Renewable Energy Class Winter Quarter 09-10.

This Winter I am taking several college classes, one of them is a Renewable energy class. I was expecting something like, "These are solar panels and this is how they work and how to wire them." But after my first class Wednesday night, it seems it will be more of a lecture class than actual hands-on work. I don't really mind it too much...I am quite sure, however, that there will be something about Climate Change\Global Warming, and rest assured that I won't score many brownie points with my teacher for my views on that subject. Anyway since it's a class that meets only on Wed. nights once a week, I already got homework. I'm supposed to do some sort of energy efficiency checklist of my house. Things like what kind of furnace or AC do I have or how much insulation is in the attic, do I have thick curtains, thin curtains, or no curtains at all. Do I have mostly floors or carpets...Etc..etc..etc.. I suppose this is just to familiarize myself with noticing the Energy efficiency of household objects or something like that. I did find several things interesting about our first class. firstly, did you know that there are actually 3 types of Solar panels? 1. Solar Electric, the kind most people usually think of when they hear the word. 2. Thermal Solar (Not sure I have the exact term correct) The type that traps air and heats it up from the sun's energy and then shoots it via a fan to heat up your house. 3. Water solar, This takes the heat from the sun and water supplied by you, the water flows around a coil that gets warmed up by the sun and the water then in turn gets warm, which is then sent to your water heater or water storage tank, for use.

(That's all from memory, as I didn't take any notes..I'll try to next class, though.)

Another thing that my teacher, Michael, talked about was how heat circulated through the air. Take a livingroom, for example, with a large picture window as the centerpiece of the room. The window shows a beautiful scenery with a winter wonderland outside. The room is warm and inviting, but someone has left the curtains open. The warm air next to the window, is sucked right through the glass, leaving only cold air behind. This colder air then falls down, because cold air is "heavier" and is always lower than warm air. The cold air hits the floor and travels along the floor until it finds a heatsource, this cold air is then heated again, and begins to rise upwards. This warmer air now travels back to the window where the warmth is again sucked out again, which then causes the air to fall and repeat the cycle once again. This is why insulation and a heavy curtain could be important to keep the warm air inside the house, especially on cold winter nights. Have you ever been lying on the living room floor, or at least gone barefoot around the house, and suddenly you feel a cold draft, but it's only near the floor? This is the cold air flowing along the floor seeking its heatsource...


Michael also talked about the passive solar..An example could be..When you walk by a brick building in the late afternoon or even evening after a hot summer's day, you may feel warmth coming from the bricks. That is because all that day the sun shone on those bricks causing them to heat up, after the sun went down the bricks began to cool, expelling that heat outwards. This can be applied to heating a room or building during the night when there is no sun for normal solar-power means.


Then we got into making power for homes using Solar-electric power. A normal residence can use several panels and batteries to use and store power for heating and running their home's electrical goodies. But what if you want to power several homes, or something larger than that? If you've ever seen the movie "Sahara" then you've already seen a Solar-tower before, there was one built in Spain a few years ago. The "solar chimney" features a large greenhouse covering a large tract of land. As the hot air rises, it would escape up a central tower. Wind turbo-generators mounted in the chimney converts the 50km-an-hour rush of hot air into electricity.

Anyway I'll try to keep you people updated about my most interesting class..