Virgil Sandberg asked:

Building your own electric car is good for the environment. Yet many people believe they will pollute the air almost as much as gasoline powered cars, because power plants create their own pollution while they are generating the electric power needed by an electric car.

This is simply not true. The reason people are big on electric vehicles is because the total amount of fuel consumption involved is much less than what gas vehicles consume thanks to the efficiencies involved in a power generating plant.

Even on today’s electrical grid, plug-in cars are cleaner than a gasoline car. Even better, while electricity is getting cleaner and more renewable every year, even the cleanest gasoline car still keeps adding to pollution and always will. When you do an electric car conversion on the other hand, it just gets cleaner over time as the power plants gets cleaner.

Grid power comes from unclean as well as increasingly clean sources of energy, such as scrubbers for the burning of fossil fuels, solar panels, wind turbines, geo thermal generators and other sources of renewable power. This means that electric vehicles will be charged with increasingly clean sources of power as the grid becomes greener.

Even better with modern technology you can build inexpensive home made solar or wind power generators, which can reduce your dependence on public power to zero.

Besides adding less pollution, electric car conversions operate at a much lower temperature. This is the reason they are so much more efficient, because gasoline engines lose a great deal of their power to heat. Finally another thing to consider is that electric cars are quieter, adding less noise pollution, a fact that most people do even think about.

If you would like to build your own electric car and join the thousands of people who already have their own clean running zero emission vehicle, a good place to start is at Convert To EV.

Solar Power for homes

Bryan Wong asked:


Most power plants in the United States and all over world are using fossil fuels to operate and generate electricity. They have been used as an energy source as long as man has learned to generate power. These traditional fuel sources have been around for ages and when man started using this energy sources no one though about the consequences. Fossil fuels will eventually run out and there will be a shortage of it in near future. This shortage in will have its affect on our daily live and various industries. Today we see some of these affects already, prizes are raising and electricity is becoming more expensive. Although these fuels are more scares, the need will still be here and will not decrease in near future. To solve this shortage we will need to look for other possibilities for our energy demand.

Fortunately, alternative energy sources are growing in interest. For instance, locations with high water falls are experimenting on building a hydro-electric power plant, which turns out to be successful. Other locations with high wind speed make use of a power wind mills that can convert wind power into electricity. Also thermal and tidal powers are good alternatives.

Solar energy is also one of the energy sources that is gaining in interest. This form of energy has steadily been growing. Today it is widely used in the US and other parts of the world and the advantages are numerous. Our solar energy source, the sun, its life span is estimated to be another 4.5 billion years. It is fair to say that this energy source is almost endless.

Rate of Energy from the Sun

The sun’s radiation reaches a certain unit of area in space in the region of the Earth’s orbit and is estimated to be at 1,400 watts per square meter. Out of this, photovoltaic cells (also known as solar cells) can capture 19 to 56 watts per square meter (for 15% efficiency) or an equivalent of 0.45 to 1.35 kilowatt per hour (kWh) in an annual day and night average.

Therefore, if there would be more area that will be covered by several solar panels, these panels can produce slightly more energy in the form of electricity than what is currently available from oil, gas, and other sources of energy combined (assuming 8% solar cell efficiency).

Conversion of Solar Energy

There are two ways of conversion of solar energy. First is the direct solar energy which involves only one conversion into a usable form. For instance:

* Sunlight hits the solar cell, converting it into electricity.
* Sunlight hits the absorber surface of a solar thermal collector, converting into thermal energy which can be used to heat homes during cold season.
The second is the indirect solar energy which involves more than one conversion to reach a usable form. For instance:
* Plants use photosynthesis to transform solar energy to chemical energy, which can be burned later as fuel to generate electricity (also known as bio-fuel technology).
* Hydro-electric dams and wind turbines are indirectly supplied by solar energy through its interaction with the Earth’s atmosphere.

Pros and Cons of Solar Energy

Just like any other types of energy resources, this energy source has its pro’s and cons.
Pros:

* Pollution-free.
* Solar facilities can be run with little extra input or maintenance.
* It is abundant. As mentioned earlier, most of the inhabited areas here on Earth can be reached by sunlight.
Cons:
* Although it is abundant, some areas receive little sunlight. Thus, power that will be produced in these locations is a minimum.
* Only available during daytime, thus a need to conserve to energy for use in night time.
* Photovoltaic cell technologies generate direct current (DC) power which needs to be converted to alternating current (AC) power used in distribution grids.

Once massive development of the use of solar energy is materialized, expect that every household or industry in the world will now be powered by solar energy. It is not just a dream, it will be a dream come true.

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