Posts Tagged ‘environment’

Simple Steps to Make Biodiesel and Stop Paying 4$ on a Gallon of Gas

Posted on January 1st, 2010 by by Dana Goldberg

Homemade Biodiesel is another great way to make use of otherwise wasted materials. Most people had absolutely no good use for left over, used vegetable oil until now. In fact, in Britain improper disposal of used vegetable oil had become such a serious issue, that many have begun reusing it to create fuel. The drains and pipes of Britain are thanking them by working much more efficiently.

Imagine owning a restaurant that uses a high volume of vegetable oil. The oil has to be paid for to begin with, then once it has been used, it generally needs to be taken away for disposal, which adds additional cost. Or worse, it is disposed of in an improper manner.

Thankfully these folks no longer need to worry about this. In fact, they stand to benefit. These huge amounts of used oil may be saved in barrels and turned into bio-diesel. They can either use it to fuel their car, home, or if they prefer, even sell it.

The word diesel should suggest what may not occur to many. This is appropriate fuel for a diesel engine, and should not be used in a regular auto engine. Some regular engine vehicles may be altered to accommodate this fuel however. It is best to leave this to a professional.

You may also use this newly created fuel for home heating. Imagine the money that will be saved when not needing fossil fuel. Not to mention the work that you will be doing to help the environment.

Always remember to use caution with the potentially dangerous ingredients involved in this process. Be sure to follow all directions precisely. There are many web sights offering excellent recipes for making homemade biodiesel, and they are quite simple.

Electricity And Its Origins

Posted on August 7th, 2009 by by Tom Norman

Over the last 200 years, electricity has become an essential part of most aspects of modern life. One of the first successful, publicly available applications of electricity was the early incandescent light bulb.

The electric overhaul of society obviously brought many fresh new dangers with it, but it eliminated some of the old ones, like the naked flames of gas lighting that was commonly used in homes and factories then.

The Joule heating process takes place in light bulbs, and also in electric heating. Many people have condemned electric heating as uneconomic because effectively, heat energy is being used (in power stations) on mass to create heat for houses.

Denmark (among a few other countries) has issued a new law restricting electric heating use in new buildings, if allowed at all. As well as heating, electricity provides a hugely beneficial source of refrigeration. As temperatures get hotter, the demand for air conditioning gets higher, increasing the amount of energy used, and so climate change is increasing in a snowball effect.

Another area that depends on electricity to function is telecommunication. The electric telegraph was in fact one of the first ways in which electricity was used successfully.

In the 1860s, electricity had made global communication possible with the first intercontinental telegraph systems (this was of course before the telephone) and then the first transatlantic ones. Since then, satellite communication and optical fibre have taken a share of the communications market, but electricity is sure to remain a vital part of the process.

You can visibly see electromagnetism best in an electric motor, which is one of the best providers of clean, motive power. A motor that doesn’t move, like that of a winch, can easily be powered by an external source, but an electric motor that needs to move with its application, like an electric scooter, must carry a power supply such as a battery along with it, unless it uses a pantograph like cable cars.

The transistor is undoubtedly one of the most important breakthrough inventions of the 1900s. All modern electrical circuits use one to direct the right amount of electricity flow to the right application. Several billion tiny transistors can fit into only a few centimetres.

Plug-in Hybrid Cars vs Hybrid Cars

Posted on August 5th, 2009 by by Colin Jones

Hybrid cars are on everyone’s lips these days. Twenty, forty, or fifty dollars for a tank of fuel? Who really wants to pay that sort of money? But, frustrated, the petrol customer sighs, but pays up. However, hybrid vehicles are being richly applauded for the small amount of gas they need to operate, and they are flying off the forecourts of car dealerships each and everyday in ever increasing numbers.

But what about a plug-in hybrid? Most consumers have heard that these cars are great as well. Then, a person might be asking him or herself, what exactly a plug-in hybrid is? How do they work, and what the difference between a plug-in hybrid and a regular hybrid is?

Plug-in hybrids are capable of running solely on batteries, but they can run on gas also. These kinds of hybrid cars have some of the characteristics of hybrid vehicles. They are also very similar to all-electric vehicles.

Plug-in hybrid cars must be charged externally by plugging them into an electrical power source. The combustion engine of plug-in hybrid vehicles is used only as a back up. These cars can run only on batteries if so desired, but it is to be expected that these kinds of hybrid cars be plugged in daily.

Hybrid cars can go just as many miles as a conventional car. Designed to go the extra mile where fuel-mileage is concerned, hybrids can be driven on the highway, in cities, or wherever else a person needs to drive.

On the other hand, plug-in hybrids are designed to handle commuter-type distances, meaning between twenty and sixty miles between destinations. This way, the plug-in hybrid does not have to use its back up combustion engine, but plug-in hybrids can go further using fuel as well.

Hybrids help to minimize pollution, but they still pollute the air. Compared with plug-in hybrids, hybrid cars still have a long way to go where pollution is concerned. Since plug-in hybrid cars can run solely on their battery power, they don’t have to emit waste fuel emissions. That means that plug-in hybrids don’t have to pollute the atmosphere.

Plug-in hybrids actually do combat greenhouse gas emissions and plug-in hybrids use virtually no oil imported or not. Studies have shown that electric hybrids emit at least 67% less greenhouse gases compared to petrol cars. Since the product used to power plug-in hybrids is renewable, the difference in greenhouse gas emissions may be even greater than the study determined.

There you have it – the major differences between plug-in hybrids and regular hybrid cars. It could make a big difference, but you would be surprised at how little it actually matters at the moment, but tht’s only because plug-in hybrids are not being marketed to consumers yet! But this article should make you enthusiastic about the fantastic plug-in hybrid car, which will be featuring soon on a forecourt near you.

And it’s going to be a great debut too. People already really like regular hybrid cars, but they haven’t seen anything until they see the new plug-in hybrid cars. However, for now, maybe they should just be satisfied with what they have, because who knows? Before plug-in hybrid cars come out, something even better might be introduced onto the market.