave the boiler on for a fixed period of time, allowing it to heat up the tank of water. If the bath or shower is drawn off after the end of a water heating period, it will not affect the heating cost on the day it was used (for that has already happened) but on the next heating cycle. And if the tanks cools down then it will not be significantly affected by how much hot water was used after the previous cycle. "
58831
use Compact natural gas as fuel.
678469
How big is the house.\n\nwhat type of heating does the house have?\n\nIs this just electric, or electric, gas, and water?\n\nBE MORE SPECIFIC and get a better answer.
172746
Check with several home heating specialists.  Recently talked to someone who just had NA furnace installed.  Requires no electricity.