Hydrogen Hybrid For Better Gas Mileage

• How to Compare Hybrid Cars It is hard to find a comparative ranking for hybrid cars, so how do you compare hybrid cars if you have trouble getting the information that you need? Luckily there are not that many types of hybrid vehicles on the market today, so when you decide to compare hybrid cars......
• Can Cars Run On Water? Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard that cars can be modified to run on water. How is this possible? There are a number of online marketing offers of kits that will convert your car to “run on water,” but these should be viewed skeptically. These kits, which attach to the car’s engine,......
• Glossary: Hybrid Car Technology Hybrid cars are gaining in popularity and this is leading people to want to know more about hybrid car technology. As a result, we have put together this brief glossary of hybrid car technology terms, the least you need to know. This will be a good foundation for you to......
• Cadillac Escalade Hybrid 2009 The Cadillac Escalade line of vehicles has recently released its newest incarnation, the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid 2009. This is a green hybrid electric vehicle that is based on Escalade's proprietary two mode hybrid system. The Cadillac Escalade Hybrid SUV is the first hybrid entering into the full size luxury SUV......
• Honda Civic - Miles Per Gallon, Both Then And Now. Today's brand-new Honda Civic is an amazing car to buy if you are looking for a non-hybrid, well-made, high-MPG automobile. I owned a 1994 Honda Civic that lasted 8 years and 150,000 miles before it started having any problems at all, and looking back I never should have gotten rid......

Alternative Energy from the Ocean

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) was conceived of by the French engineer Jacques D’Arsonval in 1881. However, at the time of this writing the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii is home to the only operating experimental OTEC plant on the face of the earth. OTEC is a potential alternative energy source that needs to be funded and explored much more than it presently is. The great hurdle to get over with OTEC implementation on a wide and practically useful level is cost. It is difficult to get the costs down to a reasonable level because of the processes presently utilized to drive OTEC. Ocean thermal energy would be very clean burning and not add pollutants into the air. However, as it presently would need to be set up with our current technologies, OTEC plants would have the capacity for disrupting and perhaps damaging the local environment.

There are three kinds of OTEC.

“Closed Cycle OTEC” uses a low-boiling point liquid such as, for example, propane to act as an intermediate fluid. The OTEC plant pumps the warm sea water into the reaction chamber and boils the intermediate fluid. This results in the intermediate fluid’s vapor pushing the turbine of the engine, which thus generates electricity.  The vapor is then cooled down by putting in cold sea water.

“Open Cycle OTEC” is not that different from closed cycling, except in the Open Cycle there is no intermediate fluid. The sea water itself is the driver of the turbine engine in this OTEC format. Warm sea water found on the surface of the ocean is turned into a low-pressure vapor under the constraint of a vacuum. The low-pressure vapor is released in a focused area and it has the power to drive the turbine. To cool down the vapor and create desalinated water for human consumption, the deeper ocean’s cold waters are added to the vapor after it has generated sufficient electricity.

“Hybrid Cycle OTEC” is really just a theory for the time being. It seeks to describe the way that we could make maximum usage of the thermal energy of the ocean’s waters. There are actually two sub-theories to the theory of Hybrid Cycling. The first involves using a closed cycling to generate electricity. This electricity is in turn used to create the vacuum environment needed for open cycling. The second component is the integration of two open cyclings such that twice the amount of desalinated, potable water is created that with just one open cycle.

In addition to being used for producing electricity, a closed cycle OTEC plant can be utilized for treating chemicals. OTEC plants, both open cycling and close cycling kinds, are also able to be utilized for pumping up cold deep sea water which can then be used for refrigeration and air conditioning. Furthermore, during the moderation period when the sea water is surrounding the plant, the enclosed are can be used for mariculture and aquaculture projects such as fish farming. There is clearly quite an array of products and services that we could derive from this alternative energy source.

• What Is Geothermal Energy & How Does It Work? Dear EarthTalk: How are heating, cooling and electricity produced by geothermal energy? I don’t understand how it works. The term “geothermal” is derived from the Greek words for Earth (geo) and heat (therme). In essence geothermal energy is power harnessed from the Earth itself. Heat from the Earth’s core, which......
• 10 Money-Saving Home Repairs Please Welcome Crystal, a brand new Sweating The Big Stuff staff writer. Crystal currently blogs over at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, where she write about finding the balance between paying your bills, saving for your future, and budgeting for the fun stuff in between. Our shared passion for enjoying......
• 22 Ways To Energy Efficiency, From The Free To The Expensive. From one of my favorite sites, Co-op America, here are 22 steps you can take -- each with the energy savings you can achieve each year. Pick the ones you'll do to get your first 10% energy savings. (These energy savings assume an average US home, which uses about 11,000......
• Go Green and Save Money with Water Saving Shower Heads Water saving shower heads are an easy change that saves water and saves you money. Not only will you use less water overall, which is good for the planet, you'll pay for less water, and you'll heat less water which will save energy and money, too. So why doesn't everyone......
• Green Building Materials Green Construction is the practice of building in a way that increases efficiency of the use of materials like energy, water and other materials and resources while reducing the impact on human health and the environment during the process of building through more efficient design, site selection, construction, operation, maintenance......

Alternative Energy for the Home

The trend toward homes that are powered by alternative energy sources, ranging from wind turbines and solar collection cells to hydrogen fuel cells and biomass gases, is one that needs to continue into the 21st century and beyond. We have great need of becoming more energy independent, and not having to rely on the supplying of fossil fuels from unstable nations who are often hostile to us and our interests. But even beyond this factor, we as individuals need to get “off the grid” and also stop having to be so reliant on government-lobbying giant oil corporations who, while they are not really involved in any covert conspiracy, nevertheless have a stranglehold on people when it comes to heating their  homes (and if not through oil, then heat usually supplied by grid-driven electricity, another stranglehold).

As Remi Wilkinson, Senior Analyst with Carbon Free, puts it, inevitably, the growth of distributed generation will lead to the restructuring of the retail electricity market and the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. The power providers may have to diversify their business to make up for revenues lost through household energy microgeneration. She is referring to the conclusions by a group of UK analysts, herself included among them, who call themselves Carbon Free. Carbon Free has been studying the ever-growing trend toward alternative energy-using homes in England and the West. This trend is being driven by ever-more government recommendation and sometimes backing of alternative energy research and development, the rising cost of oil and other fossil fuels, concern about environmental degradation, and desires to be energy independent. Carbon Free concludes that, assuming traditional energy prices remain at their current level or rise, microgeneration (meeting all of one’s home’s energy needs by installing alternative energy technology such as solar panels or wind turbines) will become to home energy supply what the Internet became to home communications and data gathering, and eventually this will have deep effects on the businesses of the existing energy supply companies.

Carbon Free’s analyses also show that energy companies themselves have jumped in on the game  and seek to leverage microgeneration to their own advantage for opening up new markets for themselves. Carbon Free cites the example of electricity companies (in the UK) reporting that they are seriously researching and developing ideas for new geothermal energy facilities, as these companies see geothermal energy production as a highly profitable wave of the future. Another conclusion of Carbon Free is that solar energy hot water heating technology is an efficient technology for reducing home water heating costs in the long run, although it is initially quite expensive to install.  However, solar power is not yet cost-effective for corporations, as they require too much in the way of specialized plumbing to implement solar energy hot water heating. Lastly, Carbon Free tells us that installing wind turbines is an efficient way of reducing home electricity costs, while also being more independent. However, again this is initially a very expensive thing to have installed, and companies would do well to begin slashing their prices on these devices or they could find themselves losing market share.

• Iowa Family Enjoys Wind Power Home As wind turbines become more and more popular on farmlands in Iowa, there is an increasing demand for people to have their own wind power home turbine. And this is what the Skadow family of Polk County successfully did. Since the beginning of last year, the Skadow's decided to go......
• How And Where To Recycle Your Old Clothing. Although everyone loves to get new clothes to put on their back, at some point in the future that item of clothing may no longer be wearable. But instead of throwing it into the dumpster, there are a few companies out there that will recycle their product once you are......
• Why Do You Need a Blog For Your Company? If you’ve been hearing a lot about the corporate blogging trend and wondering how you can make it work for your company, there are specific reasons that having a blog is very important. It really is worth the extra effort that goes into the creation and management of the blog,......
• Green Products Has Found a Low Cost Balloon Shaped Solar Design That Is Highly Efficient by Michael Edwards You would not believe what we at Green Products found (and no they are not UFOs). Can you imagine a field planted with silver balloons as far as the eye can see, or a hillside covered with silver balls? It's not Christo's latest pop-art install, but rather,......
• Heating Your Household Water With The Sun. Guest post by Joe Wright from PolarSolar Out here in sunny California, 90% of the population pays to truck, pipe, and burn natural gas from out-of-state to heat the water used in the home (Over 85% comes from out of state, much of it coming all the way from west......

Biofuels That Look Like Gasoline

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• How Much Electricity Will Plug-In Hybrids Use? Dear EarthTalk: When the plug-in Prius is released, how much electricity will it use? Will my electric bill double if my Prius is plugged in each night? Or will the increase be minimal? Also, will all this recharging put a strain on the existing electricity grid? It is difficult to......
• Green Electric Hybrid Car There is a revolution going on right now that has many consumers purchasing electric cars, hybrid cars and other green vehicles and cars as a means of increasing the efficiency of their vehicles while decreasing the emissions that their cars create while they are on the road. While one way......
• Tips and Considerations to Buy a Hybrid Car Many people find themselves considering whether or not they should buy a hybrid car. With the rising costs associated with gas and maintenance of regular gas-driven vehicles, it is becoming less and less affordable for people to own vehicles in this day and age. As a result of the increases......
• Hybrid Electric Car Auto Insurance This post is a guest blog written by Travis Overby. With skyrocketing gas prices and the increasing concerns about the impact of carbon emissions on the environment, Hybrid Electric Cars have been growing in popularity. A hybrid electric vehicle combines a fuel-efficient gas engine with an electric motor. The purpose......
• Introduction to the Hybrid Diesel Electric Car The hybrid diesel electric car has been under develop since as far back as early 1993 in the United States, but the only hybrid diesel electric vehicle to reach production so far has been the Dodge Ram. The Dodge Ram hybrid diesel electric car is build on the chassis for......

Alternative Vehicle Review

• Why Investing in Alternative Energy Companies is a Bad Idea. There has been a lot of buzz over the last year or so about alternative energy. Rightfully so, given oil's ever upward march in price. You can find many reasons to invest in green companies, but many seem to be rooted in emotion, rather than any analytic thought process.......
• Saving Fuel with Hybrid Electric Cars Hybrids are made to operate in all of the same conditions and temperatures that standard automobiles are, while being powered by multiple fuel technology. The use of a rechargeable energy cell system supplements the gasoline engine for propulsion. The basic principals are not hard to understand: hybrid automobiles use the......
• Turn off the car radio when you're parked to save gas Is this a recent trend?  A (usually) young male drives up to a store in his ride, parks, shuts off the engine, unrolls the window, cranks the volume on the radio, and goes in to buy something?  As soon as a colleague at work mentioned this, I started seeing it......
• Glossary: What is a Hybrid Car? As hybrid cars gain in popularity, many people find themselves asking "What is a hybrid car?" To answer this question, we are supplying a mini lexicon of hybrid car terms and hybrid car technology terms. Let this be a foundation that you can build upon as you learn more about......
• Green Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles are being converted by their owners into vehicles that run purely on electricity. People who drive hybrid vehicles that are easy on gas to begin with are becoming increasingly interested in the idea of converting their vehicles from completely gasoline powered to completely electricity based. Drivers who own......