Archive for the ‘Other Articles’ Category
Renewable Energy Law
It’s said that we are a nation of laws so it is not surprising that on the books there is renewable energy law. Laws are meant to encourage or discourage a behavior. Criminal law discourages people from stealing.
Tax law encourages people to buy homes and invest in education. Renewable energy law encourages the development and implementation of new green technology.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed in July of 2005, addresses the need for this country to develop a policy to deal with a rapidly emerging energy crisis.
Click here for instructions on making your own alternative renewable energy source.
Not only were there concerns about the continued availability of conventional energy fuels, but there was an increasing awareness that those very fuels were having a devastating effect on the environment as well.
As a result, the law was designed to encourage industry to research and develop new renewable sources of energy by providing tax incentives and government loan guarantees.
Part of the Act specifically targeted the development of wind energy as a source of generating electrical power. Wind power is an amazingly clean source of an energy that is in constant demand.
The biggest hurdle to this industry had been the initial capital outlay for land and wind turbines. To lower that hurdle, the Act provides for a production tax credit of $0.019 for every kilowatt per hour produced for a period of 10 years.
This was the incentive the industry needed and the now wind power in the U.S. is developing at a rate greater than any other developed nation in the world.
The government included this incentive because it was confident that it would both serve to create new green renewable electricity, and create new jobs to work that industry.
Getting this country back to work is a priority and the current Administration sees renewable energy as a growth opportunity for employment. Continuing the incentives is important both to the investors and to the country’s job recovery.
Another beneficiary of the Energy Policy Act was geothermal power. This technology is obviously limited by location but when you look at Iceland which is almost entirely powered by geothermal, you can’t ignore developing the limited opportunities that exist in America.
The Act provides a tax production for this industry as well. A later law also stipulates that the Department of Energy will spend no less than $95 million each year on researching geothermal technology.
Another area that has to be taken into consideration by the renewable energy law is marine energy. Marine energy involves harnessing the energy of the ocean tides, waves and wind. It represents huge challenges but the potential is equally huge.
As a result of this directive, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission set up a number of studies into marine energy.
Today there are active and meaningful experiments being conducted in San Francisco Bay, New York, Washington state and Rhode Island. Without a renewable energy law it would be doubtful that private industry would invest in such a challenging technology.
As mentioned in the beginning of this article, laws are made to encourage behavior. Renewable energy law is essential to the furthering of new green technologies and their commercial implementation.
Congress can not be satisfied with the status quo and must continue to ensure that this nation’s energy requirements and environmental needs are met by encouraging the development of alternative energy sources.
Click here for instructions on making your own alternative renewable energy source.
Investments in Alternative Energy
Take Part and Build Your Own
Investments in alternative energy can be a smart and profitable addition to any portfolio. Investing in technologies, production firms and even companies specializing in installation of alternative energy systems is an investment in the future.
Green stocks are expected to be a multi billion industry by 2013.
Wind energy is a perfect example. New technologies for wind turbines are proving to be far more efficient and less problematic in operation than the old technologies.
New models are now generating electricity on a competitive basis with conventional power providers. The new wind energy is a growth technology that is a perfect fit for an aggressive growth portfolio.
Click here to invest in alternative energy by making your own solar or wind power.
What started out as a clever way to power pocket calculators is now becoming a new opportunity to provide power to entire neighborhoods. Photovoltic cell technology, the same technology that powers such diverse devices as calculators and harbor buoys, are finding their way into applications that will power entire building complexes.
As the efficiency of the technology goes up, the cost goes down and they become an attractive alternative to convention power sources.
One reason for the boom is this particular application is the greatly increased conversion ratio of the cells. Conversion ratios compare the amount of energy required to produce the cell versus the amount of energy the cell actually provides. In 1982 the typical silicon cell had a ratio of 4%.
Today’s technologies offer a conversion of 20%. That’s a five fold increase in efficiency and future models promise even higher ratios.
The reason this increased efficiency is so important is space. Today’s installation only requires one fifth the roof space as the 1982 model to produce the same amount of power.
Photovoltic cells are still not practical for high demand industrial use simply because the industrial facilities rarely have enough roof space to allow for the number of panels required. As efficiency increases space decreases and a new and profitable market of industrial electricity becomes available.
This is a fast growing, clean alternative energy source that’s bound to become a big player.
Another source of alternative fuel energy that has truly unlimited potential is marine energy.
Many investment advisors see a great opportunity in companies involved in developing technologies that capture energy from tidal movements, rivers, temperature fluctuations and currents. France is the leader in hydro-electric power. Scotland and the U.S. are seriously studying the possibilities.
A major challenge for any technology deployed in the ocean or in any body of water is corrosion. Add to that marine life like barnacles, violent storms and shifts in current and you get an idea of just how vast the problems are.
However, it has been estimated that 1% of the oceans wind energy potential is sufficient to meet the entire world need for electricity. The challenges are big but the payoff is huge.
Investment in what we would consider conventional hydro-electric power continues to flourish. New dam designs have eliminated many of the ecological problems of our older dams.
Those improvements however, come with a higher cost. Of new interest are “in current” turbines that are placed in rivers and powered by the current and require no damming at all.
The bottom line is that investments in alternative energy has a solid future and the resulting green will not only be a cleaner planet but a wealthier investor.
Click here to invest in alternative energy by making your own solar or wind power.
How Electricity is Produced
Working on Electrical Panel
It’s rumored that Ben Franklin first discovered electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm. It would be over 100 years before Franklin’s discovery resulted in a commercially available light bulb. However since that magic bulb was created, Man has not been able to slake his thirst for electrical energy.
With the exception of hydro-electric plants, most electricity is produced by using superheated steam to power turbines which in turn power generators. The basic concept is pretty simple. The design of the systems, turbines and generators are constantly improved but the process remains the same.
So the big difference in how electricity is produced is really in how the steam is produced. As you read on we will cover the pros and cons of each method.
Click here for instructions on making your own electricity using solar and wind power.
Power generating stations that burn fossil fuels are a common sight all over the world. These plants create steam by boiling water using coal, oil or natural gas as the source of heat.
These carbon based fuels emit tons of pollutants and are responsible for greenhouse gases and global warming. Further, they are using carbon based fuels that are rapidly disappearing.
Continued reliance on fossil fuel will not only continue to pollute the environment, but when they become truly scarce, their cost will be overwhelming.
Nuclear power plants rely on a controlled atomic chain reaction to provide heat to boil water and create steam. At first it was thought to be the perfect alternative fuel but then problems with disposing of spent nuclear fuel and the disaster at Chernobyl pointed out the dangers of this form of energy.
Nuclear plants are still the choice of many emerging nations because they don’t require the transportation infrastructure like railroads or pipelines that fossil fuel plants require.
Methane gas captured from animal waste and decomposing trash is a relatively new way to heat water. These applications are typically confined to self sustaining operations. For example methane from a pig farm probably only generates enough energy to create power just for the pig farm.
Electricity is produced in a couple of non-steam powered methods as well. Hydro-electric plants are typically built alongside or in dams. Cascading water falls from the dam’s higher elevations powering the turbine using the power of gravity.
Another application is lowering small turbines into a river and using the power of the current to turn the turbines. While there are no emissions, dams can often times have adverse effect on the ecosystem of both the lake being dammed and the riverbed below the dam.
That said, hydro-electric power represents 90% of the total electricity generated by renewable energy sources.
Lastly, and growing in popularity is wind power. Windmills harness the force of the wind by allowing it to spin rotors attached to a shaft which in turn is attached to a turbine.
Wind power may represent the future of how electricity is produced. It is clean, renewable and abundant. Wind farms on land are impressive but the real source of wind energy is on our oceans where the wind blows longer and stronger.
Harnessing ocean winds could potentially provide enough electrical power to serve the entire planet.
Click here for instructions on making your own electricity using solar and wind power.
Green Energy Technology
Go Green and Build Your Own Solar or Wind System
It’s no secret that this beautiful planet that we live on and share with an enormous number of plant and animal species, has suffered some pretty severe damage over the past 100 years thanks in large part to the burning of fossil fuels.
Our demand for electrical power increases each year causing an increase in the use of fossil fuels. If we are to reverse this polluting trend then we have to find an efficient and practical green energy technology
One of the most visible forms of pollution caused by the burning of carbon based fuels is acid rain. Fossil fuels release sulphuric acid into the atmosphere when it burns.
As the acid rises higher into the atmosphere molecules of moisture attach themselves and when the combined weight of the acid and moisture is great enough, it falls back to earth as rain.
Click here for instructions on making your own green energy using solar and wind.
Acid rain kills plants and trees. It poisons lakes and ponds and all the life that lives in them. It can even poison the very ground that it falls on.
Acid rain may be the most visible element of fossil fuel pollution but it is not the most dangerous. Global warming, which has potentially catastrophic consequences, is also caused in large part by the burning of these fuels. For decades the earth’s temperature has continued to rise. In order for us, and all the life we share this planet with, to survive, we have to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel and look to clean green energy technology.
Where will this green energy technology come from? The logical place to start looking is at the sun. If you think about it, nature already uses solar power for almost everything it does from the growth of plants, to the weather to the rise and fall of our lakes and oceans. Solar energy is abundant, clean and perhaps the ultimate green energy. The challenge is developing technology to efficiently use it.
We have developed some technology to capture solar energy. Solar collectors or solar panels which are normally installed on roofs, are designed to capture the heat from the sun and transfer that heat to pipes in which water runs through. Typically the sun, aided by the technology, can heat that water up to 125 degrees providing hot water to a household for baths, laundry or even heating a swimming pool.
In the works is a technology that will enhance the heat transfer of the solar panel to such a degree that it can actually boil the water in the pipes creating steam. Once this is achieved, that steam can be used to power a turbine generator and provide a household with the bulk of its electrical power needs. This is an example of the efforts of science and industry to develop green energy technology as a replacement for our current use of non-renewable carbon based fuel.
Power providers estimate that households could reduce their use of electricity from fossil fuels by as much as 75% if the solar technology can be perfected. This would have a huge impact on greenhouse gases and other pollutants. In the meantime, using what ever green energy technology we can, even if it has just a minimal effect individually, has a cumulative effect if everyone does it.