Category: BUSINESS

All you need to know about eco-houses

Today, everyone wants go green to save the world.

The eco-houses are designed in such a way that the energy consumption per house will be 20-30% lesser than a regular home.

Also, an eco-house meets certain guidelines for energy effectiveness standard.

On the market the eco-house demands are increasingly.

The eco-houses not only save energy but also help in the improvement of the environment by avoiding the excess usage of the non-renewable energy and the burning of fossil fuels.

If you choose an ecological house you’ll use less energy and avoid causing excess air pollution.

In U.S. the green homes for sale have a blue Energy Star mark, which is the government-backed symbol for energy efficiency, to ensure that a new home is energy efficient.

Eco-homes are effectively insulating with advanced insulating systems installed in various parts of the house.

These houses maintain the same level of temperature throughout the house while using less energy than regular houses.

The windows need to have protective coatings and newly improved frames that help to keep the house warm during cold days and dissipate it out during the summer time and fluorescent bulbs.

If you are lucky maybe the house will have solar thermal panels for hot water and heat.

These homes really do consume 20-30 % less energy than regular homes.

Another kind of renewable energy: Human Waste

Another renewable source is biomass and is a biological material produced from living organisms and their byproducts, such as food waste, wood, excreta etc.

An excellent biomass is now considered the human waste.

More companies are turning to renewable energy from biomass.

The anaerobic digestion is the best method, which produce biogas, comprising of methane and carbon dioxide, which is used directly as cooking fuel.

The advantages of using human waste is that this will help protecting natural resources when the resultant product is used for cooking, fueling and will benefit to lower the greenhouse effect.

All you need to know about geothermal energy

Geothermal energy can be defined as a sort of renewable energy derived from the heat generated deep in the earth’s crust.

The temperature of the earth crust rises one degree Celsius for every 30-50 meters and the heat is brought to the surface by thermal conduction.

This clean renewable energy is used in some countries for cooking and heating for thousands of years.

Geothermal resources can be harnessed into electricity, for hot water and for heating your homes.

Electricity generation technology consist of three methods: dry steam method that uses steam as it comes from the underground source to drive the turbines, flash steam method which makes use of the underground hot water (360 degrees F) is pumped to the surface where it flashes to steam and drives the turbines and binary method that makes use of heated underground water and runs it through a heat exchanger where it heats a fluid with a lower boiling point that flashes to steam and drive the turbine.

In the top producers of electricity from geothermal energy are United States, Philippines and Indonesia.

Currently only 24 countries have geothermal power stations.

Finding a suitable build location is a major drawback to geothermal energy because to trap geothermal energy must provide hot rocks in the layer of the Earth’s crust that would heat the water pumped into the well at suitable level and not all the locations are completely reliable.

Investment costs in geothermal energy are very high.
Drilling is more than half the cost.

The other ugly part of geothermal energy is the hazardous gasses and minerals such as mercury, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia and arsenic come upon the surface along with hot water.

In conclusion geothermal power in the long run is seen to be very cheap, but the initial cost of installing the power will definitely be high and has some risks.

Audi engines will use wind power

Audi wants to build vehicles with clean power and zero- and low-emissions.

The manufacturer plans to use wind power for its upcoming electric and natural gas vehicles.

Like other large companies, Audi is financing the construction of four wind turbines off the North Sea that will generate annually up to 53 GWh of electricity and from this electricity, the manufacturer plans to use a portion of the wind power to charge its electric e-tron vehicles.

Audi can power fuel cell vehicles, including the Audi Q5 HFC by harnessing the power of wind to produce hydrogen through electrolysis.

Audi currently uses e-gas to power a CNG version of the A3.

The A3 TCNG will be even more environmentally friendly; Audi plans to break ground on its own synthetic methane facility in July. Using CO2 from a connected waste-biogas plant, Audi’s facility will produce annually 1,000 metric tons of e-gas.

This fuel will be added to Germany’s natural gas network, which serves 900 CNG stations.

Solar Impulse completes world’s first solar powered flight

Solar Impulse, first solar energy plane made the world’s first international flight powered by the sun.

The solar plane took off from an airfield at Payerne in western Switzerland on Friday morning, the Solar Impulse completed its solar powered trip to Brussels airport after 13 hours of flying.

The 10 year project worth 90 million Euros and was demonstrate what the technology can do in terms of renewable energy.

The Solar Impulse project has involved engineers from Swiss lift maker Schindler and research aid from Belgian chemicals group Solvay.

The solar plane which requires 12,000 solar cells embarked on its first flight in April 2010 and completed a 26-hour flight, a record flying time for a solar powered aircraft, three months later.

The Solar Impulse has an average flying speed of 70 km/h (44 mph) which can not be compared with existing jets velocity which is much higher.

A larger prototype is scheduled to fly around the world in 2013.

Google unveils Android LED Light Bulb

In a few months Google has made many investments in renewable energy, the last one we read being a wind farm.

Now, search engine major Google hits again with a new investment in bulb manufacturing.

People will be able to buy an LED light bulb controllable from an Android device by the end of this year.

The new LED bulb can be controlled by any Android device using the company’s new open-source wireless networking protocol.

Google partnered with Lighting Science Group to bring out this 60-watt equivalent LED bulb that works with any android equipped laptop, tablet pc or a smart phone.

The smart bulb is the perfect test bed for Google’s new protocol, which stands to open the door to a new wave of energy-efficient home systems.

This A19 bulb was created to ensure low energy consumption and it features a built-in radio that interfaces with Google’s new open-source wireless protocol.

The price of the android LED lights will vary between 20 USD and 35 USD for 60-watt equivalent.

The A19 LED bulb was unveiled at I/O developer in San Francisco and caught the attention of the people.

A new portable eco-lantern

This new invention allows growing a little plant inside, the eco-lantern is designed by Franklin Gaw.

Eco-Lantern works as a complete bio-environment for a little plant that grows in its belly and also serving the primary purpose of lighting.

Eco-Lantern is a hand-held lantern that doubles up as a terrarium for tree saplings using a growth light as the light source.

The top of the lantern enable you to reach inside and set up the plant with pebbles for water retention, moist soil, moss and finally the plant itself.

The powered light functions as a growth light, mimicing the color and temperature of the sun’s rays.

The eco-lantern uses an integrated flexible solar panel to charge.

First wind farm in Peru

The Ministry of Energy and Mines has agreed to build the first wind farm in Peru.

According to the Latin American Wind Energy Association (LAWEA), this South American country boasts an “amazing” wind potential.

The wind farm will be constructed in Pariñas district in the province of Talara (Piura) and will have an installed capacity of 30 megawatts.

Latin America is gradually ramping up its wind capacity and a lot of renewable energy developments taking place across the continent have a policy support.

Japan: Prime Minister promote renewable energy

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the government will focus more on the development of renewable energy, like solar and wind power.

“Japan needs to review its energy policy while seeking safer ways to secure nuclear power,” Kan told a gathering of reporters on Tuesday.

The Japanese government will promote renewable energy and create a more energy-efficient society.

The country goal is to have renewable power account for 20 percent of the country’s total electricity output by 2030.

Solar power installations had a huge growth rate in 2010

Solar energy is racking up major increases in installed capacity year after year.

2009 was a bad year for solar energy, because the growth rate slowed to 24% which was a disappointing pace.

According to PVNews, 2010 saw a growth increase of 141% over the previous year, more than doubling the amount of new solar installations from 7.2 GW to 17.5 GW.

It seems the weak performance of 2009 was due to economic uncertainties.

Chinese manufacturers have contributed greatly at this increase with cheaper crystalline solar cells.

China’s market has little to no environmental regulations in place and the production of solar cells is a toxic business.

The thin film solar cells have the potential to be much cleaner to produce than crystalline cells and are largely manufactured in the west.

Thin film solar cells still only make up about 5% of the solar market.

Nine of the top fifteen producers of PV cells are based in China or Taiwan.

In the next years will be a significant challenge on solar market and subsidies are critical for the expansion of solar power.

Investment continues to occur at a rapid pace, and the solar industry has shown a remarkable ability to change with the times and continue expanding.