When David Mears and his wife Dorothy put their house up for sale at the end of last year, it wasn't just the four-plus acres of beautiful woodlot land that made the property appealing. Nor were the five bedrooms or extra cabinet space in their roomy kitchen the most significant features.

The main attraction was the fact that the couple hadn't paid their heating bill for more than 25 years. That's because they hadn't received one since 1980.

Multiply that ...

According to the Department of Energy, more than 85 percent of all the energy consumed in the United States comes from fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas. Some 2,700 pounds of carbon per person each year, or 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, come from operating individual homes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Most of emissions from a residential home come from operating a typical heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

In 1974, Mears and his colleagues publicly presented a new energy efficient greenhouse concept. The design involved installing a special subfloor that can be filled with water heated by solar collectors or a backup fossil fuel system for use on cloudy days. This creates a massive heat storage system that allows the entire greenhouse floor to act as a primary heat source and heat exchanger. The design was a success and was soon implemented at the university.

A few years later, while Mears was continuing his greenhouse research, several other institutions were working on a residential attached-greenhouse concept. Their work generated many unanswered questions he was eager to resolve. "In addition to the desire to answer some of the open questions, we were facing a need for some more space in our home so were planning an addition," Mears said. "Also Dorothy was raising so many houseplants we were running out of space in front of windows for them and they were crowding us out as well, so we really could use the greenhouse."

Government support

Around the same time, the Department of Energy was offering a competitive grants program for solar projects for which Mears wrote a proposal that was supported. Using the grant funds, he added a flooded subfloor to his 125-year-old New Jersey home and attached a greenhouse on the south side of the house with a similar floor design. Solar collectors heated the water from both floors. For days with cloudy skies or in cases of possible malfunctions in the solar system, Mears installed a logical backup system given his large woodlot: a woodstove, capable of heating both the greenhouse and the residence. A water-heating coil in the woodstove made this system efficient in extracting heat, which meant minimizing the amount of wood consumed. Finally, if for some reason both the solar collectors and the woodstove failed, the final back up system—an existing oil-fired setup—would kick in. It never had to.

We were essentially free of the cost of oil for space heating and much of the domestic hot water heating was provided by solar in the spring, summer and fall," Mears said. "This has been the case from 1980 until we moved and sold the house in February, 2006."

Cost effective

During the day, the sun warms the house and greenhouse. A fan is sometimes used to circulate the warm air from the greenhouse throughout the house. Most of the time just opening a window to the greenhouse and the sliding door from the family room is sufficient for air circulation. That coupled with the large amount of heat stored in the floor of the house allowed the overall system to "coast" for a few days without using the woodstove, even on cloudy winter days. Throughout the entire year, except for winter, the solar collectors were also used to heat the domestic hot water. A concept that Mears explains could have been implemented even in winter had they not needed to heat the greenhouse for maintaining plants. Mears' energy sustainable residence has since been maintained above 68 degrees Fahrenheit with the heat from the woodstove and passive gain from the greenhouse, demonstrating that "green" living is not an outlandish and inaccessible concept. It's also cost-effective, even without the help of the grant.

"The system paid for itself very quickly," Mears said. "Those additional costs for the solar and woodstove heating were probably covered by fuel savings in the first several years."

The Sun is free, so it's time to use it. The Brunton SolarFlat 15 harnesses the sun's rays to generate 15 watts of electricity. It is perfect for keeping a charge on any 12v battery powered system.

Put this portal solar panel on your RV, Car, Boat or any other 12 volt battery powered system.

While the panel is in the sun it is also charging the battery on a continuous basis. The Brunton SolarFlat 15 utilizes amorphous solar cells, which don't just sound cool, they also make this very portable solar panel efficient in low light conditions, so even if the weather isn't perfect, you will still get some charge. Reverse flow control prevents the SolarFlat from frying itself, and integrated overcharge protection means it'll never cook your battery, either.

DIMENSIONS: 38" x 13" x 0.6" , WEIGHT: 9 lbs, POWER OUTPUT: 15 w

*** Extra Benefit ***
Multiple Brunton SolarFlat 15 panels can be linked together with the Brunton Solar Controller to charge fast and safe.

Solar-Powered Mole Repeller Drives 'Em Out With Safe, Effective, Annoying Vibrations!
Simply place the waterproof, 13 1/2" long, polymer tube into the mole mound (or even close by), and they will be on their way -- they just cannot tolerate that constant underground vibration! Produces a penetrating, two-second pulse at 30-second intervals, over an area of about 7,000 sq. ft. (approx. 47' radius)....drives them crazy! Powered by a NiCad battery that is recharged during the day by the above-ground, German-engineered solar panel; replace the battery every three years. Works day and night.

The Solar-Powered Maritime Lantern Our weatherproof copper-finished lantern charges with exposure to sunlight and activates automatically at night. With an AC adapter for use on cloudy days.

This latern is a wonderful addition to anyones' yard. Totally portable and with power by the sun you won't have to worry about batteries , kerosene or propane. A great solar product you will enjoy for years.

Chinese developers unveiled the world's first full-permanent magnetic levitation (Maglev) wind power generator at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006 held June 28 in Beijing.

Regarded as a key breakthrough in the evolution of global wind power technology--and a notable advance in independent intellectual property rights in China--the generator was jointly developed by Guangzhou Energy Research Institute under China's Academy of Sciences and by Guangzhou Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Science and Technology Co., Ltd.

Further, the Maglev is able to utilize winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in speeds of 3 m/s, the chief of Zhongke Energy was quoted as saying at the exhibition. When compared with the operational hours of existing wind turbines, the new technology will add an additional 1,000 hours of operation annually to wind power plants in areas with an average wind speed of 3 m/s.
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com

by Steven E. Jones, Professor of Physics at Brigham Young University (BYU), with Colter Paulson, Jason Chesley, Jacob Fugal, Derek Hullinger, Jamie Winterton, Jeannette Lawler, and Seth, David, Nathan, and Danelle Jones.

Introduction

A few years ago, I woke up to the fact that half of the world's peoples must burn wood or dried dung in order to cook their food. It came as quite a shock to me, especially as I learned of the illnesses caused by breathing smoke day in and day out, and the environmental impacts of deforestation -not to mention the time spent by people (mostly women) gathering sticks and dung to cook their food. And yet, many of these billions of people live near the equator, where sunshine is abundant and free. Ergo...

The parabolic cooker involves a reflective dish that concentrates sunlight to a point where the food is cooked. This approach is very dangerous since the sun's energy is focused to a point which is very hot, but which cannot be seen. (BYU students and I built one which will set paper on fire in about 3 seconds!) I learned that an altruistic group had offered reflecting parabolas to the people living at the Altiplano in Bolivia. But more than once the parabolas had been stored next to a shed -- and the passing sun set the sheds on fire! The people did not want these dangerous, expensive devices, even though the Altiplano region has been stripped of fuel wood.

The box cooker: Basically an insulated box with a glass or plastic lid, often with a reflecting lid to reflect sunlight into the box. Light enters through the top glass (or plastic), to slowly heat up the box. Problems: energy enters only through the top, while heat is escaping through all the other sides, which have a tendency to draw heat away from the food. When the box is opened to put food in or take it out, some of the heat escapes and is lost. Also, effective box cookers tend to be more complicated to build than the funnel cooker.

While studying this problem, I thought again and again of the great need for a safe, inexpensive yet effective solar cooker. It finally came to me at Christmastime a few years ago, a sort of hybrid between the parabola and a box cooker. It looks like a large, deep funnel, and incorporates what I believe are the best features of the parabolic cooker and the box cooker.

The first reflector was made at my home out of aluminum foil glued onto cardboard, then this was curved to form a reflective funnel. My children and I figured out a way to make a large card-board funnel easily. (I'll tell you exactly how to do this later on.)

The Solar Funnel Cooker is safe and low cost, easy to make, yet very effective in capturing the sun's energy for cooking and pasteurizing water -> Eureka!

Later, I did extensive tests with students (including reflectivity tests) and found that aluminized Mylar was good too, but relatively expensive and rather hard to come by in large sheets. Besides, cardboard is found throughout the world and is inexpensive, and aluminum foil is also easy to come by. And individuals can make their own solar cookers easily, or start a cottage-industry to manufacture them for others.

Prototypes of the Solar Funnel Cooker were tested in Bolivia, and outperformed an expensive solar box cooker and a "Solar Cookit" - while costing much less. Brigham Young University submitted a patent application, mainly to insure that no company would prevent wide distribution of the Solar Funnel Cooker. BYU makes no profit from the invention. ( I later learned that a few people had had a similar idea, but with methods differing from those developed and shown here.) So now I'm trying to get the word out so that the invention can be used to capture the free energy of the sun - for camping and for emergencies, yes, but also for every day cooking where electricity is not available and even fuel wood is getting scarce.

How it Works

The reflector is shaped like a giant funnel, and lined with aluminum foil. (Easy to follow instructions will be given soon.) This funnel is rather like the parabolic cooker, except that the sunlight is concentrated along a line (not a point) at the bottom of the funnel. You can put your hand up the bottom of the funnel and feel the sun's heat, but it will not burn you.

Next, we paint a jar black on the outside, to collect heat, and place this at the bottom of the funnel. Or one can use a black pot, with a lid. The black vessel gets hot, fast. But not quite hot enough to cook with... We need some way to build up the heat without letting the air cool it. So, I put a cheap plastic bag around the jar -- voila, the solar funnel cooker was born! The plastic bag, available in grocery stores as a "poultry bag", replaces the cumbersome and expensive box and glass lid of the solar box ovens. You can use the plastic bags used in American stores to put groceries in, as long as they let a lot of sunlight pass. (Dark- colored bags will not do.)

I recently tested a bag used for fruits and vegetables, nearly transparent and available free at American grocery stores, that works great. This is stamped "HDPE" for high-density polyethylene on the bag (ordinary polyethylene melts too easily). A block of wood is placed under the jar to help hold the heat in. (Any insulator, such as a hot pad or rope or even sticks, will also work.)

A friend of mine who is also a Physics Professor did not believe I could actually boil water with the thing. So I showed him that with this new "solar funnel cooker," I was able to boil water in Utah in the middle of winter! I laid the funnel on its side since it was winter and pointed a large funnel towards the sun to the south. I also had to suspend the black cooking vessel -- rather than placing it on a wooden block. This allows the weaker sun rays to strike the entire surface of the vessel.

Of course, the Solar Funnel works much better outside of winter days (when the UV index is 7 or greater). Most other solar cookers will not cook in the winter in northern areas (or south of about 35 degrees, either).

I thought that a pressure cooker would be great. But the prices in stores were way too high for me. Wait, how about a canning jar? These little beauties are designed to relieve pressure through the lid -- a nice pressure cooker. And cooking time is cut in half for each 10º C we raise the temperature (Professor Lee Hansen, private communication). I used one of my wife's wide-mouth canning jars, spray-painted (flat) black on the outside, and it worked great. Food cooks faster when you use a simple canning jar as a pressure cooker. However, you can also put a black pot in the plastic bag instead if you want. But don't use a sealed container with no pressure release like a mayonnaise jar -- it can break as the steam builds up! (I've done it.)

How to Build Your Own Solar Funnel Cooker

What You will Need for the Funnel Cooker:

A piece of flat cardboard, about 2 feet wide by 4 feet long.
(The length should be just twice the width. The bigger, the better.)
Ordinary aluminum foil.

A glue such as white glue (like Elmer's glue), and water to mix with it 50-50. Also, a brush to apply the glue to the cardboard (or a cloth or paper towel will do). Or, some may wish to use a cheap "spray adhesive" available in spray cans. You can also use wheat paste.

Three wire brads-- or small nuts and bolts, or string to hold the funnel together.
For a cooking vessel, I recommend a canning jar ("Ball" wide-mouth quart jars work fine for me; the rubber ring on the lid is less likely to melt than for other jars I've found. A two-quart canning jar is available and works fine for larger quantities of food, although the cooking is somewhat slower.).

The cooking jar (or vessel) should be spray-painted black on the outside. I find that a cheap flat-black spray paint works just fine. Scrape off a vertical stripe so that you have a clear glass "window" to look into the vessel, to check the food or water for boiling.

A block of wood is used as an insulator under the jar. I use a piece of 2"X4" board which is cut into a square nominally 4" x 4" by about 2" thick. (10cm square x 5cm thick.) One square piece of wood makes a great insulator.
A plastic bag is used to go around the cooking-jar and block of wood, to provide a green-house effect.

Suggestions:
Reynolds™ Oven Bag, Regular Size works great: transparent and won't melt. (Cost about 25 cents each in U.S. grocery stores.)

Any nearly-transparent HDPE bag (High-density Polyethylene). Look for "HDPE" stamped on the bag. I've tested HDPE bags which I picked up for free at my grocery store, used for holding vegetables and fruits. These are thin, but very inexpensive. Tested side-by-side with an oven bag in two solar funnels, the HDPE bag worked just as well! (Caution: we have found that some HDPE bags will melt should they contact the hot cooking vessel. For this reason, we recommend using the oven-safe plastic bag wherever possible.)

An idea attributed to Roger Bernard and applied now to the BYU Funnel Cooker: place a pot (having a blackened bottom and sides) in a glass bowl, and cover with a lid. Try for a tight fit around the bottom to keep hot air trapped inside. The metal pot or bowl should be supported around the rim only, with an air space all around the bottom (where the sunlight strikes it). Put a blackened lid on top of the pot. Then simply place this pot-in-bowl down in the bottom of the funnel - no plastic bag is needed! This clever method also allows the cook to simply remove the lid to check the food and to stir. I like this idea - it makes the solar cooker a lot like cooking over a fire. See Photographs for further details.

We might be making a video of this for TheSolarPlan.com, since the ones that are out there about the solar cooker aren't all that good.

But here's a YouTube video showing someone who's used the Solar Cooker to boil water, and cook vegetables like potatoes and green beans.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - State energy regulators on Tuesday unveiled one of the nation's most ambitious programs to expand the market for solar power, proposing to offer more than $3 billion in consumer rebates over the next decade. Environmentalists said the California Solar Initiative would help reduce the cost of solar energy, create jobs and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"With rising energy prices and continued air pollution, this is exactly the kind of landmark initiative California needs,'' said Bernadette Del Chiaro, clean energy advocate for Environment California. "From this, we're going to see cleaner air, affordable solar energy and California regaining its world leadership in solar power.''

The proposal revives an essential component of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid to expand use of renewable energy in California. The governor's widely publicized "Million Solar Roofs'' initiative had bipartisan support, but it died in the Legislature this year after construction unions demanded high wages for solar panel installers.

The governor bypassed the Legislature by asking the commission to sponsor the initiative, which shares many provisions of the solar roofs program.

The initiative would offer rebates to homes, businesses, farms, schools and other public buildings that install rooftop solar panels. Large public utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric Co. would not be eligible for the program.

The utilities commission currently offers $400 million in solar rebates through programs funded by a surcharge on consumer utility bills. The new initiative would expand that amount to $3.2 billion using an additional surcharge over 11 years starting in 2006.

In the 1970s, California was the global leader in solar energy, but the state has been overtaken by Japan and Germany, the world's two largest solar markets. Currently, about 15,000 California homes and businesses have solar panels, Del Chiaro said.

"Given the amount of sunshine we have in California and these investments, we will be on pace to catch up with Germany and Japan and hopefully outpace them,'' she said.

But the solar energy industry is betting its comparatively tiny share of the energy bill spoils will be enough to jump-start the industry.

The cost of the solar tax breaks to the U.S. Treasury--less than $52 million out of a $14.5 billion energy package--may seem trifling. But the handout shows that Washington supports solar and should encourage more states to offer breaks too, solar supporters say.

The law both increases tax credits for commercial solar installations and offers individual home owners a credit for the first time in 20 years. (An earlier personal-use solar credit was in effect from 1979 to 1985.)

Interested in claiming a credit? Act fast. To hold down the projected cost, Congress authorized the solar credits for only two years--from Jan. 1, 2006, through Dec. 31, 2007.

Under the new law, businesses that buy solar equipment can claim a federal tax credit equal to 30% of the equipment's cost, with no dollar limit on how big the credit can be. (In 2008, the credit reverts back to today's 10% of cost level.)

Companies such as FedEx (nyse: FDX - news - people ) and Johnson & Johnson (nyse: JNJ - news - people ) that have already installed solar systems on some properties, and have made a commitment toward adding more, are likely to pick up the pace, predicts Resch. "The federal incentives by themselves will not create a market for solar energy, but when combined with state incentives, you reach the economic tipping point to make it work," he adds.

Home owners get a more limited credit. They can put in a photovoltaic system (those are the roof panels that take in energy from the sun and turn it into electricity) and/or a solar-powered hot water system (for hot water heaters, radiant floors or radiators), and get a federal tax credit worth 30% of the systems' cost, up to a credit of $2,000 per system. There are a couple of catches. The heating system can't be for a pool or hot tub. And the federal credit applies to the net system cost after any state incentives.

The good part is that this new federal break is a credit--not a deduction--meaning it reduces your tax bill directly, dollar for dollar. So if you install both eligible solar systems in your house, you can knock $4,000 off your federal tax bill. And if you have more credit than you owe in tax, you can carry it over and use it to defray your next year's federal tax bill.

Meanwhile, states are adding or increasing their solar energy incentives. The subsidies include low-interest loan programs, sales tax exemptions and property tax exemptions for additional property value due to the installation of solar equipment. But you get the most bang for your solar buck from direct state rebates and tax credits.

In Connecticut, for example, since last October, home owners can get up to $25,000 back from the state, up to $5 per watt for a maximum five-kilowatt photovoltaic system. (That's a pretty generous subsidy considering that the typical home photovoltaic system costs $8 per watt installed.) New York just passed an increase in its solar tax credits, effective Jan.1, 2006. The cap for New York's 25% credit will rise to $5,000, up from $3,750--and that's in addition to utility rebates, which offset system costs by 40% to 70%.

Then there's California, home to most of last year's 90 megawatts of solar projects. When the state legislature returns to work on Sept. 15, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Million Solar Roofs legislation will be back on the agenda. The goal: adding 3,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2018, primarily by providing $2.80-per-watt rebates.

In the meantime, the solar industry is preparing to lobby to extend the federal breaks beyond the two-year window. "We're not trying to be a subsidized industry forever," says Resch, "but without longer-term incentives that provide market stability, we won't see manufacturing grow substantially in the U.S."

Senate Bill 82xx requires the state Department of General Services to ensure that solar energy equipment is installed on all existing state buildings and parking facilities, with requirements for inclusion in new projects, as well. The bill also establishes PV as an energy efficiency improvement and is to be eligible for Small Business Fund financing.

Senate Bill 17xx - creates a solar tax credit, which is retroactive to January 1st 2001. The tax credit, for tax years 2001-2003, is equal to the lesser of 15 percent of the net purchase cost of a photovoltaic or wind-driven system with a generating capacity of not more than 200 kilowatts. The Bill allows a credit for one System per each separate legal parcel of property or per each address of the taxpayer in California, and requires recapture of the credit if the system is sold or removed from California within one year. The credit will be reduced to half that amount for tax years 2004-2005, and will sunset on January 1, 2006. Qualifying systems would need to be certified by the Energy Commission, installed with a five-year warranty, and would be required to be in service in California for at least one year. This bill complements other programs that provide incentives for installing renewable systems.

Senate Bill 48xx - Creates the Solar Training, Education and Certification Act of 2001 which is a three prong program that fills in gaps of existing state programs designed to encourage the use of solar energy systems. The bill has 3 compononets: 1) Allowing the California Energy Commission (CEC) to adopt specifications for the major electrical components in the absence of certification by a certified testing laboratory. 2) Authorizing local governments to develop a program to encourage the construction of buildings that use solar thermal and photovoltaic systems that are certified by nationally recognized certification agencies or the CEC. 3) Requiring the California Employment Development Department (EDD) to administer a solar training and oversight program