Hybrid news: Review of the 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid

If you’re looking to buy a hybrid this year, you might want to check out this Orlando Sentinel review of the new 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid. The hybrid Civic is considered a “partial” or mild hybrid, because it can’t move on electric power alone. Still, its rated at 40 mpg in the city,

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Hybrid news: Review of the 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid

New solar plant under construction in Florida

With all the doom and gloom financing problems impacting various alternative energy projects, its nice to see a new project actually undersay. Florida Power and Light has begun construction on what is going to be the biggest photovoltaic plant in the US when completed around the end of this year. The 180 acre

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New solar plant under construction in Florida

Trans-America Journey Powered by Waste Vegetable Oil

We love to read about different travelers and their adventures, wishing secretly that we could be in their shoes. Here is a young traveler, Stacy Jurich, 2006 graduate of Ohio State University. She is on a 3 month journey across the country, driving her 1981 Mercedes across America. So what is new? She Posted in: Biodiesel , Biofuels , Transportation , Waste Energy

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Trans-America Journey Powered by Waste Vegetable Oil

Energy from Solar Roadways

We are using fossil fuels as the primary source of energy to run our Industrial Civilization. But we are paying a heavy price for using fossil fuels in the form of environmental damages. Now, we know that fossil fuels and natural gases are not going to last forever. This will lead us into big Posted in: Future Energy , Inventions , Solar Power , Transportation

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Energy from Solar Roadways

Alaska Becoming Fertile Ground for Green Power

With its windy coasts, untapped rivers and huge tidal and wave resources, Alaska can quickly become a national leader in producing alternative energy. Although Alaska is the second-largest oil producing state in the country, the citizens have had to pay very high electricity bills recently; oil is no longer easily available for producing and Posted in: Environment , Industry , Politics

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Alaska Becoming Fertile Ground for Green Power

How would you like to generate your own electricity for less the $200 (£150)? – Free Helpful Tips

There are different ways of making electricity for yourself. Alot of people use wind power and solar power. (…)

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How would you like to generate your own electricity for less the $200 (150)? – Free Helpful Tips

Robot Ranchers Could Maintain Future Wind Farms

We all know that the need of the hour is alternative energy so that future generations can still breathe fresh air and have enough energy for their industrial purposes and domestic use. Many states and countries are promoting wind energy as a clean and green energy. We all know the advantages and disadvantages of Posted in: Inventions , Wind Farms , Wind Power

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Robot Ranchers Could Maintain Future Wind Farms

More Grid-Friendly Vehicles

How about a vehicle that not only draws energy from an electric grid but also gives it back when there is surplus or unused energy in the vehicle? This is exactly the kind of car being developed by Willett Kempton, a renewable-energy professor at the University of Delaware. YouTube: Electric Car Feeds Grid | Posted in: Electric Cars , Inventions , Transportation

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More Grid-Friendly Vehicles

Resources for Alternative Energy

There are many different forms in which alternative energy is available.

One of these is solar power. Solar power is driven by photovoltaic cells, and these are progressively getting less expensive and more advanced. Solar energy power can be used for electricity, heating, and making hot water. Solar energy produces no pollution, as its input comes completely from the sun’s rays. However, much more work still needs to be done in order for us to economically harness the sun’s energy. For the time being, the resource is a little too conditionalstorage batteries are needed to be used as backups in the evenings and on inclement days.

Wind energy has become the most-invested-in (by private investors and governments together) alternative energy source for the time being. The great arrays of triple-bladed windmills are being placed all over as wind farms, to capture the motion of the wind and use its kinetic energy for conversion to mechanical or electrical energy. Of course, there is nothing new about the concept of a windmill for harnessing energy. Modern wind turbines are simply are more advanced variations on the old theme. Of course, the drawback to wind energy is…what do you do when there is a calm, still day? Needless to say, during these times the electric company kicks in for powering your home or office. Wind energy is not altogether independent.

Hydroelectric energy is available as a source of alternative energy, and it can generate a substantial amount of power. Simply put, hydroelectric energy uses the motion of waterits flow in response to gravity, which means downhillto turn turbines which then generate electrical energy. Needless to say, water is ubiquitous; finding sources for driving hydroelectric turbines is, therefore, not much of a problem. However, hydroelectricity as a source of alternative energy can be complicated and expensive to produce. Dams are often built in order to be able to control the flow of the water sufficiently to generate the needed power. Building a dam to store and control water’s potential and kinetic energy takes quite a lot of work, and operating one is complex as well,and conservationists grow concerned that it. Of course, a dam is not always needed if one is not trying to supply the electrical needs of a city or other very densely populated area. There are small run-of-river hydroelectric converters which are good for supplying neighborhoods or an individual office or home.

Probably the most underrated and under-appreciated form of alternative energy is geothermal energy, which is simply the naturally-occurring energy produced by the heating of artesian waters that are just below the earth’s crust. This heat is transferred into the water from the earth’s inner molten core. The water is drawn up by various different methodsthere are dry steam power plants, flash power plants, and binary power plants for harnessing geothermal energy. The purpose of drawing up the hot water is for the gathering of the steam. The Geysers, approximately 100 miles north of San Francisco, is probably the best-known of all geothermal power fields; it’s an example of a dry stream plant.

Pursuing Alternative Forms of Energy

Record high prices at American gas pumps and continued trouble-brewing in the Middle East, Nigeria, and other areas of importance to the oil-driven economy have made it clear to Americans that we are in need of developing many new avenues of energy supply and production. In short, we need to reduce our dependency on oil, for it is ultimately finite and, frankly, the cheap sources of oil (not all oiljust the stuff that is cheap to remove from the earth) are running out. Energy consultants and analysts are insistent that cheap oil has peaked or is very soon going to peak. What this means for us is an expensive futureunless we can find new sources of powering our mechanized and electronic civilization, new sources which are alternatives to oil.

We must also switch to alternative forms of energy because our present forms are too damaging to the atmosphere. While this write does not believe that the global warming trend is much, if at all, sustained by the activities of mankind (in short, it’s a natural cycle and there’s nothing we can do about it except prepare for the effects of it), we certainly do contribute at present to the destruction of the environment and to things like air pollution with our energy sources as they are. Coal is another source of energy that we need to wean ourselves off ofagain, it is finite, and it is filthy, and the mining of it is dangerous and environmentally disruptive. We can also explore new, streamlined methods for producing electricity that we presently generate so much of via hydro-power so that we are less disruptive of the environment when we have need of constructing things such as large dams.

Developing nations which have turned industrialized in recent decades especially will need the benefits of alternative energy research and development, for they are presently doing much more environmental damage than the United States. The United States, Japan, and some European nations have been implementing studies into and programs for the development of alternative energy sources, and are therefore already leading the way in doing less environmental damage. The developing nations such as China and India need to look to Japan and the West as examples of what research and development to give government backing and private investment currency to. We could also add great robustness to our own economy by being at the forefront of such alternative energy sources development and then marketing the technologies and services to nations like India, China, Brazil, and so on and so forth.

Biofuels from things like supertrees and soybeans, refined hydroelectric technology, natural gas, hydrogen fuel cells, the further building of atomic energy plants, the continued development of solar energy photovoltaic cells, more research into wind-harnessed powerall of these are viable energy sources that can act as alternatives to the mammoth amounts of oil and coal that we presently are so dependent on for our very lifestyles. The energy of the future is green.

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