A solar power home is becoming more popular every day because people want to save money any way they can.

With gas and oil prices going up, solar power is the way that many people are using to help them get the electricity that they need. If you are thinking about converting your home into one that uses solar energy, then you need to know the advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

One: People who take advantage of solar power are in fact also helping to conserve the world, in that they have chosen to use a natural resource for their energy needs rather than relying on energy derived from fossil fuels.

This of course is beneficial to everyone whether they use solar power or not because let's face it, we need to do whatever we can in order to help preserve our planet.

Two: Unlike oil and gas which will inevitably become depleted some point, solar energy on the other hand is virtually an endless supply.

Three: One of the biggest attractions with regards to solar power is that once your home is converted you'll no longer be limited with regards to how much energy you can use, thanks to the fact that solar energy is free. During times when you're forced to use more electricity than usual, you also won't end up with an astronomical bill.

Four: With a solar power home, there will be little maintenance to use a solar power system. With solar energy, there are no parts that move and the solar cells will last for your lifetime, so there is hardly any maintenance required.

Of course, another great advantage is the fact that you'll never need to factor in repair costs and etcetera into the monthly budget.

It's all fair and well that we take a look at the advantages and benefits of solar power but of course, we also need to look at the possible disadvantages.

Disadvantages:

One: Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of solar power is that it can be extremely expensive having a system installed. In fact, before you proceed you need to do an adequate amount of research in order to establish what the cost will be.

While there are literally hundreds of companies and individuals doing their best to make solar power systems more affordable for the average person, such systems are still beyond many people's budget. However, one can now obtain a manual that can teach you how to build your own solar power system, and of course this does reduce the overall cost dramatically.

Two: With a solar power home, one big drawback is that if the sun is not shining then you can't produce solar energy. In other words, when it is raining, at night or even times in the winter, you will not be able to use this power source.

While this article has certainly made no attempt to highlight all the advantages and disadvantages of solar power, the ones mentioned are however the most important. At the end of the day you need to do enough research so as to be able to make an informed decision whether solar power is the right choice for you or not.

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Will alternative energy jobs save us from ourselves? The state of the planet is in serious condition and we need to take some serious action in order to change the way things are. Water pollution, toxic air, and even indoor air pollutants are taking over the world in a steady pattern. Ground level ozone lingers on our door steps and we are now finally turning to renewable energy jobs to reverse the problem.

There is a great deal of potential in alternative energy jobs. With the knowledge and research that we have already been able to attain, it is clear that the most pressing pollutants still pertain to transportation and manufacturing. Without the immediate implementation of renewable energy jobs, clean energy may very well never exist. If we start today we will see a flow that is highly promising.

Wind energy has caught the eye of enough politicians that it is finally becoming part of the actual wind energy campaign. Turbines are being built. Engineers are discovering the best places to erect them off the coast line to power our towns and cities and finally start removing our energy dependence on oil.

This type of progress can immediately help reduce our energy costs out of our pockets as well as environmentally. We can start to transition coastal communities to wind and solar energy. The green building jobs that will accompany this progress will also help boost the economy.

From every direction that we look at the problem there really only seems to be one solution. If we want to start developing a better planet to live on, we have to catch up to the damage the we have done already. By progressing in this stable and efficient manner, the market for renewable energy jobs will increase, simultaneously giving the economic issues another shove.

It doesn't stop there. In every sector of development we can be moving forward in healthy and environmentally friendly ways. Green collar jobs are the answer to so many of our daily questions. We need the better research that comes with these jobs. We need the extra funding that comes with these jobs because at the current rate of destruction it is more than possible that the planet will not hold up.

What would happen if we just gave up and continued to go about our lifestyles in this manner? How does bringing in the energy conservation jobs and welcoming alternative energy jobs do more for us now than coal mining? Truth be told the adult generation would continue to suffer at the current range of health, which is compromised. However, it would be our children and grand children that would grow up to gas masks to survive the air outside and never feel the rain on their face, because it is toxic.

Today starts the first efforts toward a cleaner, better Earth. If alternative energy jobs are the key element to making tomorrow a better day, then perhaps it is time for interested parties to start making their ideas known, transition toward such jobs, and becoming educated to be able to jump in to the industry as soon as possible. Green collar jobs are going to help turn the world around, and being a part of that is something very extraordinary.

Technorati Tags: alternative energy, Employment, Environmentally friendly, Going Green, Green Collar, Green Company, Green Jobs, Jobs, solar power

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The use of solar panels to attract the energy from the sun is becoming more common than ever before. Solar panels are the connecting factor between the sun's energy and the energy we use every day to power our homes. There are many ways solar panels are used to create usable energy even in something as simple as a small calculator or as complicated as a space ship. Using the natural power from the sun by way of solar panels gives all of us an opportunity to help ourselves and help our environment.

Over a hundred years ago there was even a somewhat more primitive way of using the sun's power. We had the idea to use the sun's power to power machinery by using the steam from the hot sun to start and maintain the machinery. This idea caught the attention of many scientists who wasted no time in seeing this discovery and researching the possibilities. Since that time there have been more efficient ways developed, such as solar panels, making the use of the sun's power more convenient than ever before. use a natural resource such as the sun in order to work machinery.

Regardless of the size and shape of the solar panels, they are all designed to convert light so that it can produce energy. PV or photovoltaic is the actual process that converts the light into usable energy. Photovoltaic cells can be what is called thin film solar cell and consists of thin layers of photovoltaic materials and then placed on a semiconductor or substrate. These cells are an essential part of the process that converts enough of the sun's energy into usable energy that can heat our homes, heat our water or power electricity.

Solar panels can be seen on top of houses, buildings or you might see an array of solar panels in a field. The most common and often forgotten solar panel is that in our hand held solar calculators. With the ever rising electricity costs, research and development of more ways to use solar has skyrocketed. There are solar chargers, solar lights, solar computers, solar phones and ever solar vehicles in the works. Becoming more environmentally conscious is becoming the in-thing to do, it no longer belongs to the hippies of the 70's or the secluded who want to be left alone. There are even whole sub-divisions being developed to be completely solar powered.

Finding solar panels for your home was not so easy a few years ago and they could be quite costly. The advances in technology have developed a more efficient, less costly solar panel which can be purchased right off of your computer. The tax incentives and programs sponsored by the government help limit the initial investment costs of making the switch to living off grid. That coupled with not having an electric bill every month, you could save thousands of dollars a year. So what are you waiting for, make the switch to powering your home with affordable, efficient solar panels.

Neo Defrank has shared some simple yet beneficial information about solar panels. As Neo has pointed out there are a variety of solar photovoltaic products available and they are more cost effective & efficient than ever before.

Technorati Tags: environment, living off grid, PHOTOVOLTAIC, power of the sun, solar, solar cells, solar energy, solar panel, solar panels, solar photovoltaic, solar power, solar power plant, useable energy

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I have heard that the cost of solar power generated electricity is still not competitive to traditional forms of energy. I heard that solar power requires subsidies to be competitive.  Does anyone know what the cost difference is now? When will it be competitive to traditional forms of energy without the subsidies? What is the likelihood that this will ever happen? With what kind of technology?

It will become cost effective when researchers find a way to increase the output energy of solar panels. There are some new solar panels coming out that have a higher energy output.

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A builder has found a way to beat the house slump. This is a new development in Sacramento California that features some very green homes.

For every $1 that you can save annually, it adds $20 in value to your house. Falling Leaf at Riverbend is selling solar power and people are buying even in a down real estate market.

Here you get a tankless water heater instead of an old power guzzling tube. What it does is that it heats water on demand as the water passes through a coil. It will do 6.9 gallons per minute which is enough to run three showers and a dishwasher at the same time.

Each home is fitted with a 2 kilowatt solar power system and what isn't used is sold to the local power utility company.

Inside air conditioning vents are moved to the middle of rooms for better efficiency and the zero energy designation is good for a $2,000 tax credit.

With a solar powered home you get two meters, one records the electricity being used while the other keeps track of the solar power being generated. Some homeowners have generated so much solar their electricity bills have been less than $10 per month.

Earlier this month when the valley baked in triple digit heat residents here stayed cool without worry. Pete Desmond moved in April 1st and the savings is no joke. "The bill I just got, and we've had the air conditioner running constantly, was $34."

Duration : 0:2:16

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Solar walls or solar thermal walls are being built at Fort Drum in upstate New York. The solar walls will provide 4 Megawatts of peak thermal energy.

Over 50 solar wall systems are being installed on 27 military buildings.

By using the free energy of the sun instead of burning fossil fuels for heating purposes, the base will save over 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year.

A solar wall heating system heats the ventilation air that is required in commercial and industrial buildings using a patented transpired solar collector. Because hot air rises, a fan sits at the top of the solar wall which directs the heated air into the ventilation system. Ventilation heating is typically one of the largest single energy requirements for these types of buildings, which is why solar air heating can generate such significant overall energy reductions.

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I was wondering how solar powered houses store energy when the sun is not out? What is the device called that actually stores the energy?

That all depends on how you are collecting solar energy.

If you are using solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity, then the energy is stored in what are called deep cycle batteries. It takes a few of these batteries wired together. All the batteries you have wired together that store electricity are called a battery bank.

Your battery bank will store electricity so that you can use that electricity when there is no sun.

If you are using a solar heater that heats water, then the hot water is stored in insulated tanks that you can use later when the sun is not out.

Technorati Tags: battery bank, deep cycle batteries, solar energy, solar heater, solar panels, solar powered houses, store electricity, store energy

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This is an amazing video of how sunlight can be used to run an old fashion stirling engine simply by adding a very small modification to the stirling engine.
Duration : 0:3:24

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007 isn't generally known for being friendly to anything except the ladies. So being friendly to the Earth certainly hasn't ever mattered. The question is, now that green-tech is awesome, and green-style is sexy, what's a Bond to do?

Quantum of Solace seems to take two stances on the issue.

First, green chic is lame. The lead villain of the movie (who shares my last name, unfortunately) is beyond greenwashing. His energy company has been pretending to buy up ecologically sensitive areas, but really he's trying to control the world's water. Sounds like a page out of T. Boone's playbook to me.

And as Greene tries to raise money for his faux-organization, we see the private-jet-flying, schmoozy, evening-balling lameness that I know exists (but have yet to be invited into...for some reason.) Daniel and Olga look smashing, of course, but you can see right through the facade. It's just another reason for rich people to get together and celebrate how rich they are.
Anyone in the movie who appears to give a crap about the environment for it's own sake isn't just full of themselves, they're also the kind of person who is likely to dine on Florida Panther just because it's hard to get. The message is clear, this "being green to be cool thing" is over, in the eyes of Bond. And Bond is the leader of cool, as far as a lot of the world is concerned.

On the other hand, clean technologies suddenly start looking pretty damned cool. A half-Russian, half-South American Bond chick cruises around in a Ford Ka. It's likely that you've never heard of the Ka because they don't sell them in America. But it's basically Ford's answer to the Smart Car. A little larger, but ultra-cheap and it gets 38 mpg.
Bond starts out the movie completely destroying a 13 mpg Aston Martin, showing the kind of distaste toward that obsolete technology as an EcoGeek might expect. While, in the end of the film, he's treating his new hydrogen-powered Ford Edge like a baby, because he obviously loves the technology so much.

The Ka and the Edge are genuine examples of the kind of technology that might one day make our lives and the world a better place. It's a long way from exploding cuff links, and a long way in the right direction, as far as EcoGeek is concerned.

Source: EcoGeek.com

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On the first day of the LA Auto Show BMW Group's MINI division made the world Premiere of their much anticipated MINI-E electric car. While the car is not yet ready to be put into production, MINI will be releasing 500 units on lease to drivers in California and New York in order to study the car's performance in the real world. If you want to sign up for the possibility of getting one of these leases, visit the MINI-E website and sign up.

MINI emphasized that this car was not a mere design study, but was ready to go into production after some important feedback from real life usage and some tweaking of the function of the car. The company also stressed the need for a better electric charging infrastructure in the United States, while at the same time noting that in the case of electric vehicles it was possible for technology to precede infrastructure. This means that although a network of charging stations across the country would facilitate the use of electric cars, the lack of that network doesn't make EVs useless.

To debut the car, the Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles was brought out on stage and taken for a test drive. Unlike many of the other presentations, the MINI unveiling seemed a bit more friendly during the awkward silence when the very long charging cord was being wound up. Then came the test drive, where the Deputy Mayor and her driver drove off stage for about 15 seconds, at which point the presenter asked the audience, "Did you hear anything?"

The obvious answer was no. Even though the MINI-E packs a 150 kW motor, can do 0-60 in 8.5 seconds, and tops out at 95 mph, it didn't make a sound as it rolled off of the stage. To underline the efficiency of their new offering, MINI pointed out that the car could drive 5.5 miles on just 1kW (about 10 cents) of energy. When was the last time you could drive 50 miles for under a buck?

Source: http://www.ecogeek.org/

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