‎Will Solar Panels Function During Winter?‎

יום שלישי 01 ספטמבר 2009‏ בשעה 16:44‏

You may be wondering how solar panels can function in an area that experiences severe winters. After all, this is a technology that relies on sunlight in order to deliver power.

However, the last 10 years have brought much innovation and progress to solar panel technology. Now, even when it’s snowy, cloudy or rainy, solar panels can easily create electricity.

If yours is an off grid system that works separately of a power utility company, your solar energy system will have a set of storage batteries. These batteries are similar to the kind used in cars. They are made to store any excess power that your solar panels generate during the day. Your battery storage system should include enough of these batteries to store energy in correspondence to the amount of overcast days typical for your geographical region.

If your system is tied to the grid (connected to the local electric company) it won’t require storage batteries. When the sun disappears at night, or there’s a interval of inclement weather obscuring the sun for days, your power system will automatically obtain electricity from your local energy company. Of course, during sunny days, your solar panels will be providing your electric power, so you will still be benefitting from lower power costs.

In some areas, you may even be able to sell electricity back to your local electric company. This is yet another way solar panels can prove cost effective. How this operates is that any surplus power that your solar panels generate flows back into the grid system and you receive a credit for it on your energy bill. So even when you need to use power from the grid at night or on overcast days, the excess that was generated by your solar panels will still be used to reduce your overall utility bill.

Source: mindzle.com

‎Back to School with Recycled Pencils‎

יום ראשון 30 אוגוסט 2009‏ בשעה 16:21‏

The pencils are unique, fun, and green. They are manufactured using recycled Chinese newspapers. Each group comes in its own recycled tube to make them even more intriguing. They work just as well as any other pencil.

Buy them here

‎10 Key Values of Being Green‎

יום ראשון 30 אוגוסט 2009‏ בשעה 14:35‏

1. Nature. How can we operate society with the understanding that we are part of nature? How can we live within the limits of the planet, applying our technology to create a less wasteful economy?

2. Democracy. How can we control the decisions that affect our lives? How can we be sure representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them?

3. Responsibility. How can we encourage people and corporations to promote their own health and the health of all? How can we solve our problems without lawyers, judges, regulators, police, or other authorities?

4. Nonviolence. How can we develop alternatives to our patterns of violence at all levels, from the family and the street to the nation? How can we reduce the atmosphere of polarization and selfishness that is a source of violence?

5. Community. How can we have a decentralized society with decisions made as close as possible to home? How can we restore power to neighborhoods, communities and regions? How can we draw the boundaries of decision-making to assure community self-determination while still maintaining central authority where it is necessary?

6. Economy. How can we establish economic security for all, ensure jobs with dignity, keep technology humane, distribute income fairly? How can we restrict the size and power of corporations without discouraging efficiency or technical innovation.

(This may be the most radical of the Green values, a strong questioning of business as usual and a willingness to rethink the first principles of economics -- so that the economy serves people rather than vice versa.)

7. Humanity. How can we encourage a culture that respects feelings as well as logic? How can we be concerned about means as well as ends? How can we learn to respect the contemplative, inner part of life as well as outer achievements?

8. Diversity. How can we tolerate, honor, and celebrate cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, and religious differences?

9. Peace. How can we be responsible partners to struggling people in all parts of the world? How can we maintain world order without creating a world government? How can we cut our defense budget while maintaining an adequate defense?

(Critics of the Greens often accuse them of favoring world government. To the contrary, they are instinctive decentralizers, with a realization, however, that we are all part of an interconnected world and have a responsibility to make that world work.)

10. Sustainability. How can we learn to think toward the long-term future and not just short-range gratification? How can we encourage people to develop visions of the future and to move toward them? How can we make quality, not just quantity, the focus of future thinking?

Source: Sustainability Institute

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הפתקים של Be Green‏

‎Will Solar Panels Function During Winter?‎01 ספטמבר 2009

‎Back to School with Recycled Pencils‎30 אוגוסט 2009

‎10 Key Values of Being Green‎30 אוגוסט 2009

‎Green Office Gadgets‎30 אוגוסט 2009

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