Energy Information

Solar Energy

Mankind?s use of solar energy has a history that dates back centuries. Archimedes, renowned Greek mathematician and scientist, used the concentrated reflections of soldiers? brass shields to set fire to enemy ships during the 2nd century B.C.E. By the 6th century A.D., the Roman emperor Justinian placed so much value on the sun?s warming energy that he established ?sun rights,? laws guaranteeing every individual?s right to enjoy sunshine.

For centuries thereafter, scientists courted the sun and its potent heat and energy. In 1767, Swiss scientist Horace de Saussure constructed the world?s first solar collector. In 1883, American scientist Charles Fritts published a description of the first solar cells made from thin sheets of selenium, and in 1908, Carnegie Steel employee William Bailey invented a solar collector composed of copper coils contained in an insulated box, a design which is still in use today.

Through 1953, solar energy use was of the passive kind. But in 1954, solar energy took a new turn, as Bell Labs developed the first solar cell that was able to produce enough electrical current to run common electrical appliances and equipment. Twenty years later, University of Delaware researchers introduced the world to the power of solar panels, with the construction of Solar One, one of the world?s first solar-powered homes.

Today, solar panels are used in all types of construction, from residential to commercial to government buildings. Tax credits and a shift toward more sustainable fuel resources have helped increase the panels? popularity. But the price of the panels and their installation can still be prohibitive to many individuals attracted by their ?green,? earth-friendly footprint. Most homes require a substantial investment to install a system powerful enough to replace electricity and fossil fuels, and some experts have estimated it can take several decades for a solar panel system to pay for itself.

But despite its high cost and long ?payback? time, solar is still attractive to many homeowners. Thousands of homeowners take the plunge every year and convert their homes to solar power. In addition to eschewing fossil fuels and creating a more earth-friendly profile, solar energy can allow homeowners to live ?off the grid,? disconnecting from the stranglehold of major utilities like electric, oil, and natural gas. What?s more, when a home?s system makes more electricity than it needs, the homeowner can sell that extra electricity back to the local electrical utility. Don?t get too excited: even with that benefit, solar systems can still take decades to pay for themselves.

But just as the solar energy industry has evolved over the past millennia, homeowners interested in incorporating these shiny panels into their home?s design should keep their eyes open: tax breaks, advances in solar technology and increased competition among solar panel manufacturers have caused considerable price drops in recent years. If your home is situated in a position to soak up the rays, and you?re planning on staying put for awhile, solar panel installation might be a wise investment for you.

Helping Children to Understand Alternative Energy

If you have ever spent much time with kids, you know that life is one big question and answer session. With all the topics they are always bringing up, there is no better one to introduce than the topic of our world and how to improve it. A parent could take questions about the sun and turn them into answers about solar energy.

Helping your kids understand alternative energy is very valuable.

Alternative energy is energy that does not use oil. Using natural sources such as the sun, air, water, the heat of the earth and waste products, energy can be created that is safer and less pollutive and renewable.

If children already know what the elements that form the basis of alternative energy are, you can take this information and show them how these things are used to make energy. How do we do this?

Some suggestions are:

When you talk about the sun, you can discuss how power can be derived from the sun using solar panels, that the heat from the sun is stored in panels and then converted to electricity to be used in our homes.

Besides instilling the concept of water safely in children, you can use any discussion about water to explain how it is used to create energy. Children can understand tides, waves and dams; you can explain how each of these can be used to create electricity. If you want to go further, you can discuss how water passes over turbines to create power, how generators store this energy, and how electricity is created. Once they understand this, you can show them how this concept works with tides and waves as well.

When you are explaining to your children how important air is for breathing, you can also explain how it can be converted to power via wind turbines to create safe, clean energy.

Children need to understand the danger of steam so that they do not burn themselves, but you can use this opportunity to explain that steam moves turbines and charges generators that can light our streets and power our appliances.

If you keep the concepts simple, even little children can understand. You can illustrate with items found around your home, show them pictures and even perhaps bring them to a power plant that uses alternative energy. The idea is to get them interested, aware and appreciative of these sources of energy.

Wind for Home Power

Not only being aware of our usage, we also need to create more cost effective and pollution free solutions. The best place for us to do our part, is in the home. The most cost effective solutions for the home is solar and wind power, easily replacing conventional home power.

By using these cost effective and pollution free solutions, we will be helping the environment, setting a foundation for future generations and fighting high power bills.

In this article we will explore the wind power solution, easily adapted for the home use.

The typical wind power system is a tower and five blades. The height of the wind tower varies depending on your homes location. You may need a higher tower if you are in low-wind zone, or a shorter tower if you live by the beach.

Wind power work best when you have an average wind speed 11mph. If you have little wind, this system won’t work. An expert should be consulted in this situation. If you have property spread over a big area, a wind power solutions is best. This system should be used in areas that are over an acre.

Wind power can be used if you need to pump water from an outside source. If you don’t need to pump water on a regular basis the power can be stored for future use, or even used for another application. If your home needs uninterrupted power, fighting those outages is easy with the environmentally friendly wind system.

Using a wind generator, the wind energy can be converted into useful electrical energy to be used in the home for running various electrical appliances. With the ability store the power generated for later use, the wind power solution is more efficient than conventional systems.

Don’t be confused by the wind power jargon. Wind mills, wind turbines and wind generators are all the same.

Make power at home with solar and wind energy to eliminate your power bill. Get our complete guide at Earth4Energy

Using Alternative Energy Extracted From the Oceans

The OTEC association, standing for the conversion of ocean thermal energy, was founded by French engineer called Jacques D’Arsonval back in 1881. The only remaining plant that is still a member of the OTEC is based in Hawaii and represented a natural energy laboratory. OTEC represents a source that can produce alternative energy which is currently, however, underrated and unexploited. The thing that stands in the way of the popularization of the OTEC is that it costs too much at this point for many to afford it. It is thus difficult, to keep costs down to some level because processes affected the OTEC, rendering inefficient. Thermal energy derived from the ocean needs to be cleansed and treated of any remains and then it can be utilized in the air. It is also fairly important that the water coming from the oceans is not polluted, since otherwise, you would risk to fail completely in the transformation. Therefore, one needs to pay careful attention when utilizing the OTEC at any point.

To begin with, you should know that there are three types of OTEC.

The first one is Closed Cycle OTEC which uses a liquid with low boiling points; one such liquid is propane which is an intermediate fluid. OTEC plants pump water which is warm into reaction chambers which boil the water and use the intermediate fluid you have already chosen. This means that the vapor pushes the turbine into the engine and generates electricity. As a consequence, the vapor is cooled and then is used into cold water coming from the sea.

The second types is the Open Cycle OTEC, which does not differ from the closed method to a large extent. In here, you use no intermediate fluid and you use the sea water to drive the engine across. In this format, the sea water that is located on the surface ocean becomes transformed in low pressure vapors, under the action of a vacuum. Then, the vapor that was produced, which is , keep in mind, low pressure, is released in another container and it thus located in that it is capable to power the turbine. Then, you need to cool the vapor and also, to produce water with no remnants of salt from the ocean in it. After you do that, the water coming from the deeper parts of the ocean will be added to vapors, and then it becomes capable to generate electricity.

The last technique is called “Hybrid Cycle”, but this technique is for the moment, not implemented. It describes an optimal approach you could use thermal energy at the maximum from the waters of the ocean. There exist two theories concerning the hybrid cycling. As a consequence, the first means using the closed cycling operation to generate electricity. Thus, the amount of electricity is then used to establish the cleaning environment that you will need for open cycling. Therefore, the electricity that you produce this way will be used to integrate the open cycling together. You then produce double the amount of water that was desalinated.

Besides the fact of using OTEC to produce electricity, the plant with OTEC has a closed cycle, which can be utilized to treat chemicals. The OTEC plants, are capable of pumping cold water coming from the sea and then use it for further purposes : refrigeration or air conditioning. While under moderation in which the sea water surrounds the plant, what you obtain from the process can be reused in aquaculture crops, for instance in fish farming.

If you know how to exploit the opportunities you have, you will find that there are numerous uses to the services and the products derived from this alternative to energy production.