Dec
13
Windmills
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Wind movement created by the warmth of the sun entering the earth’s atmosphere. Wind can be a great source of energy where ever there is a steady flow of it. Today we see windmill farms popping up all over the country. Wind mill farms are big areas of land where windmills been placed in order to harvest the winds energy and create electricity. They are two basic designs of windmills, vertical and horizontal. The horizontal design is the most common used for commercial grade. Horizontal are the windmills with the big blades spinning in front of the big support bodies. They can tower hundreds of feet in the air with the same wing span. Vertical designs create less electricity, but they are more suitable for residential homes or buildings due to low vibration, noise and better balanced. The best thing about windmills they just sat there and create electricity every time it gets windy. They are part of the renewable sources of energy. No fossil fuel required just a little wind. They are a few negative sides to that. One it can be aesthetic, let’s face it who wants to look at big blades spinning in front of them. Second of all is noise, the passing of the blades creates a lot of noise. Last of all it kills birds and bats. Birds fly and hit the blades , but with bats the can avoid the blades because of their radar, what kills them is the difference of pressure created by the blade movement it causes their lungs to explode. Other than these negative effects it has become a great source of income for a lot of land owners or farmers. Basically they just lease their land to the companies who owns the windmills, and in return they make a nice years salary.
Dec
9
Oil Dependency
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When it comes to country’s energy future it seems that we keep missing is that energy sources and what we use them for are not interchangeable. First of all we use oil to transport ourselves, and not to produce the electricity that runs our homes. We use gasoline to power our vehicles and not to produce electricity. Only 1% of our domestic electricity is produced from oil. The rest of 99% comes from hydro, nuclear, coal, and renewable which most of them produced in the U.S. 44% of our oil goes for car gasoline, 21% for diesel fuel, and 9% for jet fuel. That means we are not depending on either oil or foreign countries for our electricity. When they say we need to install more wind mills or solar panels in order to reduce our dependency from foreign oil it is incorrect. Since most of the oil production goes to fuel our vehicles they should make more efficient vehicles. Plug-in hybrids shall be the way to go.
Charging the car from the grid actually it is more efficient and cleaner, because electric companies use alternative sources to create energy. Also the amount of gas that we use with the plug-in hybrid it drastically gets reduced. Given the above in order to get independent from foreign oil and boost our national security car manufacturers they have to make 100mpg vehicles. The best candidates for that range are plug-in hybrids.
Nov
17
Plug-in hybrids
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How 100 MPG in a regular vehicle sounds? Today we can achieve that with a plug in hybrid or (PHEV). PHEV is a regular hybrid vehicle with an extension cord added to it. You can plug it all night in to a regular 120volt outlet and drive close to 40 miles before the generator engine kicks in. It will be the equivalent cost of less than a dollar a gallon of gasoline. Your vehicle becomes an electric car with a gasoline tank as a back up. Running on the electric motor during your city drive, it gives you a quiet, clean and cheaper source of energy to use, and you don’t have to wait for the combustion engine to rev-up before change gears or get up to speed. With the electric motor, the torque is instant, and the acceleration is faster and smoother. If you need to travel further the gas tank is there to use and still get better gas mileage than a regular car. The maintenance on a mainly electric vehicle is lower because you have less moving parts. Another plus for a plug-in vehicle is in case you loose power, like for example after a hurricane, you can use the vehicle as a generator, it saves you in investing in one and also it is much quieter and cleaner. It also helps to move away from depending on foreign oil, and keep gas prices low. The grid, where we get our home electricity it gets cleaner every decade , that means plug-in vehicles will get cleaner as they get older. If you don’t want to use the grid, solar panels it will be another way to go. By investing in some solar panels, inverter and some batteries, you created your own grid. The solar panels absorbed the sun and create DC electricity , while it gets stored in the batteries, when you come home from work in the evening all you have to do is plug-it in and the inverter will transform it into AC voltage. Your car gets charged it up when is not in use.
Nov
13
Cars running on air
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The last few years have been for all of us a stressful roller coaster with the gas prices. With the highest peak in July we were very concerned of the future ahead of us. People found new ways to commute, abandon their SUVs, and bought more efficient vehicles, hybrids became popular. Car companies investing in new technologies so they can increase fuel efficiency in their vehicles. I came across a very interesting concept lately, a car that runs on air, can you believe that. The first time I read it I thought it was a joke, but with some more digging realize it was reality. In France there is a company called Zero Pollution Motors, and has build a car called the “e.Volution.” The car literally runs on compressed air. They marketing the vehicle as low or zero pollution vehicle .The e.Volution are powered by a two cylinder, compressed air engine. It can run on compressed air alone or as an internal combustion engine. Storage provided by composite made tanks located under the car pressurized at 4,351 psi. Now the pressurized air feeds to the engine thru a smaller chamber so it can expand the air and then the air is pushed down the pistons and gives power to the vehicle. Mexico has order 40000 vehicles to replace gasoline and diesel taxis in Mexico City to reduce smog. The company also is working on a hybrid version of the vehicle.
In Australia someone designed a rotor type engine, similar to Mazda’s rotary engine with modifications to run on air. No need for radiator since pressurized air cools off and also no need for an air conditioner, the cold air can be used to cool off the passenger compartment. Another part it gets eliminated is the exhaust system. No emissions there. The only draw back it will be the fill up time and also the energy needed to run the air compressor during fill ups.
Nov
13
Ethanol it can be a great source of fueling our vehicles in the future, but it can not replace gasoline. It will take a mixture of alternate fuels to replace gasoline. Ethanol produced from crops it has to be limited , due to need of crop for food. It also with todays procedures it requires a vast amount of energy and water to produce it. With clima change and droughts expanding, easy water access has become vary needed.Ethanol eats thru the supply lines and freezes faster than gasoline. We have to weight the scale here, are we producing Ethanol from crops for fuel or we use the crops to feed the population of the world? Ethanol production from plants it has to come from a plant it does not used for food, and also no land gets used where previous used for cultivating crops. Science it has to step in and find way to produce it from waist and more efficient than current.
Nathan Glasgow and Lena Hansen. “Ethanol Can Replace Gasoline.” Current Controversies: Alternative Energy Sources. Ed. Darrin Gunkel. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. CCLA, Palm Beach Comm College. 12 Nov. 2008
Nov
13
GNC as Alternate Fuel
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I remember when I was growing up in Greece, my father used to say all the time how expensive gas was due to taxation per liter. He had a 1942 Mercedes the kind we see in the world war two movies. He decided in order to save money he will have to convert to run on natural gas G.N.C. I remember he installed a kit on the carburetor with a switch on the dash; one side said gasoline and the other side said GNC. A cylindrical tank was placed in the trunk taken most of the space. He used to switch from gasoline to natural gas in a few seconds and with no issues. Natural gas was ¼ of the cost of gasoline and 35% of homes in U.S.A heated by GNC… Natural gas used for home heating purposes that is why no road tax applicable. If becomes widely available then expect the government to apply taxes, but how you do that when people can refuel their cars from their homes. Refueling stations are not common for GNC; due to government regulation to keep them separate from gasoline own companies.
Natural gas has a lower emissions; it produces much less (19%) CO and CO2 emissions when compared to gasoline. The oxides of nitrogen emissions for converted vehicles are higher but this increase in emissions could be overcome by catalytic converter redesign.
Fleet test data indicates driver acceptance of vehicle drivability, cold starting, and vehicle performance. The fuel mileage equivalent to a gallon of gasoline is significantly lower. However, the operating costs compared to gasoline are approximately equal. GNC when used in vehicles reduces oil contamination and decreases engine wear, thus, reduced operational costs result. CNG is the cheapest, cleanest, and least environmentally impacting alternative fuel available.
Nov
12
Ethanol as an alternate fuel
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Ethanol as an alternate fuel it can only be part of the solution for fuel independency from oil dominant countries. Ethanol or E85 it is becoming popular world wide because it is cheaper and cleaner than petroleum products. E85 means that is a mixture of Ethanol (alcohol) 85 percent with 15 percent gasoline. By using ethanol we reduce ground level ozone.E85 it is the mix require in the US in order to use it as fuel. In Brazil their vehicles are modify to run on 100 percent ethanol or partial and also with gasoline.Brasil get their Ethanol from the sugar cane, so instead of burning it they extract alcohol and use it as fuel.
US is another big producer of ethanol, mainly coming from corn production .Flex fuel vehicles are the vehicles able to use the E85 mixture of fuel. They have become popular the last few years due to fuel credits the government gives the automakers for producing them. There is only one problem with that, not enough E85 gas stations to support fueling all of those vehicles. Majority of the E85 stations are located around the Corn Belt in the Midwest making it unavailable for the rest of us. E85 is relevantly cheaper than gasoline, but the miles per gallon drop in your vehicle.
You have to weight the scale here and see if it is the right choice for you. It will probably be an option when gas reaches over four dollars a gallon. Another issue by using corn is that it is not the best way to get ethanol and also depletes the food sources. It is great for the farmers but not for the food prices. There some good news on the horizon GM has partner with a company called Coscata, and they claim the can produce one gallon of ethanol for one dollar. They supposed to be able to produce from any kind of waist products. An ethanol refinery shall be coming in a few years in Palm Beach County.
Nov
12
Gas Prices
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Gas prices have rised the last few years at a historic rate, causing food, energy,and materials to increase in price. Peoples driving habbits are changing rapidly and the same goes for food and spending in general. Big change in what kind of vehicles people are purchasing, there is a big shift towards the smaller more efficient cars.
From past experience we have seen that gas prices respond more quickly to increase than they do to decreases. They claim there is a high demand and short supply for the price increases. How can the demand be high when people are driving less or switch to public transportation and trade large SUVs’ for compact more efficient vehicles? Wholesale prices spiked up with analysts speculating that maybe something it will happen to an oil producing area either political or natural situation. The analogy between the wholesale price and the retail price increases is asymmetric. Wholesale prices and retail prices can’t increase at the same time. The reason is we are using gas that it was pumped and sold months ago at a lower price.
Speaking of political situations, gas prices they have been on the decrease since August and continuing to decrease at a steady rate. From past experience gas prices drop around presidential elections, no matter what is happening. For example recently Hurricane Gustav a cat 3 Hurricane went thru the Gulf and made landfall in Louisiana, causing the Oil wells to shut down for a week and also the refinery and the port of New Orleans, major oil depot. Everybody is expecting oil prices to climb, but to everyone’s surprise no change. The war in Georgia it shall had an effect on gas prices because major Russian pipe lines go through the country. The supply pipeline was shut down by the Russians as a precaution they said. Present time oil pumping supply shut down for days but no increase in oil prices, in the past oil prices increased by just a speculation . If I am correct gas prices shall start increasing again after November’s elections.
Sep
3
Hello world!
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Welcome to PBCC English. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!