Solar Energy Overview

Use of sun rays as a renewable energy source seem to become highly popular. Human race uses it both on macro and micro scale. In macro scale we can see huge solar plants being build by governments or private consortiums. They are able to supply with electricity whole cities. On the micro scale we observe people using home energy solar systems growing in numbers. I’d like to share some interesting facts about solar energy in use in the post below. These will be not only advantages of it, but also minuses and curiosities. I’ll also explore on what the prediction for the future are.

We use energy of the sun for our advantage in few different ways. There are water-heating systems that provide warmth for swimming pools, houses, and other buildings. There are small batteries build into pocket devices like calculators, that can power them virtually infinitely. We use sun rays for drying clothes from ages. Solar –powered cars have already been build, andUSscientists invented and build even plane that runs on sun energy. And of course the most important use of sun we’ll talk about here is solar panels that collect sun rays and transform them into electricity.

If you consider switching into using solar energy you should be aware of a sort of paradox that often occurs. It’s that these solutions can be really expensive at the beginning (especially if you buy ready systems, and not build them yourself). This is mainly because materials that are used in construction of these systems are relatively expensive at the moment. Yet on  the other hand when the initial investment paid back, the energy is actually free – you’ve got a sort of free energy generator on your roof. What is also a big benefit, is that solar panels don’t need any maintenance – you just install them and forget about them. The only exception is in winter, in case snow covering your panels.  You need to do some work and just wipe it our then (and that usually means getting to the roof first… which is not fun in winter). This investment that is necessary at the beginning is primary reason this technology hasn’t already spread across the world.

Another sort of paradox is about dependency. If you’ve got your own electricity source, you can really feel independent from energy consortiums. This is an important factor for many of those who buy solar panels. The dark side of that is that it makes you dependent on the weather. If there is power outage and everyone stays in blackout, it doesn’t touch you. But, if there is cloudy day sixth day in a row, it does affect you strongly. Not fun.

If we think about buying a solar-powered car, we should know they’re much slower then ‘traditional’ cars at the moment. This may change in quite short time, as technology development is nowadays really fast. And if we are remained that aircraft powered with the sun energy has already been built, we are sure that there is not a long way to go.

Obstacles for the Spread of Renewable Energy Sources

Renewable energy sources like solar wind or geothermal all have lots of benefits. They’re eco-friendly (free of toxic emissions to the atmosphere) and constantly refilled by the nature itself. We can not run out of them. They’re also cheap (after initial investment was recurred), and some of them even free. Good example is solar power that has zero cost of capturing sun rays. At this point important question arises: why we actually still use fossil fuels? Why wind, solar and others are called alternative energy sources, and not the primary ones?

The problem that we touch here is a complex one, and we have to see the big picture of global situation to really understand it. I’ll just tell you that more than 70% of obstacles to spread of renewable energy are of political not technical nature. Below you can read about some of the actual reasons.

Governmental grants in great numbers are placed into fossil fuels industry. Of course it doesn’t happen by itself –  oil consortiums are actively lobbying year after year to make it happen. Thanks to that oil and coal energy prices are lower than they “really” are. We still pay the full price (in taxes) but it just seems to be lower. Alternative energy sources on the other hand do not receive so much subsidies, and are struggling with tons of unsupporting regulations.

Traditional energy consortiums can control the market very easy, thanks to low level of customers awareness. The average Joe will not actively seek for other opportunities that those he’s told about in TV.

Most of customers in any given industry will just buy “what’s on the menu”, and not ask for anything else. It’s just the same with energy industry.

Another thing is that we’re lacking  adequate technical and manufacturing stuff needed for large scale production of these technologies. The reason is that it’s in early stadium of commercialisation. Customers can’t get information and training they need easy, so some of them just stay with current supplier.

One more problem is a sort of technical lock-in we got into. All electricity devices we use nowadays are designed for centralised power plants and it’s difficult to overcome the all electricity system.

Understanding these obstacles above we fully recognize how huge transformation we need to make in our whole social system and in governments policies. Most of all we need to allow unconstrained development of this solutions and stopped favouring fossil fuels industry.

Renewable Energy and the Public Policy Transformation

We live in interesting times. Renewable electricity sources age spreading on the market, new technologies are still being invented and prices of traditional fuels constantly pick up. I believe we should consider what does it all mean for us – for our  everyday lives that we live today and for our future social changes.

We get alternative energy from few different sources like wind and water turbines, geothermal power plants,  or solar batteries).  Commercialisation of these solutions is taking place from quite a long time already. Believers of these solutions claim this is because of active work of oil industry. People connected to it are told to be spending huge money on lobbying and bribing government to keep things just as they are today. Oil and coal consortiums get huge subsidies and other support (like supporting regulations) from governments, and media burry real social costs of their use. Mainstream media also do not say anything about possible alternatives (like alternative energy sources, among which some can be called free energy generator). Just like everyone was somehow wired to chose close term benefits over long term benefits.

If we want to change things we need to take the economy to the debate. Economists have discussed it many times,  what exactly should be done to switch the world into using renewable energy. The one single most important think they talk about is… taxes. Change of taxes is necessary as long as we’re talking about long term transformation. What is necessary is lowering income taxes and raising taxes on environmentally destructive solutions (connected to fossil fuels industry). For example coal use equals increased health care costs associated with breathing polluted air, the costs of acid rain damage. Things like that should be included within ‘fossil fuels tax’. The main idea is to make using coil and oil a bad deal. Some of modern economies in Europe (likeNorway,France,Germany, orItaly) already started implementing this tax shifting (the call it “Environmental Tax Reform”). And it brings great effects. For instance inGermanytraditional fuels use has been lowered by 5% in just two years.

Another crucial issue economists arise is a need of grants shifting. As long as governments will subside oil industry, there will be expansion on fossil fuels usage. What we need is to relocate subsidies traditional energy into renewable solar, wind, and geothermal power. In parts of the Europe and Asia this has already started, but in United States it’s just the opposite – the financial support for fossil fuels and nuclear power has been increased.

When global economic crisis began main economies allocated big money into renewable energy. That was to support recovery of global economy. This may be good beginning of a new stage of these technologies development and spread.

Renewable Energy – overview

Renewable energy is a electricity that we receive from natural processes phenomena like geothermal heat, wind, ocean waves or sunlight. That natural phenomena are constantly repeated, and will be constantly repeated forever. Using this sources, we know they’re replenished immediately. If we don’t make use of them  they will just go to waste.

free energy generatorToday the process of replacing traditional energy sources (fossil fuels) with renewable sources is actually just starting. It will be realize on four different areas simultaneously. There will be transformations in:  generating electric energy, fuels used for transport, heating of buildings (and getting hot water) and rural (off-grid) energy services. Let’s examine them a bit closer.

Energy Generating. Nowadays we receive 18 % of all electricity worldwide from renewables. Receivers of many sorts (for example water turbines, windmills, solar panels – free energy generator) are spread across the world. Some of economies managed already to switch into using renewable sources as main ones, or even the only ones. LikeIceland – they’re receiving one hundred percent of electric power from renewables.Brazil also is doing well getting 85 % andNew Zealand 65 %.

Space heating. In some economies using solar rays to heat water makes an important contribution to energy usage policy. We can see that inChinawhere they supply about 50 to 60 million households with this system. There are estimations saying that the rest of the world there is about 70 million building that use that system for water heating. Other houses are heated with biomass, and direct geothermal heating. InSwedenusage of biomass energy has already surpassed that of oil.

Transport fuels. In that area we find renewable source in a form of biofuels. They are in use worldwide (although not in all countries) and let is to partly replace gasoline use. These are the ways transformation into renewable energy sources goes today.

Simple tips on how reduce air pollution

Nowadays our environment is terribly polluted, and this problem grows in importance every year. And speaking about that let’s think about something closer to each of us – air pollution. We all experience it on everyday basis, no matter if we’re aware of it or not. It’s said that one hour of jogging inManhattanwill make such damages to your health, that it can be compared to those made by  smoking one packet of cigarettes. If we want this situation to change, we all have  to do something by ourselves. Below I put some practical tips for reducing air pollution, for you to consider.

First. Try changing your travelling behaviours. One of our main pollution sources are cars. What if you tried using public transport from time to time? Could you consider riding bike to work and back. What about riding to work with colleague? Can you give it a try? There is one more thing: if you wait for somebody with engine working you’re also making more pollution than it’s necessary – so don’t do it.

Second thing. Some people decide to plant a tree. Trees emit  oxygen to the atmosphere, and by that hey help keep it clean. You also can do it , planting even just one will make a difference. Lots of places will be good for it – public parks, your backyard, or some remote place. What’s nice about that is that you’ll be able to see ‘your’ three growing for many, many years even when you yourself will get old, it still will be growing.

Third tip. What about recycling stuff – do you actually do it?  If you reuse something there will be no need for a factory to produce new thing – and that reduces toxic gases it would have produced in other case. And you don’t ‘contribute’ to growing mountain of litter. Some of your old stuff you can even sell to junk shops and make money on it! If you  recycled one kilogram of anything, you just prevented two kilograms of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Another thing: make aware shopping. Make sure that what you buy is reusable. Make selection and reject stuff that harms the environment like plastic bags for example.

Fifth point – Do not smoke ;) People who smoke are responsible for emission  tons of pollutants to the atmosphere. Really don’t think this is something so small it won’t make a difference – it will. There is so much of these pollutants, that that some researches say air pollution caused by them is 10 times greater than that one made by emissions form diesel cars.

The last but not least. Switch into using renewable energy sources if you can. You can choose from many solutions like windmills, few kinds of solar panels or free energy generator. This can make great difference, as fossil fuels make most part of air pollution.

Solar Energy Drawbacks

Solar panels may become our main sources of electric power in years to come. Today they’re just one of electricity sources that we use as alternatives to fossil fuels.  In future we’ll move into direction of renewable energy we should have  a look at benefits and limitations of all of them. Below I’ll just focus on the drawbacks of solar panels.

Firs thing. Using them we rely on the weather. If the sky is cloudy or polluted, it’s going to  decrease amount of energy that battery will be able to receive. In most cloudy days it can even go down to zero. We don’t really want to feel that that if we can heat our home, or even watch TV depends on how clear the sky is.

Second thing. What flows out from the previous one – these panels only work during the day. Of course we will store the power we gathered last day using our backup battery system or net metering… but in some places on the earth day is really short.  What then? And in winter days are shorter everywhere… The more advanced this methods of storage will become, the more reliable these systems will be.

Third issue. At the moment the initial cost of installing such a system is high. Too high for most of us. Primary reason for that is that semi-conducting materials we use in their construction are so expensive. When more and more people will decide to install solar panel, prices will eventually drop down for sure. Everything becomes cheaper when it’s more popular. If more people will be interested in buying it, there will be more competition out there on the market, and competition cuts prices down. But here and now their prices are just too high.

Fourth thing. You need some space to put your solar batteries on it. It’s not a problem if you own a house – you get on the roof and put them there. But so many people in the earth stay in the blocks of flats – and there is only one roof for few dozens of people there. One solar panel will not collect enough of energy for all of them. The good solution of this problem would be if we’d build big solar batteries located in remote areas that would collect great amounts of power. This energy  would be then distributed to such blocks of flats. But this again would be quite expensive, and today it’s just a futurology

Above I briefly described are main limitations of solar energy panels that we’re facing today.  Only when we know them we can do something to overcome them. Or to find other free energy generator that will be easier accessible.

Top 7 Reasons Why We Want to Build Our Own Free Energy Generator

Join the pick of innovators who built their own electricity generators. But before you’ll do that, have a look at most common reasons we decided to use free energy.

  • We save good money. Just count how much are you going to pay for energy bills this month and multiply it by 12 – this is exactly how much cash you can save in just first year. You can build your free power generator really fast and start saving straight away
  • You can build multiple generators and sell them to others. Yes – some of us started new business on this solution
  • We stay clean and only use in our houses energy, that is safe for natural environment. We don’t want to use technology that make serious pollution to air, water and Earth. We want to save natural resources of the planet. We bring clean energy to our families, and in a way – to the world.
  • We don’t want to support energy corporations. Knowing corrupt practises and abuses made by main consortiums of the industry, many of us decided to build our power generators just to set apart from them.
  • We like the idea of using technology, that will be in common usage in next few dozen years only, on our everyday basics today. This is like being the elite of society in positive terms.
  • We were just curious about that subject matter, especially that you can’t learn about that from TV. And we decided to check ourselves. It’s 100% safe, as with detailed instructions there comes full 60 days money back guarantee. If you will not be able to cut your energy bills you just write an e-mail, and get all your money back – you take no risk at all.
  • It’s fun! You can build it from the very beginning, then see it working and use it.

Solar Energy Advantages

Solar panels are recognized as one of possible main sources of electricity of tomorrow. Today they’re just one of alternatives to fossil fuels. And they’re not in wide usage, just as biomass, windmills and water turbines, or geothermal energy. As one day we’ll be made to completely switch to renewables it’s great thing to analyze benefits and drawbacks of all of them today. In this article I’m going to explore advantages of solar panels exclusively.

First – solar energy is renewable. That means we’re never going to run out of it. Just compare it with coal, oil and gas. In one hour sun emits  so much power into earth’s direction, that if we only were able to capture it, we will power the whole planet for a year. The possibilities are huge. If we’ll only succeed in improving this technology this may completely fix all our energy problems.

Next issue – this electricity is a real “green energy”. No toxic chemicals or noise is involved – it’s completely silent and safe. This issue is growing in importance as our environment becomes more polluted every year, and what’s more we use more electricity every year. So if we’ll not switch into renewables, is not going to change.

Thirdly solar panels don’t  need any maintenance at all. This is huge benefit comparing with wind energy. You just set the panels once, and then you just leave them, enjoying virtually free energy. Solar panel once set up, will work for you for a very long time with no repairs, recurring, improvements or anything like that. Only during the winter you need to wipe snow out of it

Fourth advantage – electricity extracted from sun rays doesn’t bring any costs with it. Solar panel can be called free energy generator. If you use lots of energy in your home, the payback period  for initial investment may be really short. And after recurring it you’re independent from energy consortiums and your local supplier. You don’t worry about increasing power prices any more. The cost of picking solar rays will stay at the same level  – which is zero. What’s more, in some countries solar panels are covered with some sort of tax credit or incentive (usually around 20-30% of the system price). These are just main benefits of solar panels.