Everyone is talking about the exciting possibilities of solar energy, but few people have actually begun to use the technology in their everyday lives. While it is still rather pricey to purchase your own solar equipment, it is relatively easy to make your own. With a few simple products and by heeding some sound advice, you can learn how to make a solar panel.
You will need a sheet of copper flashing, two alligator clips and a microammeter. This last instrument is used to gauge the microamperes used when heating the panel, and can be purchased at most electronic stores. The only other equipment is a simple plastic bottle and some other basic supplies you can find around the house. In total, creating your own solar panel can easily be done for less than $200.
Late in October the Obama administration and the Senate began efforts to address the problem of global warming and spur the innovation and implementation of new energy sources. Senators Kerry and Boxer introduced a bill that would institute a cap on carbon emissions and promote businesses who employ clean energy.
The government also announced that it will be giving billions of dollars in subsidies to improve the country’s power grid and fund more energy research. Currently, over half of the nation’s energy comes from coal and petroleum, both of which have been proven to have an adverse affect on the environment. There are many alternative energy sources being researched to be a replacement.
When trying to come out of a recession or depression, rapid growth or innovation in a particular industry has proven to be a crucial element. Although the programs of the New Deal helped ease the pain of the Great Depression, most historians agree that the turning point for the economy was WWII. Increased factory production due to the war effort helped spark the financial system and restore some semblance of certainty to the markets.
After the economic decline of the 1980’s, the introduction of PCs and other personal technologies brought us back from the brink of financial disaster. Today we need a similar invention or innovation to get people excited about buying and investing. With the concern over global warming and peak oil, the clear answer seems to be something in the arena of alternative energy.
Last night’s guest on the Daily Show was a 22-year-old man from a small village in Africa. Due to famine in his country, the young man was forced to drop out of school to help support his family. His village maintained a small library, where he would go to study anything he could find, including physics and engineering.
Although his understanding of English was rudimentary, he studied various energy concepts, including how wind power works. Then just 14-years-old, he constructed an energy producing windmill from wood and other basic supplies for his family simply by studying figures and diagrams in the texts. We could use ingenuity and work ethic like that from children in our schools.
Compliments of inhabitat.com
As the world’s population continues to skyrocket and cities strain under the increased demand for resources, skyscraper farms offer an inspired approach towards creating sustainable vertical density. One of three finalists in this year’s Evolo Skyscraper Competition Eric Vergne’s Dystopian Farm project envisions a future New York City interspersed with elegantly spiraling biomorphic structures that will harness cutting-edge technology to provide the city with its own self-sustaining food source.
When considering the future needs of our cities, few urban designs address the world’s burgeoning population better than vertical farms. By 2050 nearly 80% of the world’s population will reside in urban centers, and 109 hectares of arable land will be needed to feed them.
Designed for the Hudson Yard area of Manhattan, Eric Vergne’s Dystopian Farm aims to provide New York with a sustainable food source while creating a dynamic social space that integrates producers with consumers. Based upon the “material logic of plant mechanics”, the biomorphic skyscraper is modeled after the plant cells of ferns and provides space for farms, residential areas, and markets. These organic structures will harness systems such as airoponic watering, nutrient technology and controlled lighting and CO2 levels to meet the food demands of future populations.
In addition to infusing dense urban areas with CO2-consuming green spaces, Vergne envisions the structures as dynamically altering the fabric of city life: “Through food production and consumption, this skyscraper sets up a fluctuation of varying densities and collections of people, bringing together different social and cultural groups, creating new and unforseen urban experiences that form and dissipate within the flux of city life.”
This year’s Evolo Skyscraper Competition resulted in an incredible crop of 416 projects from designers, architects, and engineers in 64 different countries. Their website currently lists the finalists, boiled down to three winners and 15 special mentions.
Here are the most frequently unknown or misunderstood facts about industrial wind power.
How big are the towers?
Industrial wind turbines are not the benign little structures you might see in a schoolyard or behind someone’s house.
The widespread GE 1.5-megawatt model, for example, consists of 116-ft blades atop a 212-ft tower for a total height of 328 feet. The blades sweep an area just under an acre. The 1.8-megawatt Vestas V90 from Denmark is also common. Its 148-ft blades (sweeping more than 1.5 acres) are on a 262-ft tower, totaling 410 feet. Also gaining use in the U.S. is the 2-megawatt Gamesa G87 from Spain, which sports 143-ft blades (just under 1.5 acres) on a 256-ft tower, totaling 399 feet.
Many existing models and new ones now coming out reach well over 400 feet high, with higher towers and extra-long blades designed to turn the generator in less-than-ideal sites.
The base of the steel tower is anchored in a platform of more than a thousand tons of cement and steel rebar, 30 to 50 feet across and anywhere from 6 to 30 feet deep. Pylons may be driven down farther to help anchor the platform.
The gearbox — which transforms the slow turning of the blades to a faster rotor speed — and the generator are massive pieces of machinery housed in a bus-sized container, called the nacelle, at the top of the tower. The blades are attached to the rotor hub at one end of the nacelle. Some nacelles include a helicopter landing pad.
On the GE 1.5-megawatt model, the nacelle alone weighs more than 56 tons, the blade assembly weighs more than 36 tons, and the tower itself weighs about 71 tons, for a total weight of 164 tons. The corresponding weights for the Vestas V90 are 75, 40, and 152, total 267 tons, and for the Gamesa G87 72, 42, and 220, total 334 tons.
Besides the noise and vibrations such huge moving machines unavoidably generate, they must be topped with flashing lights day and night to increase their visibility.
These issues and benefits are based on the use of large industrial Turbines, as the ones we see on the hilltops in the picture. When we build home made wind power for our own home use, most of the downsides are gone, as they are quiet and quite unobtrusive. Or we can purchase ready made and fun to look at.
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Here is the download link to a *NEW Mini Guide which will give you a tiny start into the world of solar power. if you are wondering how much trouble and work this all may be, have a look at the video and download a free battery charger for AA or AAA’s that you can take with you on the road. For more information on other projects have a look at our books on energy books online. Be sure to go here for your FREE download:
This can be a fun weekend project of science project for school
Updated: Thu Sep. 24 2009 12:22:29 PM
The Canadian Press
Toronto — New industrial wind turbines in Ontario will have to be at least 550 metres away from the nearest homes under new regulations announced today.
The restrictions apply to projects with only five wind turbines or less, and the residential setbacks will increase with the number and sound level of additional turbines.
The regulations for the province’s Green Energy Act will also prohibit large-scale solar panel projects from prime agricultural lands.
Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the feed-in-tariff — the amount paid to producers of renewable energy — will range from 10.3 cents per kilowatt hour to 80.2 cents.
The feed-in-tariff is designed to encourage large and small scale energy production, with the highest rate reserved for residential solar rooftop projects of 10 kilowatts or less.
There will also be what the government calls a “price adder” to encourage aboriginal communities to develop alternative energy supplies and sell any excess power back to the grid.
The transition to electric cars has been slow and not without growing pains. Since the conception of the internal combustion engine, manufacturers have put most of their resources and research into developing vehicles that feast on fossil fuels. Luckily, increased environmental awareness has led to an automotive renaissance. In recent years, the overwhelming success of Toyota’s Prius hybrid has shown other vehicle makers that the time is right to switch to electric.
In 2007, General Motors announced the development of its Chevy Volt – a car that is expected to get 230 miles to the gallon in the city within the next few years. But what about those of us who don’t have the financial thrust to afford a brand spanking new electric car? Electric car conversion is a realistic possibility for many people who want to improve their fuel efficiency while keeping an eye toward environmental concerns.