Alternative Energy Sources

I'm doing my thesis on renewable energy, sustainability and how an economy (Ireland) can benefit economically from going green. My lecturer said to start reading economic and finance journals for information but I'm lost!! Help?

I get many many renewable energy trade journals in the mail.

I've put links to a few of them below. Do your own search by taking one word (like sustainability, biofuels, biomass, ethanol, renewable) and putting the word "magazine" after it. You might also try one word plus "journal."

Be sure to click through for information on how to subscribe. Many of these magazines require you to "subscribe" although there is no cost for a subscription.

I'm afraid that there is no one journal (that I know of) that will address only your topic. You'll need to dig through many journals, and pick out an article here and a paper there.

Good luck.

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Consider the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to subsidize the nuclear industry and the hundreds of billions that will have to be spent for all eternity to store the nuclear waste.

What if that money had been spent on the R&D of more efficient photovoltaic cells and a massive program to convert homes and industry to solar power?

Then we wouldn't have depleted uranium.

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Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into more useful forms, such as electricity, using wind turbines. At the end of 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 73.9 gigawatts; although it currently produces just over 1% of world-wide electricity use[1], it accounts for approximately 20% of electricity use in Denmark, 9% in Spain, and 7% in Germany.[2] Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006.

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Our household electricity is going up 25%. Where we use about half the kilowatt hours than we did last year, we're still paying about the same each bill, so I was trying to think of alternative energy sources (not gas). However, someone told me solar panels were REALLY expensive, and so was a small windmill (although I don't think I could get a permit for a windmill, cause we have neighbors fairly close by). So, do you know of any alternative (viable) energy sources? Do you know of any grants to help defray the costs involved with purchasing and installation?

I appreciate ANY of your good ideas or even advice. We've done everything I can think of to bring our kilowatt hours down (and have), but with the dramatic raise of electricity, there HAS to be some viable alternatives….

What would YOU do, or what have YOU done??

First of all buy a Kill-a-watt and find out what's eating all your power. Then google alternative energy, solar power is very expensive and not very good unless you live in just the right place. It's easy to make your own wind generator using junk and there are lots of instructions on-line. I recommend making your own because a $1200 wind turbine that only makes 300w takes an awful long time to pay itself off. You can make the same thing using a 3 used car alternators some pvc pipe an inverter and a little paint so it looks good for about $100

You can also look at converting your home to a commercial package in some areas you get a break on night time electricity usage which you can then store in batteries.

There is a HUGE community on-line of people making their own power and living with less power, google around and you should find lots.

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If you do send me a E-mail I can tell you how you can do just that. [cattdaddy1216@yahoo.com

yup sure.. if and only if its as cheap as my current provider

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countries like usa and european ones. are they building wind farms and that. what ones?

and also what is the highest renewable energy source for one country?

Yes, a lot of countries are wasting money on wind and solar.

The only ‘renewable’ sources of power that are actually reliable enough to be worth having or hydroelectricity and geothermal power but not all places have the geology needed for them and hydro has something of a bad reputation (well deserved given the environmental impact and what happens when dams fail).

As for who uses the most renewables, Norway has a lot of hydro and Iceland uses geothermal extensively. Denmark has managed to get about 20% wind capacity but hasn’t even shut down any coal power plants and at the moment pretty much just sells the wind power to Norway really cheap where it’s used to pump water uphill.

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And What's a Good Experiment to Prove This?

I would say by comparing how many Watts either source could produce under efficient conditions. Once you've got the energy they're both going to move an object in an equal ratio; it doesn't matter where that energy came from.

In some manner it does matter what we're talking about moving though. If we're talking boats that's completely different from cars or something else.

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I know that Germany is the leading nation in prodcucing electricity, etc from Wind energy. But the govt should have passed some laws taht would encourage wind power right? Also, are the ppl taht use wind power given subsidies, etc
Is there smth on the internet where i can find laws and regulation, etc related to this?
Thanks in advance for ur help.

Yes.

The main law is one which says the electric power companies have to buy any excess power generated by someone who builds a renewable energy source.

Some States in the US have similar laws. But in Germany it's nationwide and the law specifies a price which is reasonable for the power companies while being enough to encourage construction of renewable energy sources.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1765054.stm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/renewable_energy/windgerm.htm

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1. Solar energy is not cost effective due to the cost of equipment and the cost fossil fuels needed to create solar energy cells in the first place. If you were to install solar panel on an average home in Phoenix AZ and you calculated the cost + fossil fuels used in creating the solar equipment it would take from 5-8 years to show a profit. Other cities that get less sun than the desert would take even longer and the cost would go up as you also calculate Maintenance dollars.

2. In order to generate enough energy to effectively curb our need for fossil fuels would not be economically prudent or reliable with the given solar technology as we know it today.

3.Hydrogen fueled cars and and big trucks is the main target of defeating the need for foreign oil. Solar energy will never be able to generate enough energy to supply hydrogen refueling stations.

Yes.

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I have been looking at this myself. I like two smaller and easy ways to get started.
One is to have a solar system put in and tie it into the grid. There are solar SHINGLES now, that look and are applied to the roof like regular shingles,(with normal wear) and are wired together and then tied down through the roof to the grid connection. If you need to reshingle anyway, and you are in a state that pays a rebate for renewables and then sell energy back to the power company when not using it yourself, plus not having to pay for battery system - the system can have a true breakeven or even a lower cost.
I also would like to have some small marine wind generators, to place in 'wind tunnel' type locations around my property. Although my region does not have strong enough winds, I think maybe some locations might have a better chance for a smaller wind system.

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