DIY Home Energy Reviews

Archive for the ‘Alternative Energy’ Category

As you probably already know, coal and oil have been the principal sources of energy for our planet for a very long time.

You’re probably also aware that these fossil fuels have been blamed for causing enormous damage to our environment as a result of the toxic emissions they give off when burned.

As a result, there is an enormous interest in developing alternative sources of power like solar energy that can provide a greener cleaner planet to live in.

Solar power with its unlimited supply of energy represents an excellent alternative to the depleting stocks of fossil fuels. So long as the sun generates light there is an opportunity to harness its energy.

Heat generated by the sun is not that important. True you can capture the heat in solar collectors and use it to provide hot water, but it is the light that the sun emits that is important. The sunlight is what powers photovoltaic cells to make electricity.

Click here to start using alternative solar energy by making your own solar or wind power.

As a result, solar power can be harnessed in the coldest of areas provided there is sufficient sunlight

That said, if the sun is an abundant source of free energy that can be used anywhere the sun shines, why aren’t more people and businesses taking advantage of it to create electricity?

The answer is the cost of the technology used to convert the “free” sunlight into power. While enormous strides have been made in recent years to increase the efficiency of those technologies, they are still very expensive and outside the reach of most people.

There is a way that most people can capture part of the sun’s energy and use it to reduce their reliance on energy coming from fossil fuels. Solar collectors are relatively inexpensive and can even be built at home.

Solar collectors store the heat from the sun and then transfer that heat to water pipes which in turn can provide a household with all of their hot water needs for bathing, laundry and dish washing.

Actually, solar collectors are very common in the West as a means to heat outdoor pools. Mounted on roofs, the collectors absorb heat and then transfer it to feed pipes that go to the pool. It’s a simple, inexpensive way to keep a swimming pool useable all year long.

There are many uses for solar power and more and more developers are including them in the designs of new homes and buildings.

Large Fortune 500 companies like Wal-Mart, General Electric and even Google have made significant investments in solar powered systems. Google powers it’s headquarters campus with a 1.6 megawatt photovoltaic system that has resulted in a 30% reduction in their power costs.

However, you won’t be seeing traditional power companies switching over to solar energy anytime soon. Their approach is simply a question of profitability and currently, solar energy would not be profitable.

We are actually in a transition period. We know we need greener technologies to save the environment and we know they are available.

However we are in that in between time where converting is going to carry a fairly large cost. The question is, do we really have a choice.

Click here to start using alternative solar energy by making your own solar or wind power.

Everyone is familiar with the term alternative energy and we know it’s a way to reduce our reliance on pollution causing fossil fuels, but do you really know how many there are and how they work?

As you read this article you’ll learn the answer to the question “what is alternative energy?”

Let’s take a brief look of some of the more popular sources of alternative power.

Solar power revolves around the photovoltaic cell which coverts the sun’s rays into electricity. These cells are usually found on rooftops in panels. They can provide electrical power for your lights and all of your electrical appliances.

In another form, solar collectors, the sun’s energy is used to heat water and once again can supply all the hot water needs of a household without the need of gas or electric hot water heaters. And of course because the “fuel” for these systems is the sun, there are no harmful emissions.

Click here for instructions on making your own alternative energy using solar and wind.

Wind energy is almost as old as written history when you consider the wind is what powered the sails of that time. Of course windmills played a big part in pumping water and grinding grain.

Today modern wind farms with high tech triple blade rotors catch the movement of the wind and convert it to electricity. These farms have become very popular and it is projected that they may end up providing half our electricity in the not distant future.

Like solar, wind is a completely green alternative energy.

Marine energy, or the energy created by ocean waves has a huge potential as an alternative fuel source.

France has a generating station that operates on this technology and it has been performing excellently over a number of years. Scotland and Ireland are both experimenting with marine energy given their coastlines on the powerful North Atlantic.

Another older technology is hydroelectric. While it can generate electricity more efficiently and cleaner than fossil fuels, it has become problematic because of other environmental and political concerns.

Basically nobody wants a new dam in their back yard. Smaller run-of-the-river systems where the turbines are lowered into a river and use the current to turn the turbines are becoming both practical and popular for smaller electrical demands.

Geothermal energy is located just below our feet. Okay a couple of miles below our feet. Artesian waters are superheated by our incredibly hot molten core and can be tapped into to create steam to drive a turbine generator. This is an abundant alternative energy and needs more exploration.

Methane created by waste gases can be used in power cells to fuel standard electrical generators. This is taking an environmental problem, land fills, and turning them into an alternative energy.

As the trash decomposes it forms methane. This methane is then captured and used in the power cells.

The gasoline substitute Ethanol is made by distilling any number of grains or even wood chips. It is most commonly associated with distilled corn. The arguments against ethanol are pretty serious. First, it takes more energy to create the substance than ethanol can produce.

That’s not very efficient. Secondly is the argument that the world’s food supply is in danger because farmers receive a higher payment from ethanol manufacturers than they do the commodities market.

Biodiesel energy gets a lot of press because it is something of a novelty. Biodiesels are made from the oil of plants such as rapeseed, soybean and sunflower seeds.

What you typically see on TV is some guy buying up used grease from a restaurant’s deep fat fryer and then running his converted car on it. Actually there has been an increased interest in this form of energy because it runs much cleaner than fossil fuels.

Atomic energy is created by nuclear fission and is capable of generating huge amounts of electricity.

The principal concern about atomic energy is what to do with the spent fuel. This material is highly radioactive and will take hundreds of years to become inert.

Click here for instructions on making your own alternative energy using solar and wind.

A rapidly expanding world population is placing a greater demand for electrical power resulting in an increasing need to find alternative renewable energy sources.

Pollution causing fossil fuels simply are not an option if we are to eliminate or reduce acid rain, global warming, smog or the countless health risks that fossil fuels represent.

Likewise nuclear power, once thought to be the best alternative to fossil fuels, is not a viable alternative because of the inherent catastrophic risks involved in both production of electricity and disposal of spent nuclear material.

Powerful, unlimited and non-polluting natural sources of energy such as solar, wind and marine can be harnessed to meet the world’s requirement for electricity.

Click here for instructions on making your own alternative renewable energy source.

Why then would society continue to rely on diminishing supplies of fossil fuels to create power? Why would we continue to use a fuel that essentially is causing our own destruction? Is it a question of education?

As you continue to read this article you will learn the potential of alternative renewable energy and why it is the most promising source for our future power needs.

Renewable energy such as wind, solar and water make sense simply because they are abundant, self replenishing and do not create harmful emissions when used to generate electrical power.

So long as the sun is in the sky and the oceans have water we have a cheap clean source of power. It only makes sense that we as a society utilize these natural alternatives instead of environmentally damaging fossil and nuclear fuels.

One of the most overlooked sources of power is the energy that can be harnessed from the wind. Wind energy is essentially solar energy.

The sun heats the atmosphere causing air to rise and colder air to be sucked in to take its place. This can be especially dramatic over water.

Wind energy is not a new technology. Before the Middle Ages man harnessed the wind with windmills to turn a shaft to grind grain or pump water.

Today, that same concept, using the wind to turn a shaft, is the fastest growing form of alternative energy.

Instead of capturing the wind in a sail as the old windmills did, today the wind is allowed to pass through highly efficient rotor blades which turn the shaft of a turbine generator creating electrical power.

Wind farms are becoming a popular source of alternative renewable energy and can be found in numerous countries around the world. The real potential however, is harnessing the wind that blows over the oceans.

The winds are powerful and more frequent but represent significant technology challenges. Marine energy could provide the world with the bulk of its total electrical power.

Solar power is perhaps the most popular form of alternative renewable energy. In a sense, windows harness solar power by providing light and heat.

That simple example has been expanded and now technology allows for solar hot water systems, swimming pool heaters and even an emerging electrical generating technology. Solar energy promises to be an enormous benefit for a variety of energy applications.

The challenge is to create or advance technologies that will allow us to use these natural resources and end our reliance on harmful fossil fuels. An abundance of cheap, renewable and non-destructive energy awaits us.

Click here for instructions on making your own alternative renewable energy source.

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Click here for Do-It-Yourself instructions for renewable energy sources

Click here for do-it-yourself instructions for renewable energy

Alternative Energy Source

Click here for D-I-Y instructions for your own alternative energy source

Consider all the times you turn something on in your house be it a coffee maker, your computer or even the washer. They use a ton of energy each day of our lives. We need to find alternative energy sources.

At the moment the bulk of our energy needs comes fossil fuel burning such as gas, coal and oil. But these fossil fuel sources are being consumed and also create massive pollution issues such as smog and global warming.

There are more green ideas for energy production however and we must start using these alternative energy sources. Energy that is renewable is a great option meaning an energy source that is always replenishing and won’t run out. The sun will always shine and the wind will always blow.

Solar power and wind power are two common alternative energy sources but another option to look at is geothermal energy for your heating and cooling needs. The burning of fossil fuels are resources that are not renewable – once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Way before people the dead plants and animals decayed and that is what fossil fuels are so we can see that they will be used up and don’t have the millions of years to create more before we use up what we have.

Click here for instructions on making your own alternative energy source.

We need to each come to terms with the option of picking an alternative energy source and take action to set up our personal energy resource. We can’t wait for the government or big business to get on the bandwagon to change for us.

Solar power is a great option as an alternative energy source since most of our energy comes from the sun. The energy generated by the sun each day more more than we could possibly use up so we need to start taking advantage of it.

Solar collector panels are the popular solar option already in use. We see them on the rooftops of buildings and sometimes mounted on the ground outside homes.

Rays from the sun are collected in these panels and converted to the type of energy we can use. Some types of collectors are for heating water that flows through tubes in the collectors and can heat backyard pools.

Some collectors are concrete walls on the south facing walls that collect heat during the day and release it into the house during the night. The International Energy Agency has shown that solar water methods can create 50% to 80% of the hot water needs of a typical family.

If you were to install a hot water energy system you may only need a fraction of what you are currently buying from the utility company you use. The more people who start using some type of solar system to generate some or all of the energy needed for their household, the less pollution created by the utility companies.

Imagine whole communities getting together to become green whether by solar collectors on each home or a community area where the solar panels are installed and then the energy passed on to each home and sharing the costs between all the families.

In some areas a combination of solar and wind power is the best bet. During the winter months when there is not as much sun there is more wind and vice versa in the summer.

What we really need is for the government to give incentives through tax rebates and grants so that individuals could install their own alternative energy source.

This would cut down on the costs to convert and increase the chances that alternatives will be installed by ‘green’ conscious people.

Whether it’s a full-blown system with solar panels and wind turbines to take a family off-grid or just enough panels to heat the pool, we are doing a great service to the environment by leaving a smaller fossil fuel footprint.

Click here for instructions on making your own alternative energy source.

Click here to check out Earth 4 Energy DVD Alternative Energy Projects

One of the most popular topics in libraries and on the internet is how-to information on alternative energy projects.

This is true for both adults and kids. It is becoming more and more evident that we need to change how we look at our energy sources.

Scientists have been talking about the damage we have been doing to the environment and people are becoming more aware of the situation through the media and movies such as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Climate changes and global warming are happening due to the over use of fossil fuels which causes the release of carbon dioxide into the air and the accumulation from year to year is extremely damaging.

Click here for instructions on making your own solar panels.

If we continue on the path we are on the changes in our weather patterns will become more and more extreme causing the extinction of many animals and plants as well as the oceans infringing on the land and causing the loss of a lot of our coastal cities.

As a people we need to look to alternative energy projects such as solar and wind generated power to try to slow and reverse the damage we have done to the planet.

To take part in changing our environment, you can take a look at various alternative energy projects and decide which ones appeal to you.

One path to take is to build your own solar system with parts bought at any hardware store. There are many books and lots of information on the internet.

Here is a quick overview on making your own.

Solar cells can be purchased from quite a few stores as well as over the internet.

You might try an auction site. A rule of thumb is 36 cells to give an output of around 18 volts.

Be careful when storing your cells as they are quite fragile.

Keep them safe while you get the rest of the panel set up.

The first thing you need to make are wooden frames to put the cells in.

Measure the cells carefully and draw a diagram laying them out in a pattern such as 4 across and 9 down to figure out the overall size of the frame.

The frame needs to have a lip for the cells to rest in. Be sure to measure carefully so the cells fit snugly in the frame.

Pegboard is a great backer for the frame and can be found at any hardware store.

The front of the solar panel needs to be protected by a glass sheet.

It’s best not to use plexiglass as it will scratch and discolor making your solar panel very inefficient. Lay the cells on the wood in the best arrangement for spacing.

The cells need to be laid out and soldered together and then wired in series.

That is the basics of making your own solar panel.

There are many more types of alternative energy projects that can also help the environment.

Windmills have become a popular alternative and there are many books on the subject of building your own.

As well, you might want to consider solar collectors such as concrete walls painted black and water-heating roof panels.

Some of these projects are great for kids to get involved in to help share the knowledge of alternative thinking.

The next generations are the people who will need to deal with the problems that we have already started and the best way to start changing things is to get them involved on home projects to help them understand what it means to start taking care of the planet.

Click here for instructions on making your own solar panels.