Archive for May, 2010

Measuring Wind Potential for Your Property

There are around 21 million homes in the United States that have at least an acre of land to work from. If we are to assume you are one of those individuals, then you have met the first criteria in evaluat­ing your wind power potential. If you have even more space, and reside in a rural area, then you are even better set up to put up a wind turbine. The more land you have and the more open space, the better your conditions for placing a turbine and the less chance you will have a battle with neighbors or even your local planning board. Those with high electricity bills that live in remote locations without easy access to utility lines have by far the most to gain from putting up a wind tur­bine.

Factors Of Wind

Naturally, the strength, consistency and speed of the wind in your area are very important as well. Unlike solar power that is drawn from the fairly stable temperature of the earth, wind can be very variable. Even only across a couple miles, wind speed can differ dramati­cally due to surrounding things like hills, trees, and land formations. Certain areas have better wind resources by nature. Coastlines are usually great wind spots, and also ridge-lines. Basically, any place with unobstructed access to high winds should make a very good site. The big swath of the central United States known as the Great Plains, including parts of Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Texas, is also a sweet spot for wind. But within these regions, there is still a lot of fluctuation when it comes to wind power—even the time of day and the season can affect wind perfor­mance. In areas with seasonal changes, you’ll usually get more wind power during the winter months.

Wind Potential

In order to evaluate your property’s wind potential is to check out a wind resource map. The U.S. Department of Energy provides a color-coded wind resource map (available at www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp) that shows the average annual wind power 50 meters above the United States. It rates the resource potential from fair (gold) to superb (blue), and even a quick glance will show that not every region is equally well suited to wind power.

Measuring the Solar Heat Potential of Your Home

If you would like to get real technical, you can always drop by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory website and find the 30-year averages for the monthly solar radiation rates for the nearest city in your state.  Possibly you might think that you are not a very good prospect for solar simply because you do not reside in a traditional sunny climate such as Arizona or Florida, but noth­ing could be further from the truth.

Cold Areas Usually Benefit the Most from Solar Heating

It is actually those who live in cold climates with rising heating bills in the winter that have by far the most to gain by using a solar heating sys­tem at home. While you may not get all of your heating needs met by roof solar collectors or a passive solar design such as a sunroom, you can definitely cut down the energy used for heating your home and water by as much as a half or more along with your energy bills.

Should You Use Air or Liquid Based Solar Collection Systems?

It really depends on how cold your property actually gets as to whether or not a solar air collector may be preferable to a liquid system. It is true that air is not as efficient as liquid for transfer­ring heat, but you cannot discard the fact that air is not susceptible to freezing either. Also, an air collector may be a better fit for your home aesthetically. These collectors weigh much less than their liquid counterparts and can be integrated into walls or roofs so that they are far less obtrusive.

When the solar air collector is not heating up your rooms, its excess heat can be diverted to heat your stored water. Air systems will tie in well with a forced-air distribution system, while liquid systems, which circulate water or an antifreeze solution, can be plugged into almost any system, including radiant systems and boilers with radiators.

Using Active Systems

Active systems make the most sense economically when you plan to use them year-round, or almost year-round. In other words, they are best for places where you get plenty of cold temperatures and decent sunlight. On the other hand, passive designs such as the use of sun-rooms, sunspaces, and other building elements, offer the beauty of simplicity and dependable long life. And designing your home to best capture sunlight makes great sense when building new. After all, with no moving parts and with sturdy materials such as glass and concrete, there’s little to wear out with a passive system.

Residential Wind Turbines and People – Can they coexist?

While wind energy is becoming increasingly a popular AND effective source of alternative energy, there is the issue of the required size and height of the turbine itself.  The question is how well does it blend into daily life in suburban America?

Do Homeowner Associations embrace them?  Do they cause other problems with trees and wild life for example?  Let us examine some of these questions:

Residential Wind Turbines ? Can You Use Them? | Green Power & how …

Many people living in cities are itching to take advantage of residential wind turbines, but this may prove to be difficult. Cities are some of.

Publish Date: 05/28/2010 8:55

http://www.electricity-warehouse.com/?p=1205

Homeowners file lawsuit over wind turbines « Wind Concerns Ontario

“On last Thursday’s report by the chief medical officer of health on the potential health impact on wind turbines that said the noise may be annoying but does not cause hearing impairment or other direct health effects -”I have an idea. …

Publish Date: 05/28/2010 16:28

http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/homeowners-file-lawsuit-over-wind-turbines/

Why has science not been able to come up with an effective …

with all the technology out there and gene therapy and cloning, etc. How come science has not been able to fix scars and enlarged pores? my skin is shitty =

Publish Date: 05/28/2010 13:55

http://windpowerspot.com/2010/05/28/why-has-science-not-been-able-to-come-up-with-an-effective-treatment-for-scars-and-enlarged-pores/

Incoming search terms:

• greenway windturbine

Reasons to Consider Energy Alternatives

As more corners of the globe become incorporated into the fossil fuel addiction and economy, issues and problems with using oil become more obvious. Today people take part in heated debates over whether oil should be replaced with other types of energy sources and what types of energy alternatives are both the most efficient and the best overall choice.

Chief among these issues is how much oil actually exists on the planet. Some contend that ener­gy alternatives are necessary because the world is run­ning out of oil. Some analysts claim that the peak will be within five or ten years; more conservative estimates put the range around thirty, sixty, or even ninety years. However, with every passing year nations such as China and India are rapidly modernizing, adding to and increasing the global rate of fossil-fuel consumption.  The Energy Information Administration expects that by 2025 the world will con­sume 121 million barrels per day. With such huge consumption rates, it is becoming increasingly difficult to say how long supplies will last or if they will continue to be affordable to extract. Therefore, pinpointing a year that oil will begin to decline seems less important than acknowledging that sometime in the relatively near future—whether it be ten years or even one hundred years—the sun will likely set on the planet’s attainable supply of fossil fuels.

Like supply, environmental worries and concerns have long been a reason to consider energy alternatives. When fossil fuels such as coal or oil are burned, they produce car­bon dioxide, which collects in the earth’s atmosphere. Too much carbon dioxide can lead to a condition known as global warming, which could have catastrophic effects.  We have started seeing the effects of this process.

Perhaps if anything else other than thinking about a cleaner world for our grandchildren and their children, we might reach a clean solution – our world depends on it.

Working With Passive Solar

When you’re building a new home, incorporating passive solar elements is easy, will cost you little in the way of design changes, and can provide a significant amount of free heat. But the approach to heating is far from our usual central furnace scenario. When homes are built to take advantage of passive solar heat, the building materials themselves are chosen with respect to how they will collect heat, store it, and distrib­ute it throughout the home. Heat collection becomes completely decentralized—what was once the job of one dirty furnace is shared among the roof, walls, and windows. Think of it as heating by teamwork.

Every passive solar system includes two things: a clear glass or plastic that faces south to allow the sun’s radiation to enter the home, and a wall, ceiling, and/or flooring material that’s capable of storing and releasing that heat. But there are several differ­ent ways to build passive solar into your home:

Direct Gain: In a direct gain setup, the sun’s heat goes into a room and, while it is daylight and sunny, that heat is stored in the building elements of the room, such as the ceiling, walls, and floor. During the night, or on cloudy days, this heat is released into the room, maintaining a warm temperature. It’s pos­sible to take advantage of water’s heating properties in a passive design, too, by using materials that contain water to act as the sun’s heat absorbers. The heat is released by convection, and it heats a room more evenly.

Other types of heat-absorbing building materials include adobe, brick, and concrete. In the right climates, you can have a really efficient passive solar heat home that’s oriented and designed with the sun in mind. It might mean adapting a concrete dome structure or using straw bale insulation with a post-and-beam house or designing your home with rammed earth instead of wood, which uti­lizes the soil on your site as a building material.

Indirect Gain: Instead of the sun’s heat going straight into a room, in an indi­rect gain setup, you have a special wall called a Trombe wall that captures and distributes the heat. This solar thermal wall will be dark in color, between 8 ant 16 inches thick, made from an absorptive material such as concrete, and located just behind a south-facing double-pane window that’s an inch or less away. As the wall absorbs heat, temperatures between the window and wall can get very hot— as much as 100°E It takes hours for the heat that’s captured from the outside to reach the inside space; heat captured at noon will enter the room at about 8 P.M.

7 Reasons Why You Should Embrace COW POOP

How much do I love cow poop?  Let me count the ways.  Although there are countless reasons for loving these wonderful little patties, I narrowed it down to seven (7) reasons why all of us should have this affection.

During these turbulent times of oil addiction and greenhouse gases, it stands to reason that man is awaiting the next King of Energy.  Just as years ago when we were addicted to oil from Whale Blubber, a shortage ensued.  And when we were at wit’s end as to what to do, a new source of oil came to our rescue.  Perhaps that is what is happening now – with cow poop.  So here are the reasons why you should embrace its arrival on the energy scene.

1. Smells better than coal. Perhaps this is a preference thing, but if you have smelt burning coal recently, you will know what I mean about this.
2. Converts easily to ethanol. Now some of you Moonshiners out there may be getting the wrong impression here, but let’s leave that to corn, shall we?
3. Makes a great fertilizer. No one can dispute this fact.  Plants absolutely LOVE cow poop and so should you.
4. Converts easily to methane. There just countless ways to use methane.  Perhaps you could use this methane source on your outdoor grill.
5. You can cook with it. That’s right whenever you make cow patties, you can use them in a cooker instead of wood.  There are actually cookers designed for this purpose.
6. Converts easily into electricity. If you can convert it into ethanol or methane, it can easily be converted into electricity from there.
7. Renewable energy source. This energy is totally renewable with one condition – DON’T EAT THE COWS!!
8. BONUS REASON:  Reduces greenhouse gases. That’s right – whenever cow poop is processed and burned as energy, you are actually reducing greenhouse gases since methane is one of them.

Geothermal Energy is Thriving Around the World

One of the most sensible sources of alternative energy is that which comes straight from the interior of our planet.  Of course, we are talking about geothermal energy.  This is the residential heat that is left over from the creation of the Earth.  As time goes on, this heat is given off to the Earth’s interior layers.  It only makes sense to attempt to extract this energy – after all, it is free and it is plentiful.

Certainly, this are certain places that have more access to this heat source than do others, but there are many places across the World who are taking full advantage.  Specifically, I came across a multitude of countries who are actively pursuing these types of projects.  Listed below are a few of those many that I found:

China’s Green Beat – Geothermal Energy in Beijing

You might not know it, but not all buildings in Beijing are heated using natural gas or coal. Some are heated (and some cooled as well) using geothermal energy. China’s Green Beat takes you around Beijing to explore two main technologies being used: …

Nelson British Columbia Geothermal Energy – TMTV News

TMTV Nelson BC Canada. City of Nelson is looking into the possiblities of geothermal energy by using the Kootenay Lake and building a geoexchange system to create heat in the winter months and cool buildings in the summer. News story produced by TMTV…

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Polaris Geothermal

olaris Geothermal Inc. is a publicly traded, renewable energy company currently developing the San Jacinto Tizate (SJT) geothermal resource in Nicaragua. Polaris is focused on the development of geothermal energy because it provides a clean, renewabl…

A Solar Planter Will Greatly Enhance Your Garden and Patio

A nice solar planter will glows softly during the evening hours and will really enhance   your garden. These nifty planters are typically made of resin and possess a   separate solar control unit that can be mounted separately to a ground stake along   with six super-bright LED bulbs. This panel should be located where it can   gather as much direct sunlight as possible.

Several Colors To Choose From

You can really light up your garden, deck, patio, or dock areas   with these beautiful solar powered planters.  Also, many of them come in several colors   such as: Blue, Lemon, Frost, Green, Stone or Terra Cotta.

Great Features

The solar planter has a control unit with an on/off switch that   feature an auto-on function for dusk which includes 6 AA rechargeable   batteries. The bright internal LED bulbs give   off a soft glow perfect for any use.  Thus, you will want to place its solar panel in an area that gets direct sunlight for   maximum use. Obviously, your solar planter will generate more hours of   operation when the panel is installed in an area that is generally free from   cover, shade, or shadowing.

The dimensions of the unit are: 21″ diameter x 20″ high; weighs 12   pounds with a 1-year mfg. warranty.
Here is a Bonus: The planters also make great coolers for your parties! They’ll be the talk of the party keeping your beverages cold while making a much better center piece than that dirty old cooler.?

CLICK HERE to find out More about This SOLAR PLANTER

A Unique Type of Home Made Electricity Using Magnetism

A Zero point magnetic power generator is just a unique kind of Free Energy Generator. It employs magnets along with magnetic force to induce perpetual motion. It operates by itself and indefinitely without ceasing. Therefore it creates totally free electrical energy, which can fully and completely energize your house for free. A perpetual motion device pertains to a machine that runs indefinitely while producing a larger amount of power than it consumes. It produces free energy forever and runs by itself without needing a third-party device or resource to keep it running. Sadly, free energy devices have been suppressed by the corporate world, because such devices would permit people to generate their own energy for free and ultimately shut down the big energy corporations, because people will not need to pay anymore for electricity to fill their pockets.

Can this device be used to power a household?

The magniwork free energy generator, can be efficiently used to power your home with almost zero costs on your side. Furthermore, the generator is eco-friendly and doesn’t produce any harmful byproducts. Hundreds of successful magnets4energy generators have been built around the world, which is a proof that this technology really works! We predict that the technology will rapidly spread, and some industry-insiders even predict that the Magnets4energy free energy generators will be the energy in the future. These experts estimate, that by 2020 energy companies will start implementing this technology in order to create cheaper and more environment friendly energy. Until that time comes, you can use our technology at a very reasonable set-up cost.

CLICK HERE to learn more about this homemade power source

CLICK HERE to learn more about this homemade power source

A Solar Powered Battery Phone Charger When Your Cell Dies Unexpectedly

Have you ever been at the beach or out shopping and found that your cell phone battery has died.  No doubt that this has happened to all of us.  Sometimes this is only a small inconvenience, but other times it can actually be a matter of life and limb. It is times like this when having a portable solar power battery charger can be a real lifesaver.

This is when a portable solar powered battery charger can take on a new potential role in your life. You will be no longer dependent to a wall adapter for powering up your portable electronic device.  You now just have to plug your cell phone into the solar charger and let the sun trigger an electrochemical process that will charge the battery. Your cell phone will be up and running in no time at all.  Isn’t this amazing?

A solar battery charger uses the energy of the sun to produce power for operating small electronic devices or to charge batteries. In the direct sun, a solar panel can charge a 12 volt battery at a rate of 7 amps.

There a lots of types and wattages of solar chargers are available these days. They range from those that can only create enough electricity to power up small devices such as your cell phone or an MP3 player to stronger ones capable of recharging a notebook computer. Many of these solar chargers are so small they will fit into your pocket, or even your glove box.

CLICK HERE for a great Solar Powered Battery Charger