Solar Living Concepts – Renewable Energy Concepts

It’s amazing that something as simple as a light bulb can be as bad for the planet as they really are. Let’s be clear here. I am talking about incandescent bulbs. If you have already reduced you reliance on the grid with solar panels then you know how important every little watt can be. It’s time to be more efficient with wattage and be better to the planet.

Incandescent bulbs are extremely bad for the environment. Not only do they use a huge amount of energy for the pathetic amount of off yellow light they put out but they are also a horrible source of pollution. We’ll get to the pollution later. If you want to increase your efficiency you may want to look into compact fluorescent bulbs. They are commonly known as CFL bulbs and they produce a much larger amount of light for every watt they use when compared to incandescent bulbs.

The net step up from there is LED lighting. These are not simply bulbs but rather an array of tiny light emitting diodes that have the highest efficiency of any lighting solution when you compare the lumens produced to how many watts they use. LED lighting is hundreds of times more efficient than incandescent bulbs. It’s time to replace those horrible incandescent bulbs with CFLs at the least. That means it’s also time to throw away a glass bulb and pollute even more. That’s no good.

CFL bulbs have a longer life than their incandescent brothers but they are still made of glass and they are filled with toxic chemicals, including mercury, which you don’t want released into the world. LED lighting is, once again, the solution here. LED lighting has a ridiculously long working lifespan and there is no glass to worry about or toxic chemicals to concern yourself with.

For the best LED lighting solutions you are going to need specialized fixtures but the LED arrays that can be used in standard sockets are amazing as well and are ever increasing in quality.

Using alternative energy sources will be in the headlines over the next few years. With oil and gas prices spiraling upward and the threat always looming of Mid-east tensions, many individuals, businesses and government agencies are looking fro ways to use cheaper, cleaning and more energy efficient fuels to power their vehicles.

For example, home heating oil prices are about 50 cents higher this year than they were last year. That takes a lot of money out of consumer’s pockets and sends it overseas. To combat that, many people are looking at solar heating an also at switching over to natural gas and propane gas. Both are produced in the United States, so that would help cut down on our reliance on foreign oil. Natural gas production is at its highest levels now. Besides it being cheap and plentiful, it burns cleaner that crude oil.

A by-product of natural gas production is propane gas. The price of propane per gallon is lower than heating oil; so many people are now switching over to that. Not only is it cheaper than heating oil, but also it is also much cheaper than gasoline. This has led many police departments to switch from gasoline to propane-powered vehicles. This serves 2 purposes. One it will lower the cost of fuel, plus propane is cleaner burning than gasoline, thus helping the environment.