Oil Prices Heading Up Again? Car Manufacturers Get Bailout? Affect on Alternate Energy?

Well, you may have noticed that oil prices are going up again (after the nice drop back in October, November, and December of last year)... and, since the Feds (in the U.S.) have given bail-outs to the banks and the automotive manufacturers, they are still pushing the gas-guzzling monsters. Maybe oil prices have to exceed $90/barrel before the screaming and fussing will cause more interest in alternate energy.

Ever since I took classes in alternate energy and solar energy and environmental sciences back in the 1970s (yeah, I'm that old) at the University of Guam and the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus Guam Extension, I've had a continuing fascination with the alternatives to oil and coal and nuclear as energy sources. It's not that these three energy sources don't work... they do... but it's the end-result... what to do with the "left-overs" that is the major concern. With the first two options (oil and coal), these are non-renewable resources (and they also involve some pollution problems from more places than you'd expect).

With nuclear power, the quandry of what to do with the spent fuel, what to do with the depleted uranium or other fissionable products is the major concern. Also, you have issues with security, controls, earthquake and natural hazard/disaster risks in addition to the disposal and storage of the hazardous waste/byproducts.

So... what does that leave us with?

Wind power. Solar power (PV, concentrators, passive designs, etc). Hydro (river) power. Tidal power. Oceanic wave power. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). Renewables in the form of easily grown, non-food plants (blue-green algae, shrubs, cellulosic alcohol conversion, etc.).

With existing homes and buildings... just replacing incandescent lighting with fluorescent or LED lighting can save a significant amount of money on power bills. Planting appropriate and strategically located shrubbery and vegetation can shield the building from winter winds and summer direct sunlight. Addition of solar-shield tint to windows (and perhaps overhang awnings) can also shield from direct solar heat coming in through those windows. Upgrading and repairing insulation on windows and doors. Adding photovoltaic panels to the energy sources for the structure can also save on power bills. Same with solar concentrator water/air heaters.

New structures should be required to use energy-efficient designs and construction--passive solar heating/cooling tromb walls, thermal mass, clerestory windows (properly positioned), under-floor heating/cooling equipment, architecturally integrated solar PV panels, LED lighting/skylights, proper insulation, and surrounding landscape design. And, maybe some integrated vertical-axis wind power generators (like the ones shown on the Hybrid Boat post I made a few weeks/months ago).

And, this is just the beginning. We need to rethink our views on automobiles and commuting. Why, in the age of the Internet, do we have to commute even 20 miles (let alone 50-80 miles) to a job? If we already do teleconferencing from a meeting room equipped with Skype or WebEx or Polycom with folks in other states (as well as other countries half a world away), why can't we do it from a home office (or local office within a mile or so from our home)? This not only ends traffic congestion, but it gives us less stress and allows us to be more productive. We need to get back to the concept of working in our own town ... In my town, a fellow has set up a "Virtual Office" where for a minimal fee teleworkers can set up their laptops and either work in an enclosed office (with a door) or in a communal area. The "Virtual Office" provides free WiFi, Coffee, sometimes donuts (!), and a pleasant place to work where we don't have to drive far to get there.

This should be the new paradigm of work. We can produce the same if not more valuable product without having to eat up oil resources and automotive time/equipment to do it.

Ideas?

Great Listing of Alternate Energy Jobs!

I haven't been posting here regularly lately ... sorry about that. Been keeping busy with editing/writing jobs (that is what my real job is--I am a technical editor/writer for high-tech companies and clients).

Anyway, I found a website that posted a cool list of alternate energy jobs:

http://www.mywindpowersystem.com/2009/05/a-guide-to-renewable-energy-jobs-a-look-at-the-wind-power-industry/

If you are interested in alternate energy jobs, this is a good compilation of what you can find out there. These jobs are the wave of the future!

Best of luck to all of you.

Windpower Gaining Interest on Guam!

This is an interesting YouTube Video of a Wind Generator installed at a home on the Western Pacific island of Guam. Note that the speakers also mention the solar water heater! What a great way to save on power bills! (Also, since the power frequently goes out on Guam due to all sorts of factors--with sometimes the blame going to the brown tree snake, Boiga irregularis -- having your own source of power is a very convenient thing!)

Upcoming PV Conference in San Francisco - July 14, 2009

"The Solar Future; A realistic approach to California's PV market opportunities" conference in will be held in San Francisco, California in a few weeks on July 14, 2009--during the same week as the "Intersolar North America" conference. Experts from the field will discuss barriers to market entry, incentives schemes and their practical experiences.

Guest speakers include:

Sue Kateley; Executive Director of CALSEIA (California Solar Energy Industry Association)
David Rubin; Director at PG&E and Chairman Board of Directors, Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA)
David Devir; Vice President of Technology, SunCentric
Barry Cinnamon; CEO and founder of Akeena Solar
Andrew Beebe; Vice President, Global Product Strategy of Suntech Power
Glenn Harris; CEO of SunCentric
Lyndon Rive; CEO of SolarCity
Hugh Kuhn; Vice President, Operations and Technology of Solar Power Partners

For this conference, companies with an innovative product or service that will help to bring down the cost of a Balance Of Systems are invited to pitch their product.
Interested companies should contact Solarplaza to find out more.

This invite came from:
Johan Trip
CGO Solarplaza
+31 10 280 9198
j.trip@solarplaza.com
www.thesolarfuture.com

The only hybrid vessel in the United States?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I did some digging and got some more information about that interesting "Hybrid Boat" I saw when I was walking along the piers in San Francisco. Here are some more specifics:

Previously used as a commercial diving boat, the Hornblower Hybrid is a 64ft catamaran with a fully-enclosed main deck and a covered roof deck. The boat, which has a capacity of 149 passengers, underwent retrofitting, repowering, and refurbishing in Sausalito to be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. The boat was originally put into service as a dive platform in the Gulf... then purchased and moved to Sausalito for its most recent transformation.

Most noticeable about the boat are the twin 10ft-tall wind turbines (1.2 KW normal output, 2.0 KW max.) and a photovoltaic solar array (1.2 KW) covering the awning on the top deck. These two features (turbines and PV array) provide energy that is stored in battery banks that power the navigation tools, lighting, and other electronics on the boat. Excess power is stored in the main propulsion battery banks.

For propulsion, the boat uses two Series 60 MTU Tier 2 marine diesel engines that are fuel-efficient and cleaner, thus reducing the amount of diesel fuel required and reducing emissions. These diesel engines are run two Marathon 320 KW generators that send the power to two Yosukawa variable frequency drives that control the output of two 400 horsepower electric motors connected directly to conventional propellers. This customized drive system allows the captain to monitor the boat's energy needs and select the most efficient power sources (for example, when the boat is idle at the dock, the engines shut down and the motors run off energy stored in the battery banks). A 380V DC battery bank allows a "zero-emission mode" to be used.

Lighting throughout the boat is Light-Emitting-Diode (LED), which requires a fraction of the energy required by standard bulbs to provide equal or more illumination. The LEDs also require less maintenance time and trouble.

This boat was purchased, refurbished, and put into service by Hornblower's Alcatraz Cruises--no grant or public money was used in the boat's redesign and refurbishment.

Hornblower's Alcatraz Cruise on the Hybrid website has a description of the service that this craft is being used for and also has an Excellent Diagram Showing the Basic Schematics of the Hybrid Vessel.

You can see this interesting vessel in person at the Alcatraz Landing at Pier 33 in San Francisco, CA.

Santa Barbara, California, Dedicates Their Solar Power System Today, March 11, 2009

Santa Barbara, California, dedicates their solar power system today, March 11, 2009 with a ceremony and educational tour from 2:00pm through 3:00pm in the David Gebhard Meeting Room, at 630 Garden Street.

Santa Barbara's City Corporate Yard solar system can produce 550,000 kWh of energy per year, effectively offsetting 421,466 lbs, or 191 metric tons, of carbon dioxide emissions. Similarly equal to removing about 35 cars from the road, saving 21,328 gallons of gasoline, or powering over 100 Santa Barbara-area homes a year (based on a single family occupancy energy use of 5,000 kWh per year). And of course, reducing the City's need for power grid use (and their subsequent power bills)!

The solar power system, spread among the Corporate Yard's roofs, was installed through a partnership of Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd and Tioga Energy in which the City of Santa Barbara. The system was installed over a three-month period in the last part of 2008.

To read more about this event, see the event press release.

.

Oil? What Oil? Crisis? What Crisis? How about a NEW GAME?

It's a game of supply and demand. And sometimes, like when playing poker, you have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. (Or pack up your game, and just go home; or create a new game with new rules!) Depending on who you talk to, we're facing an oil crisis. Or, maybe we aren't. We're facing an environmental crisis. Maybe we aren't. Go figure. Maybe we should ignore all the idiot economists and news media out there (because all we get are conflicting reports) and just happily move on and tinker with our own ways to beat the power grid and gain independence from oil companies, power companies, and so on. A few photovoltaic panels on the roof, a solar water heater, a solar air heater, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that uses vegetable oil for the non-electric need for locomotion... and *voila!*... no need for the oil company or the power company.

Okay, last year we were watching the price per barrel of oil heading past $140. And gas prices at the pump in the U.S. were reaching almost $5 per gallon.

Folks were bailing out of their Ford Excursions and Expeditions, their Chevy Suburbans, their Yukons, their Hummers, and all the other gas-hog vehicles and were running to Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Hyundai (to name a few)--folks who still seemed to know how to make more efficient and energy-conserving vehicles.

The hybrid-electric-vehicles (HEV) and even more energy-effective plug-in-hybrid-electric-vehicles (PHEV) were getting rave reviews and more demand than ever. There were waiting lists at all the dealerships to get these cars.

Although folks were backing away from doing much unnecessary driving and thus not buying as much of the $5/gallon fuel, oil companies posted their highest profits for the quarters of 2007-2008. They were making gravy!

In the meantime, the big car companies (Ford, GM, Chrysler) were taking the hits. They didn't see the writing on the wall. They were (and still are) losing billions of dollars.

What's funny is that in 1980, I took some classes on alternate energy and energy conservation at the University of Guam and the University of Hawaii... and they were preaching that we would run out of oil totally by the year 2000. After the scares of the oil crisis in 1973-1974... when OPEC started to get squirrely, the "oil crisis" and "energy conservation" was still clear on our minds. We knew we were dependent on oil (in more ways than one). And for Guam and Hawaii, any oil for fuel or otherwise had to be shipped in. It wasn't as if we had our own sources. We did, however, have abundant Solar Energy and other renewable and alternate energy sources. And that's the point.

I bought a used Datsun 1200 sedan for that reason. Yeah, I could have gone for a used Ford LTD or a Mustang Mach II or an Olds GTO... but, hey, I lived on Guam... and the Japanese cars didn't seem to rust out as much as the U.S. cars did. And also, it wasn't like I was going to do any major highway driving. That Datsun (now Nissan) got up to 48 miles per gallon... great for a college kid on a limited budget.

So, I saw in today's news that there are more than 30 tankers -- each with the capacity of 2 million barrels of oil sitting anchored offshore around the world. They are "floating storage tanks" and they are sitting idle... waiting for the prices of oil to go up. Storage farms in the U.S. are at capacity. Refineries have cut back on production. Because the demand disappeared. The recession wiped out jobs. Without jobs, folks don't need to drive very much. Thus, less demand on oil.

Prices of oil plummeted from about $5 a gallon back in August 2008 to about $1.65 a gallon by October/November 2008. (Didn't matter to me... because I got laid off in September Sigh). Now the oil prices have edged back up to about $2.20 a gallon (These are all Northern California prices... your "milage may vary" depending on your location).

But the price per barrel of oil still remains at about $40, far down from its price of over $140 back in August. At the time, traders were counting on the price-per-barrel to exceed $200. Well... like I said at the beginning. The utilities market and the commodities markets are like a poker game. Sometimes ya win, sometimes ya lose. Or, sometimes, you create a new game and change the rules.

That's what we must do. We must, as individuals, create our own NEW GAME! Keep on tinkering with our home-made "franken-sources" for energy. Our home-built solar panels, home-built solar water heaters, home-built solar air heaters, solar greenhouses, better insulation, better weather-stripping, better driving habits, better and wiser purchases for home use. We can not only change the rules of the game, but create a new game. And not become dependent on the knuckleheads that have huge, heavily ladden oil tankers sitting idle off our coasts waiting for the price to rise so they can gouge us again.

Have we learned any lessons yet?

Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Motorcycle ...

Two engineering students at Swarthmore College, in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania have come up with a hydrogen fuel-cell powered motorcycle. The "frankencycle" is described on their college's web site (along with photos). Awesome. Seems that some colleges and some folks are still working on new ways to work with energy--alternatives to dependencies on oil.


.

Upcoming Solar and Alternate Energy Events/Conferences

Organic Photovoltaics 2009
April 27-29, 2009
Philadelphia, PA
IntertechPira
Tel: 207-781-9618
Email: brian.santos@pira-international.com

Photovoltaics Summit 2009
June 1-3, 2009
San Francisco, CA
IntertechPira
Tel: 207 781 9637
Email: sheri.bonnell@pira-international.com

Concentrating Solar Thermal Power 2009
June 4-5, 2009
San Francisco, CA
IntertechPira
Tel: 207-781-9618
Email: brian.santos@pira-international.com

Solar Power International 09
October 27-29, 2009
Anaheim, CA
Marilyn Sawyer
Tel: 202-559-2031
Email: msawyer@solarelectricpower.org



.

Silica or non-Silica, Photovoltaic or Non-Photovoltaic? The Sun Still WORKS!

The sun works! We've got proof of that.

Virtually EVERY source of energy on earth (except perhaps nuclear and geothermal) has its origins somehow related to the effect of the star in the center of our SOLAR system. This STAR is otherwise known as the SUN...

So, those of us looking for alternate energy (other than oil, that is) don't have to be wrapped up in just the Photovoltaic (PV) electricity generating panel movement.

The mirrored solar concentrators (either the independently focused flat-panel mirrors or the parabolic troughs or parabolic umbrella-like units) can aim their captured solar energy onto heat-absorbing receivers--the receiving material can either be water-piping for solar water heaters or they can contain phase-change-material (PCM) that converts from solid/liguid to gas to turn electric-generating turbines.

More engineering research and work must be conducted on a larger scale for the more visible installations. Yet, some of this stuff has been around since the 1970s (fooling around and tinkering with solar energy has been going on --in the modern sense--since the 1800s). Research on these things has been more of a "grass-roots" effort--with work going on in backyards, garages, and tool-sheds. Folks have been and still are tinkering with these alternate ways to use solar energy. You could get in on this activity and save yourself a lot in energy bills! (You betchya that oil and gas prices will be moving up--it's inevitable.)

Solar energy is all about a "grass-roots" movement. Photovoltaics have the most likelihood of being "on the grid" and therefor under the scrutiny of utilities companies and government agencies. The more accessable solar-heat from solar concentrators doesn't have to be on the grid. And thus, there's probably a lot of this going on out there that our governments (and the utility companies) don't know about.

And that's what makes it FUN!

If you are one of those adventurous "Do It Yourself" persons, you can find good references with the following great sources:

Alternate Energy Resource Manual--Lots of ideas for ways you can build your own alternate energy sources for your home or small business.

Solar Power Design Manual--Teach Yourself All About Solar Power. Comprehensive Manual by Genuine Expert. Spreadsheet Included.

Renewable Energy Solutions--The Manual--The folks who put this together have been presented on TV, Google, and the New York Times as a source of Alternate Energy Information. Good stuff for those in need of Alternate Energy!

2nd Annual AEE Solar Dealer Conference in Mesa, Arizona

2nd Annual AEE Solar Dealer Conference
February 18-21, 2009
Mesa, Arizona, U.S.A.

Their website:
http://aeesolar.com/events/dealer-conference-09.html

Barack H. Obama - New President for the U.S. - New Energy Ideas as Well?

We've turned a new chapter in U.S. (and World) history today. Barack Obama was sworn in and became our new President. He's going to be hitting the ground running--because he's inheriting a mess. An overseas conflict (aka "war"), economic crisis (not only on wall-street, but in the roads and streets of the U.S., where unemployment, closing businesses, and foreclosures are almost at every corner.

And, we have a looming energy crisis. Petroleum is a NON-RENEWABLE resource. What is going to be the future policy of the United States? The U.S. auto makers have been making bad decisions and judgement lapses for decades. Some, they accepted. Note--the demise of the "Studebaker" brand, or the "Edsel", and some of the other more obscure names. Many of the auto makers merged to form large conglomerates-- like Chrysler, Plymouth, and Dodge (and Jeep) and Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln (and Range Rover, Jaquar, and ...). Now there are talks about "spinning off" "unprofitable" brands. How about just retraining the auto workers to use their metal-working and manufacturing skills to build solar panels, solar containment devices, and so on?

Well... just some weird ideas... the coffee is kicking in... I've been watching the Inauguration Festivities all day. But I'm looking foward to our country's new directions in Energy Conservation and Alternate Energy Production Methods.

Solar Powered Bus Stops in Kowloon (Hong Kong, China)

While walking around on Nathan Road in Kowloon (across from Hong Kong Island, China), I noticed that the bus stops were Solar Powered (and even had the inscription on the bus stop to indicate this fact. The solar power provides for the lighting of the stops during the night. (I wonder if it could be used to power a fan during the hot part of the day?)

Project, anyone? Home-made solar water heater?

A recent post in another forum mentioned that all the focus nowadays seems to be on solar photovoltaic panels--that's the "high-tech" and "sexy" issue that's getting all the attention.

But the benefits of other, less technology-oriented, solar energy collection are largely being ignored.

Anyone who has entered a car left on a parking lot all day (even a day when it's cloudy) can attest to the "collection of solar heat".

So, the next question is, "How do we USE this captured solar heat?"

That's something we could be working on.

Also, if you leave a black or dark-colored garden hose laying on the lawn all day, you can generally be sure that the water in the hose will be hot. Very hot.

So again, how do you use this heat?

These scenarios point to using an enclosed solar collector with piping/tubing within the enclosure. The piping comes from a water source, flows to the enclosed solar collector tubing, absorbs the heat collected and stored in the enclosure, then flows out to provide hot water for bathing or through a heat-exchanger (like a radiator) to provide room heat.

Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) contractors and construction professionals are already aware of using this type of heat collection and are using versions of it for under-floor thermal heating. The thermal mass of the floor around the embedded water-flow piping radiates the heat into the living space of the buidings. At the moment, most of this type of "space-heating" is provided by natural gas heaters heating the water going to the heat-exchanging floor-tubing. But this could also be accomplished by using parabolic solar collectors heating the water for storage in insulated tanks and then releasing the water through the floor-heat exchangers. It won't take long before these should be common.

In the meantime, there's nothing stopping folks like you and me from reading up on this alternate energy use and just doing something ourselves. This beats waiting around for the government or ready-made products to be available.

Just a thought.

Losing Interest in Alternate Energy? DON'T!

Just because the gas/fuel prices have come down almost by half (here in the U.S.) since about 4 months ago, don't abandon the continuing push toward alternate energy. This drop in prices is only a brief moment in this crazy economy. You can bet that fuel prices will be jumping up toward the end of the year.

Who to blame? Who knows? It could be the OPEC folks in cahoots with the automotive manufacturers messing with the supply to lull us into buying more gas-guzzlers. It could be some kind of manipulation by the big oil companies to play games with us while they post RECORD PROFITS! But it really doesn't matter.

It's time for ALL OF US to explore our own methods of tapping into alternate energy sources--whether it's homemade do-it-yourself solar collectors for heating water or air, or assembling your own solar photovoltaic panels and then installing them on your roof. Or, hybrid-electric-vehicles (HEV) or plug-in-hybrid-electric-vehicle (PHEV), or Natural-Gas-Vehicles (NGV), or hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles (HFCV).

Of course, not only should we be switching to other sources of energy, we should also be conserving and cutting back on how we currently use energy. By properly insulating our homes, by switching the incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs or better yet, Light-Emitting-Diodes (LED), by not taking long hot-water-showers, by not leaving unnecessary lights and electrical appliances on when they're not being used.

Some of this will require minor adjustments to our daily habits. And some of this will take more than that--it may require a major investment into the methods of using the alternate energy sources.

But every step toward alternate energy (anything other than fossil fuel) will be a good move that will pay off quicker than most would assume.

I'm curious. With the folks from all over the world reading this blog and some of my rants here, what are you doing and what are your countries doing to use alternate energy and to conserve energy?

Resources for Investigating and Building Your Own Energy Safety Net

Alternate Energy Resource Manual--Lots of ideas for ways you can build your own alternate energy sources for your home or small business.

Solar Power Design Manual--Teach Yourself All About Solar Power. Comprehensive Manual by Genuine Expert. Spreadsheet Included.

Renewable Energy Solutions--The Manual--The folks who put this together have been presented on TV, Google, and the New York Times as a source of Alternate Energy Information. Good stuff for those in need of Alternate Energy!

e-Jeepney? In Makati?

Okay, for some of you, the question may be.... "What's a Jeepney?"

A jeepney is a very common mode of transportation in the Philippines. And, yes, it's based on the general form of the WWII version of the American jeep. After WWII, there were bunches of jeeps left behind as the Allied Forces left the Philippines and headed for home. Entrepreneurial and creative Filipinos salvaged these jeeps, fixed them up, lengthened the bodies, decorated them inside and out, and put them on the streets as an economic "bus system" that is sort of a cross between taxi and bus service and abstract art gallery. They are usually ornately decorated with wild colors, chrome, and ornaments.

The local government of Makati City (suburb of Manila) is planning on having 10 electric jeepneys (e-Jeepney) by December of this year. They already have three out there running around, but they want to add 7 more before the end of the year. The eJeeps are locally designed and built by the Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturing Association of the Philippines (MVPMAP)--a consortium of about 130 Philippine automotive parts and components manufacturing companies.

They take a long time to procure and assemble because many of the components that make up an "eJeepney" are imported from foreign suppliers. (As with most finished products today, right?)

It will be interesting to see how the e-Jeepneys fare in the heavy traffic around Manila. Also, I'd be interested in seeing their "recharging stations" or whether they are pure-electric or whether or not they are hybrid-electric vehicles (HEV) or plug-in-hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEV). The flat roof of these vehicles would be a handy place to install photovoltaic panels to help keep the batteries charged while they are sitting in parking lots and at the curbs waiting for fares.

(much of the information in this post came from the Philippines Today newspaper Sept 25-Oct 1 edition)

Photo by Dave Gardner

Learning Resources for Alternate Energy Advocates!

I have been collecting solar and alternate energy references and resources for the past 30 years. It started when I was in high school and got interested in other ways to create heat and light (mostly for during typhoons) when we lived on Guam.

I've recently discovered an interesting resource that you can see when you click here. Lots of ideas for ways you can build your own alternate energy sources for your home or small business.

And here are two more:

Solar Power Design Manual--Teach Yourself All About Solar Power. Comprehensive Manual by Genuine Expert. Spreadsheet Included.

Renewable Energy Solutions--The Manual--The folks who put this together have been presented on TV, Google, and the New York Times as a source of Alternate Energy Information. Good stuff for those in need of Alternate Energy!

Alternate Energy Lessons....

The recent hurricanes hitting the Gulf Coast states have left much of the Houston, Texas, area without power. Without power, they can't pump gas or water. According to an alternate energy blog called The Energy Road Map much of this problem is because decent modes of energy storage have not been developed or implemented in this area.

I know the feeling.

When I lived on the Western Pacific island of Guam, we frequently experienced powerful hurricane-like typhoons. These storms would trash the island (namely, taking out the power poles and lines)--and depending on the severity of the storm, it would take anywhere from a few days to a few months to get the power back up around the island.

For this reason, many major businesses and government entities would have backup gas or diesel generators to provide for their lighting and other electrical needs. For cooking, many establishments had propane tanks to provide for this need.

Since the power goes out frequently on Guam for reasons other than storms (the brown-tree-snake is always a problem--they get into the transformers and cause blowouts when they cross two lines on a powerline), we learned to tolerate cold-showers, light-less nights, and other inconveniences. Some of us also got creative with solar heat (lots of sun available on Guam!) and collecting rainwater. A garden hose filled with rainwater (from a 55-gallon drum collecting water from the roof run-off) left on the lawn during the day would provide a nice hot shower for the evening bath.

A pot of rainwater suspended on a tripod over a parabolic, aluminum/mylar-lined dish would provide boiling water and heat for cooking.

The folks on Guam have become adept at barbequeing--because cooking with electricity isn't always an option. You may have to make some adjustments cooking with solar rather than burning "tangentangen" wood, but heat is heat... and you can get a nice hot meal from the sun if you have your parabolic dish set up correctly.

Just a thought.

Get Youngsters Involved - Education Works!

Why don't more schools have programs in either their geography or science classes that teach about alternate energy?

Different energy sources are used in different parts of the world. Some countries, particularly those near the equator, can readily make good use of highly available solar energy. Other countries may have to use a combination of solar, geothermal, hydro, and other energy sources to provide the power needed to keep a home warm or cool and to provide the electricity to power things such as lights, computers, radios, and so on.

By learning about the limitations of various kinds of environmental power sources, our kids can be better informed about their own choices in energy usage and conservation.

Not only should they learn about how to read an electric meter, but they should also learn about electricity--what it is and how it works in making things like radios, TVs, computers, stoves, ovens, and otehr modern conveniences possible.

A course that covered solar water heating, solar cooking, solar electricity generation could be easily incorporated into a basic science class, or physics class, or even a geography class, although the science class would make the most sense.

I've covered some more of these thoughts in my Squidoo lens on Energy Independence. Drop on by and visit. And pass this on to your friends who also may be getting frustrated with the price of gas and the chunk it takes out of their income each month!

You Want Wind Power Options? Check Out The Variety Here!


..