Category — Solar Power

What comes to mind when you think of solar powered cooking? A caveman frying bacon on a hot rock maybe? Well, there is a modern day way of getting heat from the sun. If you are looking to live the green life, then you definitely want to learn about ways to cook with less fuel burning products.

This is a solar box cooker that can be made at home! You just need plywood or cardboard, which need to be placed inside of another wooden box. Fiberglass is used to insulate the materials within the box and there is a mirror on the lid directing the sunlight to the contents in the box under the glass. This can reach temperatures as high as 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

This sun oven gets even hotter than the box cooker because it is more concentrated (check out the extra reflectors). You can cook all types of items from cookies to pasta.

Of course there is a downfall when it comes to getting free energy – you can only cook during daylight hours (between 11 am and 5 pm) and those hours have to be sunny. So cloudy days and nighttime hours are when the kitchen closes.

But there is good news. If you don’t mind spending more money to really live green, you can purchase solar panels to energize your home, including your kitchen and conventional stove.

Have you ever thought about how much trash and wasted energy a single vacation can generate? It seems to be something the Environmental Protection Agency is concerned about, and they’ve posted some tips for reducing vacation waste on their website. Here are a few suggestions for preparing for a green vacation. Before you leave, turn your water heater down to it’s vacation setting, and turn down your air conditioning. These two suggestions for a green vacation will help you conserve energy and save money on utility bills. And forget about buying all the travel size toiletries for your trip. Although I must admit that those travel size toiletries are awfully cute, you can easily make your own with a set of reusable bottles, or just take your full size toiletries. After all, a family of 4 can wipe out a travel size shampoo in just a day. Packing for a green vacation is a great opportunity to use reuse all those plastic grocery bags that you don’t know what to do with. Take them along for holding dirty clothes, storing wet swimsuits, and holding trash. When you get home, don’t forget to recycle them.

A brand new solar-operated ferris wheel was introduced tonight to the Santa Monica Pier. According to the news, there were hundreds of people lining up for a free ride until midnight. All those that stood in line, but didn’t get to experience the 130 ft above ocean view before closing, got a rain check. What happened to the old wheel? It was sold on Ebay over a month ago for roughly $50,000 (+ $135,000 for the base sold separately + shipping). LA Times revealed that the winning bidder is a real estate developer and the son of a former Oklahoma City mayor, Humphreys. The auction attracted close to 10,000 watchers and 400,000 pageviews. Half of the proceeds were donated to California’s Special Olympics.

Yes, even Apple is going green. Last month Apple filed a patent to integrate solar cells into their portable devices. The new solar technology will prolong battery life significantly. According to Forbes, “information regarding the performance of a device’s solar cells could be displayed on the main screen next to info for battery power, text message alerts and time of day. Or this information could also appear on top of the solar cells themselves, which are likely to display some version of the Apple logo.” Either way, say goodbye to dropped calls and “you are now running on reserve battery power” pop-ups. I wonder how this will hold up to heat exposure since rule number one with electronics is to leave them out of sun’s harmful rays. MacRumors raises the question of whether the design will suffer as a result of solar implementation, but knowing Apple’s genius designers, I highly doubt that it will. I can’t wait for green laptops, green iPods and green iPhones to finally grace retail shelves. Until then there is always a portable solar charger.

* graphic design by GV

The Hot2O Solar Hot Water Heater Kit is an affordable (around $2,000) and very efficient solar product that retrofits your current gas hot water heater. There is a similar solar kit for electric hot water heaters. All retrofit kits include Solar Hot Water Collectors, Mounting Hardware, controller, drainback and more.

Details:

iSol Plus is an ideal solar solution for all of your portable devices. Buy iSol Plus and say goodbye to dead cell phone, iPod, PDA or PSP batteries. You can charge your gadgets wherever you are under the sun (10-20 hours). And if it rains, you can charge it with your laptop via a USB cable (2-4 hours).

Source: Silicon Solar - iSol Plus - $ 43.95

Specifications:
- Solar Panel: 5.5V 100mA
- Rechargeable Lithium Battery: 3.7V
- Dimensions: 4.5 in x 2.5 in x .6 in
- USB charging cable: 5V 500mA
- DC Outputs: 5.5V 500mA / 7.5V 350mA / 9.5V 300mA

Features:
- Charge using the Sun or USB connector
- Major brand mobile phone adaptors
- Comes with suction cups
- Charging and discharging indicators:
Charging in the sun
Charging with USB cable
Charging portable device

I’d like to dedicate this week to solar solutions for your home. Did you know that enough sunlight falls on the earth’s surface each minute to meet world energy demand for an entire year ? I didn’t either, but it makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that it’s not being used. The biggest obstacle is that solar power installation costs are not affordable by most. The other day I saw a white van parked on my street with a solar biz logo, so I went up to the driver and asked him how much it costs to solar power an apartment or a house. He quoted me a $30,000 starting price. Even with utility companies’ incentives and tax breaks, it’s still not a solution for everyone. In the meantime, there are some less expensive solar products for your home.