Biofuels have been around as long as cars have.

A biofuel is a fuel that contains energy from geologically recent carbon fixation. These fuels are produced from living organisms.

Generating Electricity from Wing Waves.

Wind turbines, like windmills, are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy. At 100 feet (30 meters) or more aboveground, they can take advantage of the faster and less turbulent wind.

Producing electricity from solar energy.

Solar energy is a free, inexhaustible resource, yet harnessing it is a relatively new idea. The ability to use solar power for heat was the first discovery.

Turbines catch the wind's energy with their propeller-like blades.

A blade acts much like an airplane wing. When the wind blows, a pocket of low-pressure air forms on the downwind side of the blade.

Solar energy may have had great potential

Solar technology advanced to roughly its present design in 1908 when William J. Bailey of the Carnegie Steel Company invented a collector with an insulated box and copper coils.

We have been harnessing the wind's energy for hundreds of years.

For utility-scale sources of wind energy, a large number of wind turbines are usually built close together to form awind plant.

Biofuels are produced from living organisms.

In order to be considered a biofuel the fuel must contain over 80 percent renewable materials.

Geothermal energy is the heat from the Earth.

Resources of geothermal energy range from the shallow ground to hot water and hot rock found a few miles beneath the Earth's surface, and down even deeper to the extremely high temperatures of molten rock called magma.

Geothermal heat pumps can tap into this resource to heat and cool buildings.

A geothermal heat pump system consists of a heat pump, an air delivery system (ductwork), and a heat exchanger-a system of pipes buried in the shallow ground near the building.

In the future, civilization will be forced to research and develop alternative energy sources.

Possession of surplus energy is, of course, a requisite for any kind of civilization, for if man possesses merely the energy of his own muscles, he must expend all his strength - mental and physical - to obtain the bare necessities of life.

Showing posts with label what is alternative energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what is alternative energy. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Environmentally Sustainable Shopping Centers And Malls

By , , No comments
Environmentally Sustainable Shopping Centers And Malls
There are a number of more environmentally sustainable shopping options. Shopping centers are environmentally destructive, both because they provide consumers with a wide assortment of energy and resource intensive products and because they themselves require resources to be built and energy to operate. However, there is a positive trend of lower impact shopping centers and malls underway. There are already a number of shopping malls that have gotten greener. The 1.3 million square foot Danbury Fair Mall in Connecticut has installed a 750 kW Bloom Energy fuel cell system. The mall also recently installed new energy efficient exterior LED lighting and a thermoplastic white reflective roof. Their greening efforts do not stop there, in 2015, Danbury Fair will be adding more than 400 solar panels to the central roof areas. One of the greener and most popular green shopping centers is located in Dublin, Ireland. This fall, "St Stephen's Shopping Centre" was recognized for its outstanding efforts in sustainability. It was acknowledged by the Regional Chamber Awards 2014 for its contributions to the overall well-being of the community and the environment as well as sustainable business practices. They have reduced their energy use by 35 percent over the past two years and water usage by 75 percent. They have implemented a rainwater harvesting system, electric car charging points and the very latest Food To Water equipment, which is returning about 60,000 litres of water from waste food back to the water table. They are also involved in community outreach work, which includes a partnership with the Princes Trust to help almost 100 youths with work experience and employment. Not only is St. Stephen's green it is also popular. Figures released in October revealed that a record 11.7 million people visited St. Stephen's in the last 12 months. To assist greener shopping centers there are some new tools that make it easier to track environmental sustainability in a retail setting. At the end of 2013, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) released its Property Efficiency Scorecard (pdf) at the annual RetailGreen Conference. The scorecard provides benchmarks for energy, water, waste and recycling, and green operations. Shopping center landlords can input data, compare their results to others and get suggestions for improvement. Access to the scorecard began in January 2014, and thus far there are an estimated 1000 users.Online shopping is seeing steady growth and e-commerce has been shown to be greener than in-store shopping. The virtual mall may represent the truly green future of shopping. Although it is only in its earliest stages the convenience of online shopping has not yet become the experience that shoppers get in a mall. However, the technology already exists to recreate a more enticing experience online. If e-commerce keeps growing it may eclipse in-store shopping altogether and this would offer tremendous environmental benefits. Subscribe in a reader
Read More