How A Westmoreland County Couple Cut Loose From The Electric Grid

Scott Detrow

Recent Stories

Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

November 2, 2012 | 12:17 PM

The Associated Press profiles a Westmoreland County couple who has managed to go completely off the electric grid without giving up modern-day appliances like flat-screen TVs.

The key to self-sufficiency, the Carns have found, is always completing the recycling circle and never wasting anything.
For example, Mr. Carns built shelves in his ethanol distillery so that it also could serve as a food-drying station. Ethanol produced in the distillery also will be used to power the couple’s vehicles, which Mr. Carns has a federal permit to do. The engines are being converted to run on 190-proof ethanol instead of gasoline.
One room of the camp is devoted to scrap materials that are not tossed, such as bits of plastic and aluminum. The pieces are stored in earthenware crocks until a use can be found for them. The home and the surrounding buildings — a total of 10 in the complex — are a treasure trove of antiques, copper pots and religious icons that the couple have collected over the years at yard sales. The main cabin’s interior is aesthetically pleasing, filled with items that are useful as well as beautiful — ceramic crocks, colorful Persian rugs, baskets and Native American blankets and goods.