The RAT Sponsors Online Courses, Renewable Energy Burner Symposiums, Skills Sharpening Sessions and Participate in Burning Man Project Camp Symposiums

The RAT thanks the Burning Man Project's Education Team for making the Hive sponsored courses and presentations possible!

Electricity can be dangerous and cause human harm. 

Make sure you are well versed in electrical safety before attempting to work with topics presented herein.

Have you wondered if your BRC or regional camp/Village/HUBS or art installation can transition from fossil fuels to solar?  Then meet the Renewables for Artists Team - RAT. Bruce Cooper and Ken Rehor from the team share about how RAT has helped dozens of artists on playa exchange their generators for renewable power. The same concepts can be used in camps, art cars and art installations. Learn how you can transition from generator to renewable solar. Learn how you can help RAT with this excellent project. 

The online Solar Power 101 course covers how to analyze, design and build solar power systems. The lectures are broken down into bite size, self paced, modules. Each video module is about 10 minutes long. If you are interested in additional information you can click on the Dig Deeper buttons for a deeper dive into solar. At the end we have a Q&A session to help wrap up the lecture.

This course is for Black Rock City installations in general and is geared for meeting the Burner Leadership Achieving Sustainable Theme Camps (BLAST) criteria. An electrical load analysis or electrical inventory is a baseline to help understanding the installation's electrical usage. This opens the door to become more energy efficient and that, in turn, helps reduce air pollution and our carbon footprint. Once understood it is a simple process to do.  Also, it's the first step in building and acquiring  a solar or wind power system.

By Bruce Cooper

How much electrical power does your camp consume? What size generator or solar power system do you need? Can it power a refrigerator, freezer, lights, or sound system? What other devices will your campers need to power, such as 2-way radios, water pumps, or electric bikes? What else? How much will it cost to power everything? How can I reduce my carbon footprint?

Complete a system or installation electrical load analysis to determine the desired system capacity. 

This user guide is intended to help the novice or mid-level builder use the Solar Powered System Estimator spreadsheet (currently v2.4). The spreadsheet will help the builder to quantify their solar power needs in a step by step fashion and ultimately output the key system parameters of a system design based on those figures. This guide will take you through each section. 

Travel with the RAT on our journey of exploration, visionary transformation and self-enrichment through the audio/visual medium known as video.

Hot Topics combines the RAT Skills Sharpening sessions with the annual Renewable Energy Burner Symposium segments.

By Doug Hanson


For all artists who have been selected by the RAT as candidates for mentoring, and other interested artists, this short handbook summarizes the steps in the mentoring process, specific expectations, and what should occur between now and burn week.

By Doug Hanson

For all RAT Technical Advisors AKA Mentors. RAT is a doacracy of passionate volunteers seeking to reduce the carbon footprint of Burning Man and related activities through education, symposiums, and mentoring (also known as Targeted Guidance). 

by Scott Williams

This easy-to-use calculator can help you estimate carbon dioxide emissions, or reduction of emissions, from burning Biodiesel (Soybean Oil), Bio-FT (Fisher Tropsch), Diesel, Ethanol (Cellulosic), Ethanol (Corn Based), Gasoline, Kerosene (Tiki Torch Fuel), Propane, Renewable Diesel, and wood.

 For the Burning Man Project Hive online content login using your Burn profile: 

Anyone can view the RAT's Hive activities. Go to this link to sign-up for a Burning Man profile: