* RodWarnock.com *

Hi,

          This post continues on from my post of last week on generating electricity at home. There are now a few companies offering FREE  Solar Panels to generate electricity in the UK.

The UK Government introduced their Feed-in Tariff system in April of this year. Under the Kyoto Protocal the UK is committed to generating 20% of energy from natural resources by 2020. Hence they are going to pay householders 41.3p for every 1Kw hour of electricity generated.

The average house would be suitable for installation of a 2kW photovoltaic solar panel system. this would provide around 2,000kW per year and save around £120 to £180 on your electricity bill. simple maths shows that you will be paid around £870 by the Government under the scheme whether or not you use the electricity yourself. The Government is committed to the scheme for the next 25 years, roughly the life of the solar panels.

The cost to install a 2kW system ranges from £12,000 to £14,000 (not £8,000 as I stated last week. apologies).  this means that if you pay for the solar panels to be installed you will receive around £21,750 over the period. So for instance if your system costs £12,000 you will be in profit of £9,750. 

Lets look at the alternatives:

1) If you pay for installation you gain the profit as above, and you save From £120 to £180 per year on electricity bills you have free electricity. 

2) If you go to one of the three solar installers offering free panels, it will cost you nothing to install, but the installer company will keep the £870 per year provided by the Government. You will still have a saving in your electricity bills of around £120 to £180 per year and if you sell you house it will enhance the value.

3) the third alternative is if you cannot afford to fit the panels and do not want the solar installer to get the money from the Government, you can build your own solar photovoltaic panels for a fraction of the installer price. the only down side is that you will have to go off grid as at present the Government are not going to provide a tariff unless it is an approved installation.

Hopefully this situation may change depending on the uptake of the present free scheme. I hope this has been helpful in explaining the current options under to feed-in tariff system.

Hi,

       It seems that there is a use for old coal seams in that Methane gas can be released from the water that is present in the seams. Apparently this water is brought to the surface and the Methane gas is then extracted and used in a power station to provide electricity for homes.

There are lots of old coal seams throughout the UK  and natural fractures in the coal provide pathways for water to drain out so gas is released for collection at the surface. This is not new form of energy, as coal bed methane (CBM) is  already one of the fastest growing forms of energy in America and Australia.

To date just one company that I know of is tapping this source. IGAS, well done to them. North Sea gas is rapidly running out and apparently it is claimed that CBM is squeaky clean and its calorific value is better than the gas currently in the national grid.

Hi,

I have talked before about the possibility of running your car on Hydrogen (from Water) and Diesel or Petrol(gasoline) to save fuel. The good news is that these devices have been improved. There are now a number of companies producing these hydrolizer kits.

One thing that has changed is that in some devices now use Potasium  with distilled water, instead of baking soda and distilled water to produce HHO. Secondly at least one company now guarantees that you will reduce your fuel consumption by 20%.

Thirdly some companies are now measuring emissions once the hydrogen fuel saver has been fitted to vehicles. They are also claiming to reduce emissions to almost zero. This is good news for people in those economies where Vehicle Road Tax is based on emissions.

I hope this means that we can soon start to lobby Government to reduce road tax on vehicles that have been proven to have lower emissions after fitting a hydrogen device. It all sounds very hopeful and I for one am going to check it out. After all who wants to drive a battery car?

Why continue to pay high fuel prices,  save on Diesel or Gasoline
Learn how you can make your own car greener

Hi,
when energy-saving light bulbs were first introduced to the UK they were very expensive and so few people purchased them. Then they became cheap and every supermarket started to offer then in some cases as low as 33p.

the new UK coalition Government has now decided that the subsidies that energy suppliers introduced in order to increaase sales of the bulbs must stop. Under the Government’s Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT), they want energy suppliers to concentrate on helping consumers to reduce their carbon emissions

They want to encourage people to spend money on loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and solid wall insulation. The CERT scheme will be extended from March 2011, so I would suggest you get a stock of energy-saving light bulbs in now before the price goes up.

Hi,

Our reliance on oil to power our cars will soon come to an end as supplies of the fossil fuel run out. But can we really use green  energy like water to power cars? Well the use of water and gasoline or diesel is becoming quite widely established. It is now possible to purchase a kit to run your car on a combination of water and gasoline or diesel.

The aim of these kits is to turn distilled water into HHO. The distilled water is mixed with sodium bicarbonate in a container called an electrolyser. Current from the battery is than passed into the electrolyser and the resulting gas HHO is then fed to the air intake of the engine. HHO increase performance, cleans the engine and reduces emissions. It is also claimed to reduce fuel consumption of the car which varies according to the model.

It is only in recent years that car manufacturers have turned their attention to developing engines that will run on different fuels. Apparently BMW had a design for a water car as much as 30 years ago but took no action on it because of the abundance of cheap oil. Today of course they have a new hydrogen powered car with the Hydrogen 7 model. This car uses gas and hydrogen.

Other manufacturers are researching designs of cars with fuel cells and indeed Honda already has such a car in the FCX. Hydrogen of course is very explosive and so care has to be taken as to how it is delivered to an engine for combustion. This is not a problem with the electrolyser kits as it is HHO that is delivered for combustion. The evaporation of water is another problem that arises when using water as a fuel and the tanks holding the water have to be well insulated.

Development continues and BMW now have another vehicle  the H2R that uses part water and part liquid nitrogen as a fuel. Toyota have had their Prius for some years which runs on battery and gasoline. In recent months we have had a proliferation of new battery cars being put forward, but they only have a range of around 100 miles before needing to be charged up again. In view of the ever increasing demand by consumers for electricity and the likelihood of power blackouts in the UK within 7 years, battery cars are not really the answer.

Water as a green energy does represent an attractive proposition, because hydrogen combustion is clean, burns quickly  and the only emission is water. How soon can we expect to see a car run entirely using the green water source? Well I think that it will be at least another 10 years. The internal combustion engine cannot simply be scrapped. I am sure that scientists can come up with a safe and effective way to extract hydrogen from water to power existing cars. They should also consider biofuels in the short term in the form of waste products, but should not use crops.

 Fortunately those who produce HHO kits are continuing to do research and improve the product. Not only do they now guarantee to reduce fuel consumption by 20%, but they have also done emission tests and obtained impressive results.

The next thing we need to do is lobby the Government to reduce the road tax on larger engined vehicles where it has been proven that a kit has been installed and emissions reduced.

Why wait and continue to pay high fuel prices at the pumps,
Learn how you can make your own car greener

Get a free report on how to save energy in your home. Http://rodwarnock.com

Hi

   You may well have heard that companies working on carbon-capture and storage for coal-fired power stations are developing equipment to separate the CO2  and then pump it down pipes into caverns under the sea.

In the meantime a UK Government backed company the Energy Technologies Institute is looking at a revolutionary way to capture climate-changing gases including CO2 from coal as it is burnt and bonding them into materials that can be used to make bricks. This company is working with Shell to investigate the technology further.

Apparently scientist working at the Energy Technologies Institute discovered that certain minerals and CO2 can react together to permanently store CO2 as solid carbonate products. It may take years to see if this brick-making technology will be effective, but at least it looks like an improvement on piping the CO2 under the sea. 

        Imagine if you could have hot water all year round and at the same time reduce your electricity bill. Well it is achievable if you have a solar hot water  collector to collect the energy from the sun and heat your water.

I am sure you have heard of harnessing the power of the sun to generate electricity using solar panels with Photovoltaic cells. The other type of solar panels to heat water use solar hot water collectors. There are two types, evacuated tubes and flat plate collectors. Both types are fitted to the roof of your home to collect energy from the sun and heat the water which is stored in your hot water cylinder.

Is your home suitable for installation of a solar hot water heater system? The first first consideration is the location of your home, is it exposed to the sun? If you have a pitched roof and your house faces South then you can place a single solar hot water collector on the South facing slope, if you face East/West then you will need one on each slope of the roof for maximum exposure to the sun.

Most houses are suitable for installation of solar hot water collectors, and it does not matter what type of boiler you have it should be compatible, the only exception is if you have  a combination boiler (combi) and do not have a hot water cylinder then it may not be suitable. One thing you will need with a solar hot water system is a larger hot water cylinder, so you need to have the room to install it.

You will not need planning permission to install your solar hot water collector, and maintenance is very low. Most importantly you can save up to a third on your electricity bill and enjoy piping hot water throughout the summer months. You will not have to use your boiler to heat the water, but can use the emersion heater in your cylinder for short periods when it is a dull day.

If you go to one of the estabished Solar companies you will be charged thousands of dollars in the UK from £3,000 – £5,000. When I fitted my solar hot water heater system it cost me over £6,000. That was almost 4 years ago. The good news is that you can now build a solar hot water collector yourself for less than $100. 

You can obtain a detailed instruction manual online for around $37 and you can get the components for less than $100. The system can be built at home in a few days.I can highly recommend a solar hot water system, I can honestly say that it is one of the best additions to my home.  find out how to build your own solar hot water heater system

Hi,

         In view of the almost weekly rise in the cost of Petrol and Diesel fuel, it is good to know that scientists are working on producing fuel from air. Researchers in Japan and America are already working on this idea. This week we hear that scientists from three UK universities, Bath, Bristol and the West of England have been given a grant of £1.4 million to research taking carbon dioxide from air and mixing it with hydrogen to produce fuel.

The idea is to take carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into chemicals, fuels and plastics that are derived from hydrocarbons. The first process is to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and the second process is to develop a way to produce hydrogen other than from water by electrolysis or methane. The suggestion is that algae  could feed on light and the carbon dioxide extracted from air to produce hydrogen biologically.

Perhaps in the future we will have carbon dioxide refineries rather than oil refineries. Lets wish them success and hope they can produce this fuel from air in a reasonable time frame before we all go broke paying for our petrol and Diesel.

Hi,

          Apparently leading gas-producing nations are meeting this week in Algeria to vote on cutting supplies of gas. It seems that they wish to double the price of natural gas. They have been deliberating on reducing supplies for years but this is the first time they have agreed to have a vote.

Whilst it is unlikely that they will agree to cut supplies this time around, it is nevertheless an ominous sign. It is bad enough that the oil cartel have been holding us all to ransome for years without the gas cartel following suit.

To my mind it is yet another reason to start using natural resources of energy like wind power and the power of the sun. Now is the time to find out what particular source of energy suits your home. You may be able to heat your house with a wood burning stove which is carbon neutral.

Use either wind power if you have sufficient wind speed and or solar panels with photovoltaic cells to generate electricity, and solar panels to heat your water.

Hi,

         It has just been announced that a large scale energy project will be sited off the coast of Scotland.  Apparently several different methods will be used to harness the power of the sea. One of the main ones is wave power where large metal pontoons are placed in the water and when the waves hit the different sections and move where they are joined turbines at the joints generate electricity.

One other method that will be used is giant propellers under the sea. The waves  push these propellers which generates electricity. There is already one of these propellers in northern Ireland. It is hoped that these wave power devices off the coast of Scotland will generate in time enough electricity to power 700,000 homes.

It is great to hear news of this sort of innovation especially at a time when gasoline and diesel prices are set to rise further.