Alternative Energy Topic

Pondo13

Now that alternative energy has wormed its way into mainstream American thinking (finally!), how about a topic area dedicated to it??!! Cheers,

YerDugliness

I have to ask the same question, P13. I joined this site primarily b/c I was seeking advice on a rather straightforward project (or so it seemed), but it didn't take long before my fascination with solar and wind power found their way into other posts.

What amazed me is that there was always quite a bit of interest in the topics on both the electrical and plumbing boards (haven't spent much time in the other boards yet, but give it some time--the house is old and so is almost every system in it).

It is my firm belief that the cost of energy can only go one way. Therefore, I'd like to be proactive and design systems for that renovation project that will reduce my reliance on both natural gas and electricity. An alternate energy board would sure help in that endeavor. I know, there are already some DIY solar forums out there, so solar is obviously gaining as a DIY field of interest.......

How about this, Nathan? Do you think there's enough interest at this point to consider expansion????

TIA for whatever time and effort you choose to dedicate to this issue.

Dugly

aaron.klimchuk

I completely agree.

I was hoping that the moderators would add a green or eco friendly home improvement section to the site. I think quite a few homeowners and contractors could benefit from such a section, not to mention the environment being such an up and coming topic. Tips and ideas to help builders and customers complete their home improvement projects in an environmentally conscious way would definitely go over well in this community.

BJLower

I'm the president of a 3,000+ member environmental group in the Tampa area and you will not believe the things that they are coming up with.


I'm sure a lot of you have seem the Hydrogen generators that boost the mileage of your vehicle. Most people claim that it breaks the second law of physicians which is basically that you cannot produce more energy than you use to create it. In the case of the hydrogen generators the second law of physics would state that you would use more gasoline producing the hydrogen than you would gain by adding the hydrogen into your engine. An article by an automotive engineer that is working on it for one of the car manufacturers explained in the best readable English he could how it doesn't.


The big one was developed by a guy in St. Petersburg Florida which is right next door to Tampa so has been in the local news fairly often. He actually developed the system to produce what he calls “brown gas” for welding. The showed him on the news melt a chunk of metal and then grab the end of the torch, which wasn't even hot.


If you've seen one of the other ones working they pretty much don't look like their doing a whole lot. But a guy with an antique pecan sheller that is at about every fair, bike/car show you go too has that old motor running on veritable oil and one of the regular hydrogen generators.


The one the guy from St. Petersburg designed you can actually see the water in the glass jar with water and baking soda it in (the baking soda makes it take a lot less energy to break water into hydrogen and water) fizzing hydrogen out like you opened a Pepsi after shaking it up.


If you look on the Internet there are adds by a guy claiming to be his brother marketing his system. It's not the guys brother it's a scam and the guy will probably sue whoever is doing it when he gets the time.
The guy from St. Petersburg is a little busy right now marketing his system. He has it patented so he's letting companies test his device out and will take the winner of the bidding war to produce his system.


Your car doesn't run on just hydrogen. The hydrogen gets mixed into the fuel system and cranks your mileage up. The St. Pete guy is working of a six-pack of the jars system that will produce, at least from what the reports say, enough hydrogen to really make a significant increase in your mileage. All you'll have to do is make sure that the jars are kept filled with water and baking soda. You can carry several gallons in your trunk because it's just water. When you use an the positive and negative off of the battery then it breaks it down into Hydrogen and Oxygen.


The Saturn 5 and the main engines of the Space shuttle are fed by oxygen and hydrogen. Mix those to together and add an spark and needles to save you get some serious boom. Some of the system they're selling are shooting the oxygen into the fuel system as well. That a big no no. The trail of what looks like smoke from the Saturn 5 and the Space Shuttle after the boosters pop off is water. Unless you want to have rusty cylinder walls, that's something you don't want in you engine. The ethanol that they're putting in gas now is playing hell with 2-stoke outboard boat motors by getting water into the cylinders.


The guy that mapped the human genome has pretty much finished producing a little “bug” that eats organic waste a pees out what is pretty much oil.


Guess what our prisoners should be doing? SORTING GARBAGE. Nothing for the ACLU to have a stroke over. Run the garbage that's pick up bu the garbage trucks done ENCLOSED conveyor belts and they can look through a glass window and put their hands in through the rubber gloves mounted in the walls of the conveyor system. The same way that they hand toxic material, but in this case it would be so they could grab a weapon.


The would pull of of the glass, metal, paper, plastic and all of those other nice recyclable materials that would go a very long way towards them paying for their 3 hots and a cot (not to mention better medical and dental than most of us have). By they time they cleaned the other stuff out you would have all of the organic waste. Feed that to the “bugs” and watch the oil pore out. It has a lot of good extras. Recycling and aluminum can cost 2% of the cost of making new aluminum from the ore along with the massive savings to all of us from the other recyclables they will make money from. The don't deserve days off, so buy the time the work, eat, excersize, etc they're out of their cells 12 hours a day. Bingo! You just doubled the number of prisoners you can keep and the criminals can kiss the early release do to over crowding goodbye! Just like that sheriff out west that is putting his prisoners army tents (no A/C cable TV......) when they get out they don't want to go back. The other benefit is that once those bugs are through eating the organic waste there is not going to be much left top produce methane and destroy our Ozone Layer.


If the piped the methane coming from all of the old land fills to the power plants we would not have to burn a single ounce of nasty coal and still have a lot of methane left over. All the power plant burning methane would clean our air up massively.


I could go on and on. But have to run.


BUSH IS GONE SO THINGS WILL GET BETTER. He made us the only major industrial country that didn't sign the Kyoto Treaty on pollution reduction because he doesn't believe Global Warming is occurring. The North Pole is melting so fast that they're giving Polar Bear 15 years, at the most, before the become extinct. The last 2 years the ice pack has not formed all the way to the Soviet Union. Which is why Columbus was looking for a new route to the Orient. He didn't discover America by a long shot. He only made as far as the islands and the Vikings were sailing to what they called “Vineland” and probably had permanent settlements a long long time before Columbus supposedly “Discovered America.”


They won't change the history books because it's a holiday. They have proof that a guy in Michigan beat the Wright Brothers by a month or so. He was just so farm out in the booney's the news of it didn't make it before the Wright Brothers. His family is suing to have it changed. Not to make money. Their grand-father, great-grandfather etc was the first person to fly and they want the bragging rights that they should have.


My ancestors came over in 1770 as indentured servants. White slaves. They were supposed to serve for 10 years that back then was a quarter of your life span. That was one expensive cruise. But, one of the first laws passed by the Continental Congress was that if you joined the Revolutionary Army your indentured servitude was over. According to our family history book Adam was wounded twice and then was wounded a third time at Valley Forge and was presented a medal by Washington himself. There's some bragging rights.


I have to put this in. The Supreme Court finally ruled that the Second Amendment did grant the right for individuals to own guns. How stupid can the idiots that claim it only allowed for a militia to be formed be. The people that emigrated to America came from country's where they weren't allowed to own guns so that they couldn't overthrow that nasty governments unless it got to an all out riot like the French Revolution. If the people living in America hadn't already owned guns we would never have been able to produce enough weapons to have won our own revolution and there would even be a Constitution to have a Second Amendment.


BJ

aaron.klimchuk

Which environmental group are you with BJ?

Termite

Opinions on government, politics, guns, etc. need to be voiced in the "off topic" section please.

Good suggestion about a green building subforum.

waitegarry

I would love a place to just read about and ask questions about the world of green.

aaron.klimchuk

if you're referring to the world of green in regards to home improvement, check out XXXXXX.

AtlanticWBConst.

Looka like we may need a "green" forum/section....

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