7 Great Reasons To Go Solar Now!

Solar Energy is becoming a cost effective alternative energy source!

Installing Solar Panels is not as costly as you think. If you live in Nevada you are paying the second highest utility rates in the country. In most parts of the U.S. you can put solar panels on your home and reduce your reliance on grid tied energy. Check out this article from Vast Green Concepts.

Take control of your future with a solar panel array. 

Smart people like you are thinking seriously about installing solar panels on their rooftop. When you own a solar panel array, it is really your own renewable energy generating power plant. You make your own power, you use it and you’re free from the power company for good. It used to be that solar panels were something that was just for “rich tree-huggers.” Not anymore! Prices on solar panel arrays have come down by over 70% since just 2009. Today, solar panels are an affordable investment in your future that guarantees a 15% or better payback for the next 25 years. You’ll get incredible satisfaction from knowing that your rooftop system is helping you AND your neighbors by providing your family with long term energy security. Because you pay for your solar panels up front, you enjoy a fixed, predictable cost, yearly income, and a cleaner planet. When you add in the 30% federal tax credit and the yearly income from the sale of your PECs, plus the money you’ll save on your power bill from day one, typical payback time on a solar array in Las Vegas is UNDER 6 YEARS.

7 Great reasons to go solar now!

• You’re installing your own clean, reliable energy generation that you can feel good about for the next 25+ years.
• You’ll be sending some of that clean, green energy to the surrounding homes and business … and getting paid to share!
• It’s not all or nothing. Because we use cutting edge Enphase microinverters, you can start small and add to your solar array as your budget allows.
• You’ll enjoy increased property value on your home and boost resale appeal with no increase in property taxes – ever!
• Not only will you enjoy those tiny power bills, your system will pay itself off in less than 6 years!
• Pay off your system even faster with a yearly cash payment from the utility and a one time 30% federal tax credit.
• You can select the right financing option for your family’s budget.     

The Solar Panel market is changing rapidly and now is a great time to think about adding solar to your home. In the article you can see an example of a bill that was sent with no charge to the customer. Check it out: 

http://vastgreenconcepts.com/solar-pv/#.UDiFRqllQ3g

See some solar panels here.

Tidal Power For Green Energy

A Great way to make Green Energy!

A company called TideGen has developed a generator that rests underwater to provide a reliable and predictable source of Alternative Energy. This article comes from the New York Times.

The Search for Energy Takes a Turn Underwater

By JESS BIDGOOD

Published: August 9, 2012

EASTPORT, Me. — The fearsome tides that sweep out from the easternmost shores of the United States have for more than 80 years teased engineers and presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, who have dreamed of harnessing their force to make electricity.

And next week, a device that looks a bit like an eggbeater turned sideways will be lowered into the water here to catch the energy of the rushing water, spinning a generator that, come September, is scheduled to begin sending power to the grid.

It is an experimental, expensive and promising project, fueled by the knowledge — shared by Roosevelt, who spent summers across the bay on Campobello Island, and modern engineers — that the tides here are both powerful and predictable.

“When the wind blows, you get electricity, but you don’t know when that’s going to be,” said Chris Sauer, the chief executive of the Ocean Renewable Power Company, which built and will operate the turbine generator unit, called TidGen.

The Bay of Fundy has some of the world’s highest tides, causing extreme currents that are pushed even faster by the inlets and islands that speckle this rocky coast. They will propel the turbine’s blades, which twist around like the helix shape of DNA.

“Another advantage is, you don’t see a thing,” Mr. Sauer added, speaking to a criticism that has dogged many wind farms.

More at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/us/turbine-to-harness-the-tides-to-generate-power.html?_r=1&ref=science

We must take advantage of every available source of Alternative Energy to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. This is a great idea for power and more innovative ideas are needed. To learn more about adding green energy sources to your own home, check this link.

Battery Storage for Alternative Energy

Alternative Energy relies heavily upon batteries for energy storage and there is a major interest in developing more cost and energy efficient batteries for power use. This article from R&D magazine describes a different type of battery process.




FAST COMPANY

New battery helps breaks barriers for low-cost energy storage 


University of Southern California-led team develops a battery that could help California transition to renewable energy sources A team of researchers has developed a cheap, rechargeable and eco-friendly battery that could be used to store energy at solar power plants for a rainy day. Led by Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the team developed an air-breathing battery that uses the chemical energy generated by the oxidation of iron plates that are exposed to the oxygen in the air—a process similar to rusting. "Iron is cheap and air is free," Narayan said. "It's the future." Details about the battery will be published July 20 in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. As currently developed, Narayan's batteries have the capacity to store between eight and 24 hours' worth of energy. His patent is pending, and both the federal government and California utilities have expressed interest in the project. Iron-air batteries have been around for decades—they saw a surge in interest during the 1970s energy crisis, but suffered from a crippling problem: a competing chemical reaction of hydrogen generation that takes place inside the battery (known as hydrolysis) sucked away about 50 percent of the battery's energy, making it too inefficient to be useful.

Narayan and his team managed to reduce the energy
loss down to 4%—making iron-air batteries that are about 10 times more efficient than their predecessors. The team did it by adding very small amount of bismuth sulfide into the battery. Bismuth (which happens to be part of the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol and helps give the pink remedy its name) shuts down the wasteful hydrogen generation. Adding lead or mercury might also have worked to improve the battery's efficiency, but wouldn't have been as safe, Narayan said. "A very small amount of bismuth sulfide doesn't compromise on the promise of an eco-friendly battery that we started with," he said.

More at:http://www.rdmag.com/News/2012/08/Energy-Chemistry-Electricity-New-battery-helps-breaks-barriers-for-low-cost-energy-storage/

This team focused on using a method of energy storage that is safe and eco-friendly. Alternative Energy methods will rely heavily on new methods of storing the energy they produce. As we move into times of increasing energy use, our power needs will be closely tied to our ability to store power.

Flexible Solar For Clothing

An interesting side to Alternative Energy is the development of Solar clothing. In April Bloomberg News printed an article about printing solar cells on paper and clothing. This innovation was invented by Miles Barr an MIT engineering student. As an update Here's an article from Fast Company about the military's use of Flexible Solar for clothes. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/lemelson-student-prize-barr.html

Miles Barr, winner of the 2012 $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize.
Photo courtesy of the Lemelson-MIT Program

Fast Company

Solar Soldiers: MC10's Testing Its Flexible Energy Harvesters With The U.S. Army

BY NIDHI SUBBARAMAN | 08-02-2012 | 8:38 AM

The U.S. Army and MC10 will work together to scale up the flexible solar panel prototypes and assess their efficiency as functional battery chargers.

Flexible solar energy harvesters that can be sewn into the jackets and backpacks of U.S. soldiers could soon be powering up electronic devices in the field. MC10, a Cambridge startup that specializes in flexible electronics, has signed a contract with the army to develop and test its solar cell technology for military use. Over the course of this next year, the U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center and MC10 will work together to scale up the flexible solar panel prototypes MC10 has already built, and assess their efficiency as functional battery chargers.

MC10 specializes in re-engineering stiff, brittle parts of electronics into sleeker, softer, and stretchier versions of their former selves. MC10 has made steady headway in applying its techniques to build thin, soft sensors for use in surgeries and is testing those at partner sites like Boston's Mass. General Hospital. The company is perhaps furthest along in the devices they are building or for athletes. The sensors, which look like a square inch of tape, cling onto an athlete's forearm and record biological information like temperature, heart rate and hydration over time. In a recent partnership with NASCAR MC10 tested a sensor on race car driver Paulie Harakka as he competed.

More at:http://www.fastcompany.com/1844480/mc10-solar-cells-military