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Jessica Shankleman, BusinessGreen , Thursday 29 April 2010 at 16:00:00 Investigation accuses high-profile green products of failing to back up environmental claims with convincing evidence Household brands selling “eco” products may need to rethink their marketing strategies following a study from Which? magazine highlighting how easy it is to “greenwash” customers with exaggerated environmental claims….
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Eco cleaning products are greenwashing customers, Which? warns
Due to the popularity of Paul Stankey’s Holyoke Cabin (and what seems to be an increasing interest in shipping container design ), the folks at Hive Modular today announced the launch of a new company called InterModal Design with a set of six thoughtful container cabin plans. To create a single structure that could be used in many ways, IMD studied Japanese home design and yacht design. In these homes, tables, beds, and chairs appear to fold up into the wall. It’s quite interesting and minimalist. At the direction of clients, IMD will use energy-efficient materials and green products, including LED lighting, low-water consumption fixtures, and low-VOC paints. And if you want to go off-grid or off-pipe, IMD can help with that, too. [+] Learn more about InterModal Design’s green container cabins . Rendering credits: InterModal Design and Hive Modular .
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New, Simple, Green: InterModal Design
By looking at the real estate listing for this home, you wouldn’t necessarily get the whole story. This 3,600 square-foot house has four bedrooms and three-and-a-half bathrooms, not to mention a wine cellar, media room, and detached two-car garage. What you won’t see is that it’s also a low-energy home and vying for LEED Platinum certification — the highest designation available from the USGBC — according to the Washington Examiner . The owner deconstructed an old 1918 bungalow to build this Alexandria home to near net zero energy standards. It was built at a cost of $230 per square foot and energy bills run about $20-30 per month. Construction entailed using SIPs, efficient windows, hydronic heating and cooling, rainwater harvesting and purification systems, and a geothermal system, among other green products and materials. At the moment, the home, which is located on 9 East Walnut Street in Alexandria, Virginia, is listed for sale with TTR Sotheby’s International Realty for $1,288,000. [+] Alexandria home goes green from the bottom up by Washington Examiner .
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Platinum Near Net Zero Energy in VA
A series of psychological experiments carried out by researchers at the University of Toronto suggest that consumers of green products may feel less obligated to act as altruistically in the rest of their lives. The study, conducted by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong and published in the Journal of Psychological Science, asked one group of subjects
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Psychological Study Finds Green Consumers Ethically Challenged
Even a casual observer is probably familiar with how solar power works. Most folks know that a solar panel is hooked up to a house so that it can somehow convert sunlight into usable electricity.But do you know what actually happens from the time that the sun’s rays strike the solar panel until the point where the transformed power reaches your appliances? To a lot of people, their idea of how solar power works doesn’t get more specific than that.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the general processes needed to make solar power work.
First of all, you need to know that silicon is the basic component that makes up a solar panel. From a molecular standpoint, its properties (having an ideal combination of protons and electrons) set the stage for the atomic events necessary to make solar power work.
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Generally speaking, silicon wafers in the solar panel are interlaced with traces of boron and phosphorus so that these elements will cause a mass of electrons to gather in great numbers.
Now, this in itself is not enough to push an electric current into your home. The gathered electrons need to be exposed to photons of light in order to knock them loose from their respective atoms and start traveling along the conductors within the solar panel.
This arrangement will naturally divert these awakened electrons to the circuit in the form of direct current (DC) electricity.
But this isn’t the final step; the DC current coming from your solar panel will have to be changed into high-voltage AC used to power your home. This is where an inverter comes into the picture.
Playing an important part in your solar power system, this device transforms the outside DC flow into an AC current needed to make your appliances work.
However, using energy is not without its risks, so some safety measures have to be in place. An array DC disconnect is installed between the solar panel and the inverter in order to avoid the risk of shock.
There are some cases where the inverter needs to be removed or serviced for maintenance purposes and the DC disconnect will cut off the current coming from the power source (solar panel).
Similarly, an AC disconnect is also needed to keep things safe. This is installed between the inverter and your power company’s power meter so they can lock out your connection to their grid in case they’re doing repairs in the area.
So there you have it – solar power in a nutshell. Now that you’re aware of how solar power works, we hope that you’ll gain a better appreciation of this clean, renewable and guilt-free source of energy.
We encourage you to do further reading into this matter. Who knows, you may even consider setting up a solar power system in your home so you can start saving massive amounts of money spent on electric bills (and help our planet in the process).
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