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Baby it's cold outside, but it's getting expensive to turn up that oil furnace. More and more home owners are turning to alternate sources of heating.

People are turning to firewood, electric heaters, and gas fireplaces for added warmth, but these heat sources present a new set of cautions for fire prevention.

Electric heaters or electric fireplace:

Make sure you read your manufacturer's instructions and heed the warning labels for your portable heater.

Never leave it unattended, and always unplug it when not in use. When you do unplug the unit, pull the cord straight out to prevent cord damage.

Never plug the heater into a power strip or extension cord to prevent overheating.

Keep flammable objects at least three feet away from the heater and never block the air intake or outlet.

More on Preventing Home Fires From Alternate Heat Sources

As a small business employer and home owner in an urban area I have found it to be necessary to take advantage of getting a background check on potential employees and even service providers in order to ensure that we are protected from having any problems in the work place.

By doing a Criminal Background Check we take the extra step that is needed to get the right people for the job. I also work with a large volunteer sports organization in which we try to screen our key volunteers and coaches but there is no mechanism in place to do it right. It would be good if we could take advantage of a criminal check that is thorough and complete when we screen vo9lunteers but so far we have not been able to implement.

I do think that any small business person should try and screen ahead of time so that you end up with the best possible employees and no long term problems on the job. We have taken these steps in our business and it has made a difference in who we hire and what kind of employee we get for our small business.

As an internet marketing entrepreneur I have learned to use the great resources you can find on the net to benefit my business growth and you should too.

Energy Tags: alternative, wind power

A description of life in Ghana and how people adapt to a situation during the load shedding and powercuts due to the failure of the Akosombo Dam, the largest powers source, to produce power. This has been going on from November 2006 until today. We see no end to this.

I was in Ghana and one of things I experienced were the power cuts. Technical reasons were given from above and we had to grin and bear it.

We had 12 hours off during the day and 12 hours off during the night on alternate days sometimes every two days. Now I hear its going to 24 hours off at a time every two days. The common phrase now is "do you have lights?".

Most people have an electricity schedule stuck up somewhere in their house or office but it is not always accurate. The official term for this is "Load Shedding" but when the lights go out unexpectedly on your day on it is called "Lights Off". We call each other and ask is it load shedding or lights out… Now we all rush to do ironing, cooking, emailing and anything that uses electricity before the load shedding and its funny to see people rushing home cos lights will come on at 6pm.

My question is… with all the sunshine why isn't solar made more available to the country? Why hasn't someone found a way to make [tag-tec]solar panels[/tag-tec] cheaper for all to be able to afford them and why hasn't the government had the foresight to see that the levels of the dam were dropping over the past years, so something should be done fast. It is human nature at its worst, wait until the crisis before reacting rather than preventing the crisis to happen in the first place

To Solar or not to solar… that is the question

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Energy Tags: solar

The idea of using vegetable oil as an alternate fuel source is as old as the diesel engine itself. Until recently, use of petroleum distillate to power diesel engines has been more economical than biodiesel.

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This article is about electric vehicles; what they are and how they can be used as alternate forms of energy and transportation. Electric vehicles have been around for centuries. The mass transit system has used electric forms of energy for years.

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