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Posts Tagged ‘alternative energy’

One of the areas that seems the least understood when using green products is the “carbon footprint”. To illustrate this point about green products, a simple story about the use of CFL (Compact Florescent Lamp) bulbs may help. When in a restaurant the other day, I noticed that the spoon was missing from the place setting. I looked around and it appeared it was the same all over the restaurant.

When my server came over and asked what I wanted to eat, I asked about the spoons. I was informed that the chain’s “corporate” office had informed all the restaurants that the busboy, when putting down place setting, was not allowed to put a spoon on the setting. Now I must say this does look pretty odd, mostly since I grew up with a spoon included with the setting. I checked with someone who still teaches etiquette classes, and yep, it is still required.

I asked if she knew why this change had occurred and why no green products like CFL bulbs. I was told that in order to conserve energy that spoons were only given to customers that would use them. It appears they believe that it costs a lot to clean an unused spoon. So the possibility of cleaning an unused spoon was removed. And yet how odd, no investment in green products that could save money such as CFL bulbs.

Given how the dishes in a restaurant are washed, I find this amazing. In almost every restaurant in this country an automatic dishwasher is used. It is designed to load from the left side and the dishes move through it in a large basket to the right. Simple, fast and efficient and it is not even on the green products list. Most people that do the dishes do the silverware in a single basket run. Hence, no money would be saved and no energy savings but why no green products?

While pondering on this I looked up and noticed that the entire restaurant was covered in lights. Each light was an incandescent bulb and no green products like CFL bulbs anywhere. I stopped when I reached fifty bulbs that I could see from my table; I know there were more in back kitchen area, in the bar and adjoining rooms.

Looking around it was easy to see that most of the incandescent bulbs were in the 75 watt range. I asked and was told this restaurant was open 138 hours each week.

Now it does not take a mathematician to do a little basic math. Let’s compare a chain using incandescent bulb vs. the same chain using CFL bulbs. If we take the 50 incandescent bulbs and multiply it by the bulb’s wattage, it would equal the watts consumed per hour or 50*75= 3,750. Now we know the store is open 138 hours a week, so multiplying this by the watts per hour, we would get 517,500 watts consumed per week. Finally multiply this by the weeks in a year, and we get 517,500*52 = 26,910,000 or 27 megawatts without green products.

From the Internet I was able to learn that they have 88 stores in their chain. So if we assume this is an average store we can multiply the 27 megawatts times the 88 stores and we see that this chain is using around 2368 megawatts per year just on lighting.

What if we used one of the new green products, the CFL bulb, instead of the incandescent bulb how much could we save? Let’s take a look. We know that a comparable CFL would be in the 18 watt range based on the Energy Star tables. If we replace the 75 watts in the above equation with 18 watts CFL we would get; 50*18*138*52*88 = 568 megawatts consumed per year. This would save the chain about 2368-568 = 1,800 megawatt hours per year. I would say this would be a pretty good investment in green products, don’t you?

Tried of spending money on cheap green lighting checkout Michael’s website at Green power

As energy costs rise and our natural resources of coal and oil diminish, solar and wind power has gained a place of prominence in the world of renewable resources. Residential wind turbines grow in popularity day by day and over the past decade have had a serious impact on the DIY wind power market. If you are one of those people who are considering this form of energy to supplement your home energy needs you will be able to harness the natures energy to not only produce energy but to save you money in the process.

Wind power and solar panels are becoming a more and more popular option among home owners. People are becoming aware of the beneficial nature of this type of energy. Not only is it a continuously renewable resource but it does not harm the environment and leaves no carbon footprint. Natural energy generation is the responsible energy option and as technology advances it becomes more feasible for the average person.

DIY Wind Power and How it Works

Whether you refer to wind power generators as turbines or windmills matters little. The two names are pretty much synonymous. Wind power generators, or turbines, or windmills if you prefer, have blades that rotate by the power of the wind and that turning motion, or torquing of the axis captures the energy that is converted into electricity.

The turning of the blades by the wind creates physical energy known among scientists as kinetic energy. The faster the wind turns the blades, the more energy is created. This energy is stored by a home wind generator in a battery that can then be used to power your home as electricity.

Can DIY Wind Power Really Save Me Money

The short answer is yes, absolutely! How much money you\’re going to save the plans on quite a few variables including how large your wind power generator is, how much wind you get and how efficiently you capture it. It is absolutely possible to save a substantial amount of money on your electric bill.

Fortunately, it is not very expensive at all to build your own wind power system. Using parts purchased at a local home improvement store, you can build your own home made wind powered generator for less than $200 in materials. Furthermore, you dont need a lot of construction or building skills to build it. Almost anyone can take on this do-it-yourself project with success.

Power Needs of the Average Home

One average sized wind turbine built for home use can generate between 5 and 15W which is sufficient for most homes. An average home uses, in the neighborhood of, 100,000 KWH of electricity each year. If you want more you can build a larger turbine. If you create more wind power than you can use, you can sell the excess electricity back to the power company and actually earn some income from your investment.

The only down side of homemade wind turbines is that they can be noisy. If properly maintained they are not exceptionally noisy. When the wind blows, the movement over the blades creates a whistling sound. Improperly cared for parts will make extra noise as does any moving machinery. Keeping the properly maintained and oiled is extremely important for minimizing sound. It is also a better option to build your turbine out of PVC rather than wood as wood will not hold up nearly as long.

DIY wind power is an excellent choice for a home owner who is committed to the idea of creating their own power to supply their electricity needs. The fact that it is an inexpensive energy option as well as a project that is easy to undertake makes it a perfect option for anyone who is seriously interested in creating their own energy. Its an excellent way to save money and save the environment in the process.

One form of alternative energy you can use in cooling your home is geothermal energy. This might sound surprising, but you can use the energy found in your own backyard by utilizing geothermal heat pumps. You can save up to 70% on cooling bills.

The bad news is that professionally installed geothermal systems are too expensive. The good news is that there are ways in which you can harness geothermal energy, to partially cool your house, without shelling out a fortune for it.

You might already be utilizing geothermal energy without realizing it. Northern state homeowners often use this renewable energy without their direct knowledge.

This article will teach you how to maximize the cool air that’s stored within your basement.

You need to have a basement, or at least some crawl space beneath your house, for this cooling method to work. You must be able to access the space from within the confines of your home. If the space has a small window or vent, this will help with the air flow. You’ll also need a small portable fan for this one.

The principle of geothermal cooling works this way. During hot summer days, the basement is cooler than most parts of the house. The basement’s exterior walls are controlled by the constant heat trapped a few feet underground, right next to the house’s foundation. The temperature penetrates the basement walls and cools the air trapped inside. You must then distribute the cool from this musty and damp air, throughout the rest of home.

The most efficient way of doing so is to cover your windows with shades or curtains during sunrise, to minimize the natural heating by the sun. During nighttime when the outside temperature falls below 75 degrees, open your upstairs windows while leaving your fan on, to suck in the cool air.

But, once the temperature get higher than 75 degrees, you can turn on your geothermal cooling system by opening one of the windows in the basement. You don’t need to fully open it. A small opening is enough just to let some air through. Be sure to close all other windows in your house except for one. That way, air flows through the open windows. The open window should be the highest one in your house. This will vent out the most hot air.

Your small fan should be turned on and pointed toward the window. This should make the air from the basement move up to the open window, and let the hot air go out. It usually takes between thirty minutes to one hour to circulate the cool air from the basement to the rest of the house.

This method of utilizing geothermal energy might seem to involve lots of work, but your family will benefit from it in the long run. You’ll see your dependency on your air conditioner decrease, resulting in lower energy bills.

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There are more ways to cool your homes without the need of plugging into the grid. For information on where to find complete and step-by-step instructions on how to install DIY Wind and Solar Power systems, along with pictures, videos, and diagrams, please visit Bestselling DIY Wind and Solar Power Guides.

You can also find more general information and solar power projects at DIY Solar Power.

Source Article: [uc]DIY[/uc] Geothermal Cooling

Most people are more than a little conscious of the energy crisis that we`re facing at the moment. The idea of wind and solar energy has surely been around for a long time and some people have even made use of it on a fairly small scale. Nevertheless, it could just be time to start thinking big with these alternative forms of electrcity.

Turning to Alternative Energy Sources

Even if we persist to use fossil fuels, there are so many downsides to this. While it`s anticipated that we still have some time left on the existing fuels, they will eventually run out. They are a fixed resource that we`ll surely use up. At the moment, we are accessing the simplest sources, but soon, more labor will be needed to get to the other areas that can provide us with this type of fuel.

In addition, fossil fuels are a major issue in the present state of the ecosystem. Whether or not you believe in global warming, there is definitely an effect on the world from the huge amount of pollutants being formed by electricity consumption around the planet.

There is also the economic factor to consider. Everyone was recently astonished with just how high gas costs went around the earth. While they have stabilized a little, the price of electricity can only go up as fossil fuels become scarcer. All this leads to the perks of wind and solar power, both excellent renewable energy sources that could well end the electricity crisis.

Why Wind AND Solar Power?

Quite simply, it`s pretty hard to get the amount of electrcity needed from just one type of collector. For instance, if we use only solar panels . . . what happens when we have an extended cloudy period? And similarly, if using only wind, what happens when it dies down? It`s always good to have backup systems in place and wind and solar electrcity work very well together.

At the moment, wind electrcity in the United States creates enough power to electrcity approximately 2 million homes. Studies have shown that it`s more than possible to provide for the energy needs of the entire nation using just wind power, which is also the most efficient and easily used renewable energy source.

Solar electrcity is very useful, but it is also still fairly costly to install solar panels. While this will likely drop as the exploration and knowledge improve, for the moment, it`s cost prohibitive (and space prohibitive!) to use solar panels to provide the entire nation with electricity. Nevertheless, many areas are doing very well with solar electrcity, chiefly those in the sunnier parts of the country and with the grouping of solar and wind, you can see that there is an alternative to the petroleum products at present being used.

Harnessing the Energy

More and more people are opting to add solar panels to their houses, saving on power bills and lowering their overall energy use rate. However, in order to really generate a dent in the electricity crisis, we`ll need more than just individuals working on the crisis. With cooperation, it`s possible for entire towns and even cities to run completely on alternative power sources, like those we`ve been discussing here. Envision the impact this could have on the ecosystem, as well as our everyday lives.

Solar and wind power are the future of electricity sources. Together, they provide the opportunity that we need to escape from the ever rising cost of fossil fuels and give us a cleaner, safer and less expensive power.

Can you imagine getting electrical power from balloons? This is what Cool Earth of Livermore, California, has designed the next generation of solar collectors to look like. The basic concept hasn’t changed; convert sunlight into electric power using solar cells; but the packaging has changed, and this is where the solar balloons are unique.

The current installed solar plants use flat-panels. Each panel is heavy, large, easily damaged, and costly to repair. This means the cost to produce a watt of electricity is 5-7 times greater than using natural gas and is not a feasible alternative to fossil fuels. This is no longer true with the Cool Earth solar balloon system.

The system’s design is centered on the concept of an air-filled Mylar balloon like a children’s birthday balloon. One half of the balloon is a highly reflective mirror-like surface and the other half is transparent. The solar cell is located at the center of the clear side allowing sunlight to pass by, be collected and focused back onto the solar cell.

With the new design comes and the ability to increase sunlight concentration and reduce expensive solar cell material by 300 to 400 times. This cost reduction will bring the price down to a mere one dollar per watt. To give that some context: a typical flat-panel PV(photovoltaic) system on a residential rooftop is about seven to eight dollars per watt.

Each balloon is eight feet in diameter and can withstand over 100 mile per hour winds. The balloons are linked together in series, with the initial installation able to produce 10 megawatts, enough to power 3,500 homes during the day.

Like all solar designs, the system will not be used as a base power plant because the energy collected during the day cannot be economically stored for nighttime operations. On the other hand, the system will be an ideal “peaker” power plant to be used during the hot summer months when energy demands are high.

Another of the aspects we find most interesting at Green Products is how the balloons are linked together with wire, wood and sheet metal. We are also impressed at the lack of limitations that are imposed when the systems are installed and how they eliminate the destructive heat that destroys most solar cells. Soon this system will be installed and go online. Check it out.

Michael