DIY Windshield Shade Solar Oven

Posted on November 2nd, 2008 by Bruce

DIY Windshield Shade Solar Oven

I have to admit that this is the easiest DIY Solar Oven that I’ve seen to date.

A simple, reflective windshield shade and some Velcro strips and you’re done! Set the cone shaped shade in a bucket (filled with stones so it doesn’t blow over), place a wire grate at the bottom of the cone, and set a black, covered pot, inside a plastic cooking bag, onto the grate. Wait an couple of hours, and call it dinner.

Here’s a link to a site with the instructions for building and a number of slight variations to the basic theme.

Solar Powered Vehicle sets World Distance Record

Posted on October 30th, 2008 by Bruce

Solar Powered Vehicles sets World Distance Record

By The Canadian Press

Power of One Solar Car

Oct. 30, 2008

VICTORIA, B.C. - A Canadian man has set a new world distance record in a solar-powered vehicle that looks more like a flying saucer than an automobile.

Marcelo Da Luz arrived at Victoria’s mile zero marker Thursday to complete his 15,000 kilometre journey in his single-seat “Power of One” solar car.

Da Luz’s 140-day journey took him across Canada twice and he stopped in 44 Canadian towns and cities.

The vehicle cost about half-a-million dollars, can travel 200 kilometres on a single charge and has a top speed of about 120 kilometres an hour.

The Canadian record beats a January 2002 Australian team record in which a solar car was driven for 13,055 kilometres around Australia.

Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Posted on October 27th, 2008 by Bruce

Alternative Fuel Vehicles

While I consider the Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PiEV) to be the king of alternative fuel vehicles, there are several additional technologies in the design stage or with limited production runs.

For this article, I’m going to forget about both ethanol & bio-diesel. Both these fuels still produce too much pollution and greenhouse gas. Likewise, I see hybrid vehicles as just a stepping stone, if they use fossil fuels as their alternative fuel. Let’s look at the “really clean” alternatives.

Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PiEV)

In my books, this is alternative fuel number one. There are several companies producing PiEV today, with many more in the design or demo stages. Within one year, we will have many more models to choose from. Within two years, all of the world’s major vehicle manufactures will have some form of electric car or van, on the road. Companies include:

Mitsubishi’s i MiEV Electric Car

Tesla Motors

Miles XS500

Compressed Air Vehicles

There are a few companies working on compressed air as fuel for small cars. Initial press would indicate these vehicles can get 125 miles (200 kilometers) per tank of air and take only minutes and a couple of dollars, to refill. Some of the companies involved include:

Hydrogen Powered Vehicles

I realize that a vehicle running on hydrogen only produces water as a by-product. My concern however, is with the production of the hydrogen. If we end up producing pollution and GHG to make the hydrogen, then we aren’t any farther ahead. Personally, I would skip hydrogen as a fuel. However, Honda has the FXC Clarity as the world’s first production model hydrogen car.

Extend Your Pool Season

Posted on October 23rd, 2008 by Bruce

Extend Your Pool Season

The easiest way to extend your swimming pool season is to use a pool cover or blanket. An inexpensive pool cover can easily add a month at the beginning and end of the swimming season. For every 12 hours the pool cover is left on, the temperature of the water will rise about 5 degrees F. Additional reasons for adding a pool cover include:

prevents heat from escaping - retain that heat in your pool
limits evaporation - each gallon of water evaporated removes about 8,000 BTU’s of heat
reduces chemical depletion - reduces your costs for chemicals

Pool Cover Considerations:

don’t leave your cover in the sun when removed from the pool as this degrades the plastic
covers can be dangerous - if you fall onto a cover it can be very difficult to get out. Don’t swim in a pool with a cover on or partially on - if you come up under the cover, you will NOT find any air!

DIY Solar Pool Heater

Another very simple way to extend you pool season is to build your own solar pool heater. We have a very simple, DIY solar pool heater design which uses a photovoltaic (PV) module to provide free power when the sun shines, which is when you want the pump to run. It also uses a small, DC submersible pump and some black landscaping tubing.

You can use the existing pump to run your DIY system, but be aware of the extra cost for electricity to run the pump. If you place your tubing on a roof, you can add a lot of strain to the existing pump. This could shorten the life of the pump and could also make for a rather large increase in the amount of electricity used by the pump. As well, you want the solar pool heater to run during the daylight hours. This is often when electricity cost the most and may not coincide with your optimal pump running hours. A PV panel and small submersible pump could pay for itself in just one season.

For a list of materials and step-by-step assembly instructions, visit our link: DIY Solar Pool Heater

Happy “Green” Halloween

Posted on October 22nd, 2008 by Bruce

Happy “Green” Halloween

Halloween can still be black and orange, but without much effort, you can add a little “green”.

The first place to start is with the costumes. Rather than spending a whole lot of money on a commercially made costume that only gets worn once, try something different. Take a trip down to Goodwill - they have a huge selection of slightly used clothing. And after Halloween, if you aren’t likely to need your outfit again, you can donate it back to Goodwill once more. And of course, have a reusable treat bag.

Don’t spend money on a mask. Get creative with some standard make-up, used in new ways. Make-up doesn’t end up in the garbage at the end of the night and offers a much safer view of the road and surroundings.

When carving your Jack-O-Lantern, save the seeds. There are lots of recipes on the Internet that show you how to roast them up, with a little oil and garlic salt. Keeps the vampires away and tastes great to boot.

The rest of a pumpkin makes for good eating as well. However, if you’ve made a Jack-O-Lantern, that pumpkin needs to go into your compost. Once cut open, pumpkin needs to be cooked or kept in the fridge.

Candy - it’s a bit harder to be green with the teats. There are “healthy” alternatives available. Raisins come in small, individual packets for example. Another option is to avoid candy altogether and to give Halloween trick-or-treaters useful treats, such as colorful pencils, small boxes of crayons, erasers in fun shapes, or other inexpensive items you can find at your local dime store or dollar store.

DIY Solar Water Purifier

Posted on October 20th, 2008 by Bruce

DIY Solar Water Purifier

Solar water purifiers can be very simple, effective devices for making drinking water from saltwater, or brackish water, by using condensation within a solar still.

The basic concept:

Dirty, salty or brackish water is placed in a sealed container, in a dark pan, that is pointed towards the sun. The sun evaporates the water, which condenses on a slanted glass or plastic surface and runs down to a collection trough. Salt and other heavy minerals and impurities are left in the pan.

Before we look at a DIY design, let’s take a quick look at the Watercone® solar still.


1. Pour salty / brackish Water into pan. Then float the Watercone(r) on top. The black pan absorbs the sunlight and heats up the water to support evaporation..	2. The evaporated Water condensates in the form of droplets on the inner wall of the cone. These droplets trickle down the inner wall into a circular trough at the inner base of the cone.	3. By unscrewing the cap at the tip of the cone and turning the cone upside down, one can empty the potable Water gathered in the trough directly into a drinking device.

I’m happy to say that after several years of effort, and many awards, this design has gone into production and hopefully will be seen all over the developing world, where clean drinking water is hard to come by.

Now on to our DIY Design:

Materials:

a wooden box or enclosure (metal would be even better)
heavy aluminum foil, shiny side out
glass - size depends on the size of the box
insulation - hard block insulation is easiest to work with
glue or silicon sealant
a black or dark tray for the water
tube - for a trough
jar or container to hold clean water

Assembly

glue the heavy aluminum foil to the inside of the box, shiny side out
cut the insulation to the same size as the water tray and glue to bottom, centre of box
set tray in box on insulation and fill with salty or brackish water
place glass on top of box and aim towards sun. Needs to fit tight at the top so water vapor does not escape.
position pipe/trough along bottom of glass and add a container at end to catch the clean water

Enhancements

add a hinge to the glass to make opening and closing easier
add a hose and funnel, so you can add brackish water to the tray without opening the box
add glass to the ends so you get sun all day - curved would be even better - what about a plastic basement window cover?
create a rotating stand to easily point in at the sun

New Time-of-Use Electricity Prices in Ontario

Posted on October 18th, 2008 by Bruce

New Time-of-Use Electricity Prices in Ontario

Ontario is rapidly increasing the number of SMART meters rollout out to residential electricity consumers. These consumers will eventually be rolled over to Time-Of-Use billing, which charges different rates per kilowatt hour of electricity, based on the time of day it was consumed. These prices are adjusted every six months, and new rates are effective November 1st 2008. They are:

On-Peak = 8.8 cents / kwh (was 9.3 in prior 6 month period)

Mid-Peak = 7.2 cents / kwh (was 7.3 in prior 6 month period)

Off-Peak = 4.0 cents /kwh (was 2.7 in prior 6 month period)

Day of the Week	Time	Time-of-Use Period	Time-of-Use Price* (cents/kWh)
Weekends & holidays	All day	Off-peak	4.0
Summer Weekdays (May 1st - Oct 31st)	7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.	Mid-peak	7.2
	11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.	On-peak	8.8
	5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.	Mid-peak	7.2
	10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.	Off-peak	4.0
Winter Weekdays (Nov 1st - Apr 30th)	7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.	On-peak	8.8
	11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.	Mid-peak	7.2
	5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.	On-peak	8.8
	8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.	Mid-peak	7.2
	10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.	Off-peak	4.0

It’s hard to say what the impact of the latest change will be on the average consumer. Though Peak and Mid-Peak rates came down a bit, the Off-Peak rate, which includes all weekends, increased almost 50%. For sure, anyone who finds their electricity plan hs switched from flat rate (5.6 cents for first 1000 kwh) to TOU, will experience an increase in billing! It’s very hard to switch that much usage to off-peak hours, but for everyone’s sake, it needs to be done.

Just how much greenhouse gas is produced to make one kilowatt/hour of electricity? We have the information listed in a chart, by State & Province, here: GHG from Electricity

Gainesville Florida to consider solar feed-in tariffs

Posted on October 17th, 2008 by Bruce

Gainesville Florida to consider solar feed-in tariffs

Gainesville Regional Utilities has attracted the eyes of environmentalists across the nation for a trail-blazing plan to encourage solar energy production by agreeing to buy the electricity above market value for 20 years.

Ontario, Canada has had a solar feed-in tariff for a number of years and this program has resulted in several megawatts of solar power installations. With all the sun that Gainesville receives on a yearly basis, this is a no-brainer.

Solar power is produced during the peak usage periods of the day. This allows the Power Utility to reduce it’s use of coal-fired generating stations that can be powered-up during high demand. The GRU also has plans for a large scale biomass plant that will produce power 24 hours per day.

Gainesville is definitely leading the way. Now if we can only get the rest of the nation to follow!

GreenTerraFirma

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