Coming soon: The Tesla home battery

Coming soon: The Tesla home battery: Tesla Motors, the company that plans to revolutionize automobiles with its electric car, is planning a new revolution that aims to transfer how we power the rest of our lives. How will the home battery impact mortgages?

Solar Powered Plane Lands in New York

Completing the final leg of a long journey, all the way across the U.S., an airplane powered entirely by solar power landed in New York at JFK late Saturday night.

The Solar Impulse, runs its "engines" with the power from 12,000 solar cells in its wings. Part of the power collected is stored in batteries so that the plane can fly at night.

With the wingspan of a jumbo jet and the weight of a compact car, the Solar Impulse left San Francisco in May on what is hoped to be an around-the-world journey.

Passive Uses of Solar Energy

Actually, many of us make passive use of solar energy quite often...many times without even being aware of it.

For example, if you open the windows on the sunny side of your house on a winter day, you may actually be heating your home with energy from the sun, thus decreasing your heating costs.

A simpler example is making "sun tea" in a jug on the porch on even a relatively cool day.

Some people take this sort of thing one step further and actually design and build passive solar energy homes. These homes are oriented in such a manner that they can actually make the most effective use of the sun's rays for heating and lighting during the cooler months of the year.

Often, even the landscaping around these homes is planned so as to help maximize, or even minimize, the impact of sunlight on the home in order to achieve results. In this instance, plants may be selected which provide shade on the home in the heat of Summer, and then lose their leaves in Winter so that more sunlight can reach the home.

Sometimes, plants are selected and placed with the positioning of the sun at various times in mind. Again, in the Summer their shadows help keep the home cooler and in the winter, they are out of the pathway the sunlight takes to the home.

Most passive uses of solar energy are somewhat limited simply by the concept of passivity. If all you are doing is letting the sun shine on something in order to heat it up, you are usually only able to use this energy during daylight hours, and only in the form of direct heat or light.

However, much research has been done in the last few years on capturing and using this energy with specifically designed yet passive constructions. One of the more popular methods is to heat water with the sun and then store that heated water for future use. At the very least, available pre-heated water reduces the energy needed to heat the water the rest of the way for use in the home.

Often, to be effective, passive solar energy collection has to be combined with at least some small level of mechanical or electrical assistance. For example, an essentially passive water heating system may need a pump to move the heated water to a storage facility within the home, office, or outbuilding.

As with many aspects of alternative energy production and use, new passive uses of solar energy are constantly being developed, and old ones are being improved.

One drawback of passive uses of solar energy is that the homeowner is still needs connection to the conventional power grid in order to live in comfort year round. Many who get a taste of energy freedom by adding a passive energy system to an existing home, or build a new home with such systems integral to the design of the building decide they want to go "whole hog" and get "off the grid" completely.

In order to do this, they will have to add solar panels and/or wind power generators to the mix.
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Finally Got Another Prius

A little over a year ago, in order to help out a disabled family member, we traded our 6-year-old Toyota Prius for a Toyota Sienna van. Talk about a reality check! After getting approximately 50 MPG for six years, we suddenly were only getting about 18 MPG while having to drive more! A few days ago, we were able to make the move, and trade the van for a new 2013 Prius! Sea Glass Pearl color with 16 miles on the odometer. It is so good to have a Prius again. While gas mileage is not the only reason we enjoy having one, we are going on a trip in a few weeks and will save almost $300 on gas. Ahhhhhhhh

Alternative Energy: Can Algae Replace Oil for Our Energy?

By Johnson R Masterson

Anyone who drives a car can see that the cost of gas bounces up and down in the short term but in the end will always continue to move higher as our fossil fuel reserves diminish. This makes the development of alternative fuels an unavoidable necessity in the future. It's vital that we discover cost-effective and economically viable alternatives. Thankfully scientists are hard at work creating alternative fuel technologies that may be practical to implement and better for our environment. There is one alternative fuel source that hasn't garnered as much attention as wind or solar power. This under-appreciated potential new power source is algae. Algae is endlessly renewable and can be grown in basically endless quantities.

Approximately half of algae's weight is comprised of lipid oil which scientists believe can be converted into biodiesel a fuel that burns more cleanly and efficiently than petroleum. In contrast to oil, algae are renewable and ubiquitous. Algae grow almost any spot on earth. Oil does not get replenished. Algae might be grown anywhere so long as it has access to carbon dioxide water and sunlight. Everybody has seen pond scum. This is probably the most know algae and is also probably the most productive form for producing biofuel. Far from depleting the food supply, the parts that are not converted to biodiesel might be used for fertilizer and feedstock.

Big energy as well as agricultural companies around the globe are beginning to see the windfall that algae might represent in the area of energy production. The majority of research in the field is done by private organizations. Many proponents of algae as a renewable energy source are frustrated at the lack of funding and attention directed at research in this area by public institutions. Many people feel passionately that algae is critical to altering our power mix away from fossil fuel and that algae could create most of our electrical power and fuel our vehicles if only more funding and effort were put into the research necessary to perfect the technology. Despite the large amount of interest from the private energy sector compared to the public sector skeptics maintained that oil companies will not easily allow oil to be usurped as the energy source of choice for the world electricity grids and transportation needs.

Oil prices will continue to go up as the basic laws of supply and demand dictate. Oil companies are well-positioned to make unprecedented amounts of profit from this endgame in oil as they can realize much higher margins from turning over less product. The fossil fuel revolution has facilitated a period of unprecedented prosperity for mankind. But it has not come without a price. Because algae can be grown in every corner of the globe it has the potential to be a great equalizer when it comes to the geopolitical implications of energy. Localizing energy production in the form of algae farms and biodiesel fueled electricity plants means local jobs, economic stability, and opportunity for many nations of the world that today lack these things.

We have grown accustomed to electricity rates which are quite low compared to what they may become when fossil fuels begin to run out. The promise of an algae driven electricity grid and transportation system is truly encouraging. Although lab results and early field test have shown promise, the technology has a long way to go to be perfected.

Johnson is an energy writer who follows issues and trends that impact Texas electricity rates.

Article Source: Can Algae Replace Oil for Our Energy?

Emergence of the Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

By Michael Vargas

While hybrid cars use the combination of electric with fossil fuels, the result have been only a relatively small increase in fuel efficiency. Electric cars are becoming more popular, but they have a very limited range when compared to gas engines. Natural gas has been providing heat in homes for decades, but it use in cars has been limited due to concerns over the pressurization.

This leaves the fuel cell as perhaps the best chance to produce a practical energy source for vehicles that has the range of gas engines, but provides a clean energy alternative. A solid oxide fuel cell produces electricity from the oxidization of the fuel source. The electrochemical conversion provided in the cell creates a highly efficient method of power generation for a vehicle that's both stable, has few emissions and a relatively low cost.

The development of the technology dates back to the 20th century, but the program got a significant boost almost a decade ago when more government incentives were used to help promote the program. Today the fuel cell car is still in the experimental stages though it has progressed significantly over the past 10 years. The recent hikes in oil prices have help to expand interest in the development of the fuel cell.
The major technical problems that must be overcome with the cell centers on the high operating temperature needed to produce the electrical current. This result is a longer start up time for the fuel cell that includes mechanical and chemical issues that have yet to be fully fleshed out.

Current research to improve the fuel sources is currently being conducted by several companies around the world. The main effort is to reduce the temperature needed to provide the electrical current from the cell which would significantly reduce the cost of the materials needed to house the fuel cell.

One of the more promising areas of research, though it is still in the initial stages is to combine gas turbines to the cell to help augment the chemical reaction. This would be a similar step to the current hybrid vehicles on the market which combine electrical batteries and a gas powered engine.

There are many different chemicals including fossil fuels that are being tested, particularly natural gas and diesel fuels to try and reduce the temperature but these fuels have their own issues which interfere with the electrical process of the cell itself.

With the growing need for renewable energy sources around the world, solving the final issues of the fuel cell may revolutionize the way vehicles are powered leading to a cleaner, healthier environment with more resources being used to solve other energy concerns.

Michael Vargas is the founder and principal consultant of Atlas Project Support. Mr. Vargas has more than 10 years of construction and energy accounting and utilization experience, and is a Certified Business Energy Professional through the AEE, a California Energy Commission Certified Energy Plans Examiner, LEED Green Associate and GBCI Advisory Panel Member.. Mr. Vargas also holds a BSBA from SDSU, MBA and MPM from Keller Graduate School. For more information contact Michael at mvargas@myatlasproject.com or via the web at http://www.myatlasproject.com.

Article Source: Emergence of the Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Porsche Hybrid Cars Past and Present, A Brief Guide

By Gregory Greene

The Porsche luxury sports car manufacturer has always been one of the leaders in sports innovation, technology and in the competition sports car racing world. Many of the race tracks and courses around the world have not only been a proving ground for the famous sports car Marque, but also as laboratory to race test many of their innovations, thus to strive to constantly improve the technology used by the famous sports car manufacturer.

As an innovator from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century Dr. Ferdinand Porsche is credited for the design and development of the Lohner Porsche in 1898, the first hybrid motor vehicle (petrol-electric). The vehicle was developed and produced by Dr. Porsche while he worked for Jakob Lohner & Co, where he was a leading technical engineer.

The Lohner Porsche Semper Vivus ("Mixte Hybrid"), as it was known, was partially powered by two electronic motorised wheel hubs on one axle and a petrol motor which powered on the remaining axle. The car also featured an electric generator to sustain the battery charge. This vehicle was also offered as a fully electrical version with four hub powered motors, instead of two.

So if you now skip forward to the present, it's no surprise to see Porsche excelling in the world of hybrid sports car technology. The Porsche 911 GT3 R was launched recently at the Geneva Motor Show and has had some rave reviews for its own design and innovations using Porsche Intelligent Performance (or PIP) through unique hybrid technology. This clever hybrid technology has been developed to make racing cars even more efficient, but this technology will ultimately filter down into road going production cars eventually.

The Porsche 911 GT3 R uses a mixture of clever hybrid technology which has been specifically developed for racing, but differs from the technology found in other hybrid cars. As the 911 GT3 R powered configuration is what makes this car unique from conventional hybrid systems, because the front axle is driven by a two electric motors, which develop 60 kW each. In turn these electric motors supplement the rear driven 480-bhp four-litre flat-six petrol rear engine and driven-train.

Another significant point is the "electrical flywheel power generator" fitted in the interior next to the driver delivers energy to the electric motors, as this replaces the usual batteries in a hybrid road car. The flywheel generator can rotate up to 40,000 rpm, this energy can then be stored mechanically. Then when required the driver can access this generated energy to supply an extra 120kw to the electric motors in the form of kinetic energy, which can be used for additional power when over taking or pulling away from a corner. So to coin a phrase "the car in front is probably a Porsche."

Gregory Greene is writing on behalf of Bramleys in Surrey, the best choice for a Porsche Dealer or when choosing a specialist garage for Classic Car Restoration to bring back your car to its former glory.

Article Source: Porsche Hybrid Cars Past and Present, A Brief Guide