Greening Your Home and Lifestyle

Turning eco-savvy is the catchphrase these days. You can do it too! After all, it is real easy to adopt green living ways and it doesn’t cost a dime. As a matter of fact, you might just end up saving money. In times when prices are shooting up and resources are scarce, everyone can make a positive change by going green. Here are a few simple things you can do if you also want to take on a greener lifestyle.

1. Recycle and reuse

The supply of many material like plastic and metals is limited. So, try to reuse and recycle as much as possible. Keep track of recycling centers and pick up services to which you can make a donation. Make use of recycling bins set up in your locality or office. One can easily reuse cloth, paper and glass items around the house. Buy recycled paper, bricks, plastics or reclaimed wood.

2. Buy eco friendly supplies

Ditch plastic and stack green tagged products at home such as bamboo mats, cloth table covers and stone crockery. Furnish your house with eco-chic goods like bamboo flooring, reclaimed wood furniture, stone islands and cloth drapes. Even insulation installed in your house can be eco friendly. Munch on organic and fair trade certified foods. Use plant based cleaners or baking soda and vinegar to scour things up in your house. Plant trees wherever you can, be it indoors or outside your home.

3. Generate less trash

Garbage thrown out of homes is bunging up landfills and polluting the environment. Recycle or reuse trash by making new objects or turning it into compost. Avoid throwing out non-biodegradables like plastics or chemical wastes like batteries and electronic chips. A good way to create less trash is to buy things that you can use for longer. Opt for recyclable batteries, sturdier furniture and durable appliances.

4. Save energy

Do not leave appliances running when you do not need them and use electronic gadgets only when required. Reduce dependence on the lights by using candles or oil lamps wherever possible and replace incandescent bulbs with florescent ones. Use cold water while doing laundry and leave your clothes to air dry. Buy locally manufactured goods as less energy is expended to transport them. Switch off the air conditioners and open the windows to cool down your house. During the winters, layer yourself with warm clothes instead of turning up the heater. Go for energy efficient appliances and if possible switch to renewable sources of power like solar or wind energy.

5. Conserve resources

The fresh water reserves in the world are depleting fast, so try to minimize use of water. Do not leave any taps running and get all leaky spouts around the house fixed. A lot of water pours out while showering, so opt for a tub or bucket while having a bath. Try biking, walking, public transport or carpooling instead of your gas guzzling car. You can also drive a green vehicle. Minimize use of paper to save another tree from being felled.

Resources like energy, metals and paper are diminishing rapidly and most products up for sale are doused with harmful chemicals or pollutants. Do your bit to fight this crisis by conserving wherever you can and buying all-natural merchandise. In fact, doing up your home the green way can also increase its resale value.

About the author: Diana Maria is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she’s fond of books. Recently an article on Richard Branson attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on biomass energy.

Wind Power An Alternative Energy

A wind turbine needs air, lots of it to turn the blades. A modern wind turbine ranges from 600 KW to 5 MW of rated power, although for commercial use the output range is typically 1.5-3 MW.

Because wind speed is not constant, a wind farm’s annual energy production is never as much as the sum of the generator nameplate ratings multiplied by the total hours in a year. The ratio of actual productivity in a year to this theoretical maximum is called the capacity factor. Typical capacity factors are 20-40%, with values at the upper end of the range in particularly favorable sites. For example, a 1 megawatt turbine with a capacity factor of 35% will not produce 8,760 megawatt-hours in a year, but only 0.35x24x365 = 3,066 MWh, averaging to 0.35 MW. Online data is available for some locations and the capacity factor can be calculated from the yearly output.

Globally, the long-term technical potential of wind energy is believed to be five times total current global energy production, or 40 times current electricity demand. This could require large amounts of land to be used for wind turbines, particularly in areas of higher wind resources. Offshore resources experience mean wind speeds of ~90% greater than that of land, so offshore resources could contribute substantially more energy. This number could also increase with higher altitude ground-based or airborne wind turbines.

Wind power is renewable and produces no greenhouse gases during operation, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

Wind Power Market

At the end of 2008, worldwide wind farm capacity was 120,791 megawatts (MW), representing an increase of 28.8 percent during the year, and wind power produced some 1.3% of global electricity consumption. Wind power accounts for approximately 19% of electricity use in Denmark, 9% in Spain and Portugal, and 6% in Germany and the Republic of Ireland. The United States is an important growth area and installed U.S. wind power capacity reached 25,170 MW at the end of 2008.

Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, in Texas, is one of the world’s largest wind farm at 735.5 MW capacity. It consists of 291 GE Energy 1.5 MW wind turbines and 130 Siemens 2.3 MW wind turbines. A proposed 4,000 MW facility, called the Pampa Wind Project, is to be located near Pampa, Texas.

In the UK, a licence to build the world’s largest offshore windfarm, in the Thames estuary, has been granted. The London Array Windfarm, 20 km off Kent and Essex, should eventually consist of 341 turbines, occupying an area of 230 km². This is a £1.5 billion, 1,000 megawatt project, which will power one-third of London homes. The windfarm will produce an amount of energy that, if generated by conventional means, would result in 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year. It could also make up to 10% of the Government’s 2010 renewables target.

Wind Farms

Wind power is one of the most environmentally friendly sources of renewable energy

A wind farm, when installed on agricultural land, has one of the lowest environmental impacts of all energy sources:

* It occupies less land area per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity generated than any other energy conversion system, apart from rooftop solar energy, and is compatible with grazing and crops.
* It generates the energy used in its construction in just 3 months of operation, yet its operational lifetime is 20 to 25 years.
* Greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution produced by its construction are low and declining. There are no emissions or pollution produced by its operation.
* In substituting for base-load coal power, wind power produces a net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, and a net increase in biodiversity.
* Modern wind turbines are almost silent and rotate so slowly (in terms of revolutions per minute) that they are rarely a hazard to birds.

Studies of birds and offshore wind farms in Europe have found that there are very few bird collisions. Several offshore wind sites in Europe have been in areas heavily used by seabirds. Improvements in wind turbine design, including a much slower rate of rotation of the blades and a smooth tower base instead of perchable lattice towers, have helped reduce bird mortality at wind farms around the world. However older smaller wind turbines may be hazardous to flying birds. Birds are severely impacted by fossil fuel energy; examples include birds dying from exposure to oil spills, habitat loss from acid rain and mountaintop removal coal mining, and mercury poisoning.