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Environment Articles |
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Expert Author: Fitriah Arifin | Summary One way to keep pace climate change is to reduce emissions from human activity. This can be done for example by using fuel from a source of cleaner energy, such as switching from coal to gas, or using renewable energy sources such as solar energy or biomass. There are several good reasons why office paper must be recycled. First, papers used in offices are usually high-grade, and it's a shame to see these quality paper reduced to waste. A staggering 77 per cent of these papers are recyclable. Second, an average business office employee can produce a pound and a half of paper waste in working for a business office daily. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is a new term in the data center lexicon, comparing a data center's total energy requirement to the energy consumed by the IT load. With 42U's PUE Calculator, a data center operator does not need to know the origin or intricacies of PUE. If the data center manager can access his IT load (from the UPS), and his facility load (from the meter), he receives an initial PUE score. For more detailed calculations, 42U's Energy Savings Calculator makes use of the same formulas to project energy and CO2 savings over one, five, and ten years. Expert Author: Brigette Botkin | Summary The U.S. Department of Energy is providing Texas with more than $218 million in stimulus funding for state energy programs. To help orient energy efficiency leaders, Green Energy Audit Certification is hosting a class in San Antonio on September 28 to jump start energy audit learning. Expert Author: William J. Lund | Summary Article discusses green plumbing systems, what makes them green, and how to make them greener. Included in the discussion are hot water demand type delivery systems, hot water plumbing layouts and tankless water heaters. Expert Author: Naved Jafry | Summary Biofuels are by definition any fuel that, by being burned, can be converted to energy, and that is produced from a biological source. Since a biological source is also a renewable one, biofuels are reproducible. One type of fuel already being produced from biological sources is biodiesel. Expert Author: Amanda Isbitt | Summary Are you tired of paying high power bills? If you are you are not alone. Many people are, and heating your water is about 1/3 of your bill. You can lower your power bill by having a solar power hot water heater. You can even do the installing yourself. That makes even more economical. Photovoltaic cells-those black squares an array of which comprises a solar panel-are getting more efficient, and gradually less expensive, all the time, thanks to ever-better designs which all them to focus the gathered sunlight on a more and more concentrated point. The size of the cells is decreasing as their efficiency rises, meaning that each cell becomes cheaper to produce and at once more productive. As far as the aforementioned cost, the price of producing solar-generated energy per watt hour has come down to $4.00 at the time of this writing. Just 17 years ago, it was nearly double that cost. One of these is solar power. Solar power is driven by photovoltaic cells, and these are progressively getting less expensive and more advanced. Solar energy power can be used for electricity, heating, and making hot water. Solar energy produces no pollution, as its input comes completely from the sun's rays. However, much more work still needs to be done in order for us to economically harness the sun's energy. For the time being, the resource is a little too conditional-storage batteries are needed to be used as backups in the evenings and on inclement days. The Germans have really taken off when it comes to renewable fuel sources, and have become one of the major players in the alternative energy game. Under the aegis of the nation's electricity feed laws, the German people set a world record in 2006 by investing over $10 billion (US) in research, development, and implementation of wind turbines, biogas power plants, and solar collection cells. Record high prices at American gas pumps and continued trouble-brewing in the Middle East, Nigeria, and other areas of importance to the oil-driven economy have made it clear to Americans that we are in need of developing many new avenues of energy supply and production. In short, we need to reduce our dependency on oil, for it is ultimately finite and, frankly, the cheap sources of oil (not all oil-just the stuff that is cheap to remove from the earth) are running out. It is possible to have a portfolio which profitably (that's the key word, is it not?) invests in alternative energy funds. "Green" energy production is expected to be a multi-billion (in today's dollars) industry by 2013. The most recently developed wind-turbine technologies have brought us wind-produced energy which is more cost efficient as well as more widespread. More state-of-the-art wind energy technologies are typically more market competitive with conventional energy technologies. The US government must continue to back the expansion of the role of alternative energy research and development and its implementation by companies and homeowners. Although this writer believes in the reign of the free market and that "that government is best which governs least", our current system has companies and people expecting federal backing of major initiative with direct investment, in the form of tax breaks, rebate incentives, and even direct central bank investment into the alternative energy industry. Alternative energy stock portfolios are a great part of a modern investor's financial plan, due to the fac that there is so much upward potential. These make excellent long term growth investment vehicles, and the money put into them by you, the investor, serves to further the cause of implementing the alternative energy power sources that we need as we sail into the 21st century and beyond. In his State of the Union Address for 2007, President George W. Bush called for a 22 per cent increase in federal grants for research and development of alternative energy. However, in a speech he gave soon after, he said to those assembled, I recognize that there has been some interesting mixed signals when it comes to funding. We should be doing everything possible to develop geothermal energy technologies. This is a largely untapped area of tremendous alternative energy potential, as it simply taps the energy being naturally produced by the Earth herself. Vast amounts of power are present below the surface crust on which we move and have our being. All we need do is tap into it and harness it. Many researchers believe that harnessing the power of the atom in fission reactions is the most significant alternative energy resource that we have, for the fact of the immense power that it can generate. Nuclear power plants are very "clean-burning" and their efficiency is rather staggering. Nuclear power is generated at 80 per cent efficiency, meaning that the energy produced by the fission reactions is almost equal to the energy put into producing the fission reactions in the first place. The alternative energy consultants tell us that the transition from the petroleum-driven economy and society will not be a smooth one, on the whole. The amount of new technologies and infrastructures that need to be developed and built is staggering-even as Germany achieves powering 10 per cent of the entire nation through the use of wind turbines and solar arrays, even as corporation after corporation is springing up, helped by various governments' tax breaks and rebate incentives, to drive forward the alternative energy mission. Biofuels are produced by converting organic matter into fuel for powering our society. These biofuels are an alternative energy source to the fossil fuels that we currently depend upon. The biofuels umbrella includes under its aegis ethanol and derivatives of plants such as sugar cane, as well aS vegetable and corn oils. However, not all ethanol products are designed to be used as a kind of gasoline. The International Energy Agency (IEA) tells us that ethanol could comprise up to 10 percent of the world's usable gasoline by 2025, and up to 30 percent by 2050. Today, the percentage figure is two percent. There has been much debate about what is often called "free" energy-energy that can supposedly, with the right technology, be drawn straight out of the atmosphere, and in very abundant supply. The debates are about whether the stuff actually exists or not, what it would actually cost were it to be harnessed, and if it does exist is it truly as abundant and efficient as it's being made out to be by proponents of research and development into this potential alternative energy source.
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