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There’s a much cheaper way to produce hydrogen: spray steam on white-hot coals and out comes mostly hydrogen gas (40 percent) and carbon monoxide (50 percent), a mixture known appropriately as “water gas.” It’s the least expensive way to make hydrogen. Unfortunately, the carbon monoxide produced along with it is highly poisonous. To extract the last bit of energy, the carbon monoxide can be burned, and that turns it into the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Electric cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells don’t produce greenhouse-enhancing carbon dioxide. But producing hydrogen does-and if we want to reduce our petroleum dependence, we’re going to have to reconcile ourselves to that fact.

With this technology, sea water turbines do not come into contact with water

Instead, a column of air is set in motion which drives the machines. In detail, this works in the following manner: The waves spill into a hollow container which is open to the sea. This compresses and calms the air column in a so-called collector in a similar way to how an air pump works. The power plant "breathes" in and out. The pressure difference is then turned into rotary energy in a so-called Wells turbine (named after its inventor). This is in turn passed to a generator where electricity is produced. This means that the turbine has the air periodically flow through it from both sides, depending on whether the device is "breathing" in or out. Because of the special rotor geometry, there is no need to either periodically change the blade angles or the direction of rotation. If you consider the fact that an average of some 3 million waves break on to the coast every year, it is clear that only this simple turbine design can offer maximum reliability.

Let’s not hide the fact that manufacturing solar panels requires resources, fossil fuels that release CO2 emissions and add to our carbon footprint. However, it’s been shown in numerous studies that solar panel production releases nowhere near as much CO2 and other greenhouse gases as electric generated from coal, oil, natural gas, etc. (And you still need to produce the equipment to generate electricity from those sources as well.)

During the first half of 2008, the United States, for the first time, generated more wind energy electricity than Germany, despite the fact that the smaller European country still has more turbines than we do. Germany has enough turbines to collect about 22,000 to 23,000 megawatts of power, while the United States has a capacity of about 18,000 megawatts,

pollution spewing from a typical coal plant

3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming--as much CO2 as cutting down 161 million trees.

sulphur dioxide (SO2), which causes acid rain

Then we’ll present diagrams and discuss photovoltaic solar, solar hot water, and concentrated solar power. The easiest way to think about these is: am I using solar energy to heat water (solar hot water and CSP) or am I converting sunlight directly into electricity (photovoltaic cells)? Solar Energy Diagram #1 – Insolation

electromagnetic radiation