ECOPAGE
SOLAR...BATTERY POWER
We can also use solar energy to make electricity. The process is called photovoltaics. If you have a solar-powered watch or calculator, you’re using photovoltaics! In 1954, scientists at Bell Telephone discovered that silicon (an element found in sand) created an electric charge when it was exposed to lots of sunlight. Just a few years later, silicon chips were used to help power space satellites. Today, more than 10,000 American families get all of their electricity from solar power. And silicon from just one ton of sand, used in photovoltaic cells, could produce as much electricity as burning 500,000 tons of coal. You might be wondering why we don’t use solar electricity all the time. Solar power systems make a different kind of electricity than big power plants do, so different wiring is needed – and that can be expensive. |
heliostatic sunlight receivers
Sunlight is composed of photons, or particles of solar energy. These photons contain various amounts of energy corresponding to the different wavelengths of the solar spectrum. When photons strike a photovoltaic cell, they may be reflected, pass right through, or be absorbed. Only the absorbed photons provide energy to generate electricity. When enough sunlight (energy) is absorbed by the material (a semiconductor), electrons are dislodged from the material's atoms. Special treatment of the material surface during manufacturing makes the front surface of the cell more receptive to free electrons, so the electrons naturally migrate to the surface. When the electrons leave their position, holes are formed. When many electrons, each carrying a negative charge, travel toward the front surface of the cell, the resulting imbalance of charge between the cell's front and back surfaces creates a voltage potential like the negative and positive terminals of a battery. When the two surfaces are connected through an external load, electricity flows.
The photovoltaic cell is the basic building block of a photovoltaic system. Individual cells can vary in size from about 1 centimeter to about 10 centimeter across. However, one cell only produces 1 or 2 watts, which isn't enough power for most applications. To increase power output, cells are electrically connected into a packaged weather-tight module. Modules can be further connected to form an array. The term array refers to the entire generating plant, whether it is made up of one or several thousand modules. The number of modules connected together in an array depends on the amount of power output needed.
Pictured below is GM-Saturn's electric vehicle EV1....WOW, where and when can I get one?
The EV1 has a fascinating story! Would any of you like to have a vehicle that accelerates from 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, has a range of 300 miles at 70 mph and never costs a dime for gas? Imagine an automobile that operates for an equivelant fuel cost of 50 cents/gallon with zero exhaust emissions and standard maintenance every 5000 miles consisting of tire rotation and refilling of windshield wiper fluid. This is the EV1 that was successfully produced by GM and used in California in the late 90s but eventually pulled off the road and run through the shredder despite public demand and universal satisfaction...Why, you ask? At first was an attempt to blame the battery technology for the disappearance of the electric car, which in its original form designed by GM's Delco only gave the EV1 a range of 60 miles. Then Stanford Ovshinsky, a battery engineer came into the picture. His battery jumped the EV1's performance to a driving range of 300 miles. GM resisted use of this product at first, but eventually bought Ovshinsky's work, but censored him when he advertised the battery's performance. GM then sold it to Chevron-Texaco who was already lobbying against the electric car. Oil companies feared the long- term effects of the car on the oil business, and no doubt its impact on the value of their oil reserves.
Fill 'er up....um, I mean, plug 'er in!
In a confidential 1995 memorandum, the tactics of the American car manufacturers are revealed. The Auto Manufacturers Association hired a PR firm to oppose the California mandate requiring zero emissions in its original form. The oil companies for their part supported and financed an organization called Californians Against Utility Company Abuse, so named to give "green" cover to oil company self interests. No doubt they were worried about a shrinking market and the prospect of the owners of electric cars refuelling by simply plugging in at home in their own garages. The group would show up at public meetings and argue that municipal or other public support for infrastructure in the form of electric charging stations along public roadways was a waste of taxpayers' money. They specifically opposed allowing utilities to add a surcharge to cover the cost of construction of recharging kiosks. Also the Feds got involved. Andrew Card, a Bush Administration advisor, had been CEO of the Automobile Manufacturers Association, before working for Bush. Immediately following his appearance in the Bush Administration the Federal Government sued the state of California, interfering with the development of the electric car. In 2002 they provided a $4000.00 tax incentive for the purchase of an electric vehicle, but in 2003, an incentive more than ten times that amount for the purchase of the 7000 lb. gas guzzling Hummer H1!
The American car companies then introduced President Bush's own pet project, the automobile powered by the hydrogen fuel cell to make themselves look good. As it stands, while the fuel cell has some appeal, it remains less than fully developed. The fuel cell car is expensive, has a short range; the fuel is unavailable and it too is expensive and there is no fueling infrastructure, plus they don't do well in cold weather. Safety is also an issue since hydrogen is the substance that ignited the Hindenburg in 1937. The hydrogen fuel cell vehicle's practical appearance is 2020 or later but its utility for delaying progress on the electric car is immediate.....
To learn technological advances General Motors and "Bush oil" tried to hide forever, watch (Sony Pictures) Chris Paine's, "Who Killed The Electric Car?"
Despite a $1.9 million offer to buy the last (78) GM/Saturn EV1s and although GM swore all EV1s would be completely stripped down part by part and recycled or reused in other automobiles, by 2006, (500) perfectly good 1997 GM/Saturn EV1s were wastefully destroyed...SHAME ON YOU- GENERAL MOTORS...And you want us to bail you out?!
NOT FOR SALE AT ANY COST !! In December 2004, Chris Paine, an American filmmaker received a tip-off that GM was crushing the reclaimed EV1s at a facility in Arizona - literally obliterating the evidence of the vehicle's very existence. Without even waiting for financial backing, he made an impulsive decision to rent a film crew and a helicopter and made an aerial reconnaissance of the facility where, sure enough, he saw the EV1's being smashed flat and loaded on to flatbed trucks for disposal in high-powered shredding machines. Three months later, the activists discovered that 78 EV1s were in storage at a GM facility in Burbank. They staged a month-long vigil to campaign for the vehicles' survival. To challenge the company's line that nobody wanted them, they found buyers for every last one and offered a total of $1.9 million to take them off the company's hands. The vehicles, however, ended up being loaded on to semi trailers and removed, and several activists who tried to put themselves between the cars and the semis were arrested. As Chelsea Sexton, one of those activists, puts it in the film: "There is no precedent for a car company rounding up every one of a particular kind of car and crushing them as if one of them might get away." That's what all the car companies did, though - the only exception being Toyota, which agreed to sell, not lease, 300 electric RAV4s. They are the only electric vehicles still in existence. Toyota laughs out loud at American car companies begging the hard working forward thinking tax payers for financial bail outs, embarassing.