Energy and Construction - Clima2007

Greg Said:

How can we make solar energy and other sources of renewable energy cheaper to make and maintain?

We Answered:

There are a lot of people working on that problem right now. I live near the Silicon Valley and there are a bunch of new companies that have started in the last few years to bring to market new solar technologies that will be cheaper that our current products.

One very important type of solar power that is not as widely used as it could be is Passive Solar Heating. This means that a house is designed to get most of its heating from sunlight. To work well the house must be facing the right direction to catch sunlight and must be shaped and have windows in the right places. Insulation is also very important to it working well. Clearly with a preexisting house it may not be practical to make these kinds of changes.

However if a new house is designed and built to use passive solar heating it can add little or no cost to the house and yet you can have a house that will largely heat it self using just the sun. Passive solar heating takes a little extra effort in the design stage and requires that houses be oriented correctly with respect to the sun and most builders and architects do not know much about this.

It might be a good idea to have building regulations that require new construction to make use of passive solar heating. Those requirements would encourage builders to learn about passive solar and to use it. That would allow us to greatly reduce the amount of new heating energy demand for new houses and would cost almost nothing.

Alexander Said:

Could gravel batteries make renewable energy more realistic?

We Answered:

What do I think?
Well, when I first read the article, I thought it had to be a joke.
I then had to look at the date of publication of the article, just to make sure that this was a current article, and not an 'April Fools' day joke which I had not heard of before, and then when I realized that it was only published yesterday I had to dismiss the 'April Fools' aspect, and since it is the 'Guardian' then it MUST be TRUE!

There are many things about this story which would actually be funny if it were not so extremely sad.
Without going into any real and 'boring science' (to far too many people), One thing which interested me which really is worth noting was the comment, "Isentropic claims a round-trip energy efficiency of up to 80% and, because gravel is cheap, the cost of a system per kilowatt-hour of storage would be between $10 and $55."!
I have to ask anyone with a modicum of intelligence to be able to justify that in any way whatsoever.
Or am I missing something?

It seems to me that none of this makes any sense at all (either scientifically, or financially).

Samuel Said:

Can you make money by buying stocks of renewable energy companies?

We Answered:

Nobody can predict the movement of any stocks whether going up or coming down. Many of the market professionals use fundamental analysis of companies along with technical analysis like chartology, option movements and relative price strength of stocks.

There might be many people who think the same logic as yours and made investment in renewable energy companies. Consequently, some of these companies' shares have gone up significantly where you might have to find a good spot to buy at certain time.

What you need to do is to study the company's performance (revenues and earnings and their growth) in relation to the stock price. Also, look into the company's financial condition (does it have a lot of debts?), market share of its products, product leadership, and earnings browth rates vs. its competitors.

Since you will be investing your hard earned income, be very careful in doing the preliminary studies before investing. I recommend you also read a couple of books on investment.

Audrey Said:

How to make Ethanol gel fuel as a renewable cooking energy?

We Answered:

Obtain a saturated solution of calcium acetate in water and add Ethanol, with stirring, until the mixture gels.

Curtis Said:

What kind of money can someone make with an AAS in renewable energy?

We Answered:

If you own a degree - or any extra qualification - then you'll already be ahead of the crowd when it comes to hunting for vocations. My mate has a degree and he wasn't certain what direction to go with it, but he unearthed some good instruction on the site in the resource box below which guided him to decide that he wanted to be a lab assistant. There is lots of guidance on the site regarding extra vocations.