Alternative Energy

Colleges Must Take a Leading Role on Climate Change

A still relevant report from a few years ago is urging higher education leaders not only to engage in preventing climate change but to prepare for and respond to its impact.

The report, “Higher Education’s Role in Adapting to a Changing Climate,” compiled by the Higher Education Climate Adaptation Committee, states that many colleges and universities have taken some steps to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But these institutions “are having a key role to play when it comes to preparing our society to deal with the impact that climate change disruption across the globe” the report states. The discussion must shift to include prevention and adaptation, the report states, and colleges and universities have a unique opportunity to push that change.

The report recommends climate change-focused curriculum, research, risk management, and community engagement. It points out that colleges have the opportunity to serve as “hubs” in their local communities for climate change adaptation strategies.

Hydrogen (HHO) Generators used as gas saving devices

Alternative Energy

HHO generators produce HHO gas, known as hydroxy gas. This gas is much more combustible than gasoline or diesel and when mixed with the engine’s primary source of fuel it generates a stronger explosion in the combustion chambers increasing the strength in the combustion process, meaning more efficiency.

There is an ongoing debate on the percentages of fuel energy efficiencies for modern engines. Some say that the engine is approximately 30% to 35% fuel efficient, the remaining 65% to 70% is fuel wastage, meaning that the fuel’s full potential is being released in the combustion process. While I’m not going deep into the subject of trying to conclude if these numbers are real or exaggerated, there is some fuel wastage, or else oxygen sensors would not be installed on modern engines which are constantly monitoring and sending data readings in volts to the PCM to rectify the fuel mixture.

How to produce “hydrogen on demand”?

Producing hydrogen, unless it is managed to be captured from the atmosphere – which proves extremely difficult, a type of hydrogen generator will be needed. One way of doing so is using water and separating its molecules. A water molecule (H20) contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. An electrolysis process can be used to separate the hydrogen atoms from the water, forming HHO (oxyhydrogen), also known as “Brown’s Gas” which was named after Professor Yull Brown’s discovery.

American Innovation, Resolve, and Persistence Wanted

Alternative Energy

The United States faces innumerable challenges. Policy experts could write entire treatises on all of these, but clear solutions may get lost in complicated or trivial details. As the Pareto principle reminds us, 80% of our results can be achieved by focusing 20% of our efforts on the most important activities. So, what if we concentrated our labors on two pivotal problems that American resolve, innovation, and persistence can, and must, successfully tackle – transportation and energy.

Let’s start with transportation. The US transportation system of highways, bridges, tunnels, and railroads is stressed, strained, and badly in need of repairs and upgrades. 7 of the 10 most congested cities are on the East Coast and West Coast. In fact, if you travel along the I-5 or I-95 corridors, you probably think that the 3 million large trucks in the US are directly in front of you. You may wonder why we don’t repair and expand the transportation system.

What Are Solar Energy Systems?

Alternative Energy

Imagine being able to completely offset the cost of your electricity bills. Never again do you have to pay for electric energy. Instead, people are now able to generate their own electricity entirely through the use of solar energy systems. A solar energy system would make a great addition to your household. The ability to produce electricity for free is certainly enticing, isn’t it?

Thousands of people before you have made the jump into using solar energy for all of their electricity needs. Your home could benefit from a solar energy system and it would save you thousands every year.

In order to get the most rays from the sun, most solar energy systems will have panels that go directly onto your roof. Roof setups are the most effective way to use a solar panel set up because it has the most exposure to the sun. People who own homes aren’t the only ones who are taking advantage of solar energy systems. Big companies are also using them, connecting an immense number of solar panels to the roofs of their company buildings.Continue reading

16 reasons why the sun should be your valentine

Alternative Energy

Love is in the air…ah. Valentine ’s Day is a great reminder to let the people we care about know how we feel. As we run from store to store collecting chocolates, flowers, and cards, we thought this holiday would be a great opportunity to profess our love for the sun.

Unfortunately, our sonnet writing skills would make William Shakespeare roll in his grave. Instead, we decided to create a list of all the reasons that the sun should be your Valentine this year. The best part, you don’t have to spend a dime to show your affection for it when you lease your solar home installation.

Solar Panels for Your Home

Alternative Energy , Energy , Green Living

Getting solar panels for your home can dramatically affect your electricity bill. If you are used to paying hundreds or thousands of dollars per year for your electricity bill, be prepared to pay much less. You can offset the cost of electricity or even eliminate your bill altogether through the use of solar panels. The most popular set up for solar panels is having the panels attached to the roof. This gives the panels the biggest coverage area and exposes them to the most rays of the sun.

What kind of money can you expect to save? Your average solar panel system will save you around 50 dollars per month on your electricity bill. If you get a bigger system, one that’s designed to take on the full force of your electrical needs, you can expect to eliminate your electricity bill altogether. Incredible!

Wind generator power rating missing the point

Alternative Energy

With the push to go green, also in micro markets, much has been made of wind power. Media outlets attentive to the wind energy development have focused attention on the industry and many homeowners have followed suit.

The emergence of many upstart wind companies has advertisers scrambling to gain the attention of would-be consumers in a relatively new market. To this point, advertising has focused mostly on a maximum “output figure.” This to a certain extent has confused consumers, many of which being new to wind energy.

To further confuse matters most companies are purposefully inflating these figures in an apparently deliberate attempt to mislead consumers. In our opinion, the maximum output figures of a wind generator most people are focusing on does very little to describe the efficiency of a particular unit.

That figure does little to relay a conceptual idea to the customer that is useful in making a decision on purchasing a wind generator. Maximum output figures of wind generators in many cases give a snapshot of an expected output at a given moment at the peak of a power curve.

Sustainability – Solar Energy

Alternative Energy

Solar Is Beating Fossil Fuels

Sometimes it gets a little frustrating to hear opponents of solar energy say continuously that sustainable energy is not ready to be competitive with fossil fuels to deliver all the power our country requires. Well, I know that the solar sector is expanding enormously year after year and that fossil fuels keep on being eliminated.

The solar industry has long ago left behind the cottage industry mentality it had decades ago. Spectacular developments in production technology and funding have helped bring the solar industry to the playing field with coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. Here are some reasons why solar is already succeeding in beating fossil fuels.

Green solution for your home

Alternative Energy

The ability to control consumption of electric power, though, may have the biggest impact. One approach is to let utility companies (with the homeowner’s consent, of course) cut back heating or air conditioning, or turn off other equipment, during power emergencies, either over the public Internet or through a direct connection to the utility company’s data network. In compensation, homeowners might receive discounts on their monthly electricity bills.

Or, in a more imaginative scenario, the appliances could regulate themselves as the utility company varies the cost of electricity from day to day or even hour to hour. Either way, the potential for energy saving is substantial.

It’s already starting to happen overseas. Italy’s Enel, the largest publicly traded utility company in the world, expects this year to begin wiring the 27 million homes it serves to allow such remote demand management and other services, using equipment supplied by Echelon, a Sunnyvale, Calif., supplier of building automation equipment and software.

Renewable Resources

Alternative Energy

Renewable energy comes from sources that may be continuously renewed by nature. Consequently, we will never be running out of these energy sources, that is, for as long the Sun’s nuclear fusion processes continue to provide the Earth with energy.

Here are a few examples:

Solar Power: Solar power is seen as renewable energy as expectations are that nuclear fusion processes that are powering the Sun will continue to generate sunlight for billions of years.

We are capturing the light of the Sun to:

Drive steam turbines to produce electricity (the concentration of Solar Power),
Heat homes (via so-called Passive Solar Design or via an Active Solar Heating System),
Make hot water (via an Active or Passive Solar Hot Water System),
Cook (on a Solar Oven),
Distill water
Generate electricity by using solar electric (or photovoltaic) cells

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How to produce “hydrogen on demand”?