If you're like me, you're watching the 2008 Summer Olympics Games from home. So far, I've seen some rowboating, gymnastics, and a little boxing. I've also seen Michael Phelps swim his way to several gold medals and the USA Basketball Team destroy the competition.
But if we were actually in Beijing, we'd get to witness some of the other beautiful sights. Take the Zero Energy Media Wall in Beijing, for example. It's the world's largest LED display, and it is powered by solar energy.
The bottom line is... Imagine if this thing wasn't powered by solar energy.
Volunteering to go green is one thing, but what if you were forced to go green? We all know that it's for a good cause, but does the government have to right to force its citizens to be environmentally friendly?
People in Germany are currently debating this question because in Marburg, the citizens are going to be forced to use solar panels on their homes. Here's an excerpt from the NY Times article:
"The town council took the significant step in June of moving from merely encouraging citizens to install solar panels to making them an obligation. The ordinance, the first of its kind in Germany, will require solar panels not only on new buildings, which fewer people oppose, but also on existing homes that undergo renovations or get new heating systems or roof repairs.
To give the regulation teeth, a fine of 1,000 euros, about $1,500, awaits those who do not comply.
Critics howled that the rule, which is to go into effect on Oct. 1, constituted an attack on the rights of property owners. The regional government in Giessen stepped in and warned that it would overturn the rule." - Nicholas Kulish
The bottom line is... Eventually, everyone should move towards better energy sources, but it should definitely be on their own terms.
I recently saw a Sharp commercial that showed off some of the company's new solar endeavors. I wanted to post it here, but I browsed YouTube for awhile and couldn't find it. I ended up discovering another cool video. It features a guy who drives a car powered by wind and solar energy.
Have a look:
The bottom line is... Sometimes you have to sacrifice style for the good of the environment.
If you're a gadget person, then you know all about the new Nokia e71. It's a Symbian-operated PDA phone that should get the Blackberry a run for its money.
It features all the standard stuff that you'd see on a phone released in 2008 (ie. bluetooth, gps, wi-fi, 3G, etc.). It's by far one of the sexiest phones to be released in awhile (with the exception of the iPhone, of course).
However, there is one small problem.
I just received mine in the mail over the weekend. I've had some time to play with it, and I must say that the battery life is horrible.
Yesterday, I sent a few text messages and emails, browsed the web and watched a couple YouTube videos, made some phone calls via my bluetooth, and instant messaged my friends. In no time flat, my battery had depleted.
My solution? A solar cell phone charger. My car charger isn't always available, so this is the best way to get the job done.
The bottom line is... If you have a Nokia e71, you may want to think about how you'll keep it charged up.
I guarantee you didn't know these facts about the greatness of wind:
Wind power is the fastest-growing energy source in the world. (Worldwatch Institute)
The wind in North Dakota alone could produce a third of America's electricity. (The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair)
Wind power has the potential to supply a large fraction--probably at least 20%--of U.S. electricity demand at an economical price.
In 1990, California's wind power plants offset the emission of more than 2.5 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, and 15 million pounds of other pollutants that would have otherwise been produced.
Using 100 kWh of wind power each month is equivalent to planting ½ acre of trees and NOT driving 2,400 miles
The bottom line is... We're all about solar, but wind is good too.
In case you haven't heard, there will be a total solar eclipse on August 1st. This will be the first total solar eclipse since 2006.
Here at Solar Arcadia, we're experts on solar panels and solar cell phone chargers, not solar eclipses. So to help you understand the science behind a solar eclipse, we grabbed a few quotes from Space.com articles:
"Solar eclipses occur when the moon moves in front of the sun. This can happen only at the time of a new moon, when the moon is between Earth and the sun, therefore making the latter no longer visible in our daytime sky."
"The total eclipse begins at sunrise over Northern Canada's Queen Maud Gulf, where the moon's umbra will first touch down on the Earth, resulting in Canada's hosting its first total solar eclipse since February 26, 1979."
"Any given spot on the Earth's surface will play host to a total solar eclipse on an average of once every 375 years."
The bottom line is... You'll probably never witness one, but it's still cool.
The first part of this post focused on Photovoltaic Electricity. This post will take a closer look at Solar Thermal Electricity.
Like solar cells, solar thermal systems use solar energy to make electricity. But as the name suggests, solar thermal systems use the sun's heat to do it.
Most solar thermal systems use solar collectors with mirrored surfaces to concentrate sunlight onto a receiver that heats a liquid. The super-heated liquid is used to make steam that drives a turbine to produce electricity in the same way that coal, oil, or nuclear power plants do.
Solar thermal systems may be one of three types: central receiver, dish, or trough. A central receiver system uses large mirrors on top of a high tower to reflect sunlight onto a receiver. This system has been dubbed a "solar power tower." Another system uses a dish-shaped solar collector to collect sunlight. This system resembles a television satellite dish. A third system uses mirrored troughs to collect sunlight. Until recently, trough systems seemed the most promising.
The world's first solar electric plant used mirrored troughs. LUZ, as the plant was called, was perfectly situated in the sunny Mojave desert of California. LUZ was the only solar plant to generate electricity economically. Dollar for dollar, it had always been cheaper to use conventional sources of energy (coal, oil, nuclear) to generate electricity. But the LUZ solar plant turned that around, producing electricity as cheaply as many new coal plants, and with no hidden pollution costs. The future looked bright for this pioneering solar plant and then the dream cracked. LUZ closed its doors at the end of 1992 because of a drop in oil prices and an over-budget construction project at LUZ's home-base.
The bottom line is...
LUZ may be gone, but most solar energy engineers believe solar power towers will be ready to take the place of trough systems very soon.
If you enjoyed our educational posts about solar electricity, be sure to subscribe to our blog to stay updated.
Besides heating homes and water, solar energy also can be used to produce electricity. Two ways to generate electricity from solar energy are photovoltaics and solar thermal systems.
In this two-part post, we'll focus on Photovoltaic Electricity first...
Photovoltaic comes from the words photo meaning "light" and "volt", a measurement of electricity. Sometimes photovoltaic cells are called PV cells or solar cells for short. You are probably already familiar with solar cells. Solar-powered calculators, toys, and telephone call boxes all, use solar cells to convert light into electricity.
A photovoltaic cell is made of two thin slices of silicon sandwiched together and attached to metal wires. The top slice of silicon, called the N-layer, is very thin and has a chemical added to it that provides the layer with an excess of free electrons. The bottom slice, or P-layer, is much thicker and has a chemical added to it so that it has very few free electrons.
When the two layers are placed together, an interesting thing happens- an electric field is produced that prevents the electrons from traveling from the top layer to the bottom layer. This one-way junction with its electric field becomes the central part of the PV cell.
When the PV cell is exposed to sunlight, bundles of light energy known as photons can knock some of the electrons from the bottom P-layer out of their orbits through the electric field set up at the P-N junction and into the N-layer.
The N-layer, with its abundance of electrons, develops an excess of negatively charged electrons. This excess of electrons produces an electric force to push the additional electrons away. These excess electrons are pushed into the metal wire back to the bottom P-layer, which has lost some of its electrons.
This electrical current will continue flowing as long as radiant energy in the form of light strikes the cell and the pathway, or circuit, remains closed.
Current PV cell technology is not very efficient. Today's PV cells convert only about 10 to 14 percent of the radiant energy into electrical energy. Fossil fuel plants, on the other hand, convert from 30-40 percent of their fuel's chemical energy into electrical energy. The cost per kilowatt-hour to produce electricity from PV cells is presently three to four times as expensive as from conventional sources. However, PV cells make sense for many uses today, such as providing power in remote areas or other areas where electricity is difficult to provide. Scientists are researching ways to improve PV cell technology to make it more competitive with conventional sources.
Stay tuned for the 2nd part of this post, where we'll focus on solar thermal systems.
Welcome to the official blog for Solar Arcadia. This is a great place to find exciting news about the solar industry and the latest information regarding iPhones and iPods.
If you're like me, you're watching the 2008 Summer Olympics Games from home. So far, I've seen some rowboating, gymnastics, and a little boxing. I've also seen Michael Phelps swim his way to several gold medals and the USA Basketball Team destroy the competition.
