There are several guides on the market that help you build inexpensive solar panels all on your own. The guides cost less than $50 and if you try real hard to find some low cost cells, the cost of a panel can be under $200. DIY Solar Panels. Here is one story.
We looked at a few of these and found them to be of reasonable quality and certainly able to help a so-so handyman build a solar panel. The new videos in GreenDIYenergy.com‘s package seemed to be the best quality and included every step in the process.
Bob Metcalfe, using the history of the Internet as a guide, provided his list of things to look for and look out for in the changing energy sector.
Metcalfe gave an optimistic view of the environmental challenge suggesting not only are we in a Global Warming Bubble but that cheap, clean energy will be so abundant, it will easily be squandered.
He suggested the best place for research is in the research universities and not in government labs which are “nothing more than local earmarks”. In this model, professors along with their graduate students, will commercialize innovation with the help of entrepreneurs and venture capital.
Metcalfe warned that energy and environment are two overlapping issues and they should be viewed as two things. Otherwise, we may solve energy without solving the environment or vice-versa. Oh, and he offered a new color for clean energy, blue.
So, how many Google searches produce the equivalent CO2 emissions as boiling a cup of water?
A confusing question unless you been following the stream of posts generated by the Sunday Times of Londonquoting (or misquoting) Harvard University physicistAlex Wissner-Gross‘ study on the energy used by view webpages. IN the story, the Times reporters stated “Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.” This seems to equate to about 7 grams of CO2.
Google immediatelyresponded in a blog poststating “we have designed and built the mostenergy efficient data centersin the world, which means the energy used per Google search is minimalsuggesting the number is closer to 0.02 grams per search.” And went on to state the energy used by the PC performing the search is greater than the search itself.
Meanwhile according to Tech News World,Wissner-Gross claims neither he nor the studymentioned Google or had anything to do with Google and certainly not with tea kettles. “They did that. I have no idea where they got those statistics,” Wissner-Gross said.
And in response to these back and forth discussions, more than a few bloggers have decided to weigh in: