When a friend of mine ran one of my garden solar lights, this was broken in several pieces, but the small solar panel and battery compartment remained intact. I looked closely at the value of the small engine. The battery compartment houses two AA NiCd (which come with the unit) and connects with a cable directly to small solar panels. A simple engineering of solar energy. I have no garden light that works, but I have a AA battery solar charger, which is not bad for only $ 5USD. Only two AA rechargeable batteries are sold in Radio Shack for $ 10.
When I see that I have a pair of NiCd batteries that need energy only left out in the sun for several hours in my new garden solar charger.
If you have no sunlight to garden, I’m sure you have seen them sold in packs of 4 pieces up to $ 20 USD. No need to break one. They can be kept intact so that they can use for their original purpose or as a battery charger.
It’s a great article that can be carried to the camps and trips as a charger for appliances and a solar light.
The production of energy from residues is an evident reality, or at least this is one of the conclusions of more than 400 delegates from 20 countries that happened these days in Madrid on the occasion of the II International Conference on Obtaining of Energy from Residues and Biomass. Every time the number of new formulas to get advantage of the energy increases; coming from food leftovers, plastics, and other material. Thus, residues and biomass can contribute of remarkable way to the production of clean energies: as much, that within ten years the residues could contribute 8% of all the energy that is consumed in Spain, according to they concluded the assistants to this Conference of three days organized by the Institute for the Sustainability of Resources (ISR), and that closed on Friday.
During the sessions and debates the experts showed that the potential power of the residues and the biomass “is especially important because it contributes of decisive way to diminish the environmental impact of the garbage dumps, one of the great problems of the present society”. In words of the general assistant director of Prevention of Residues of the Ministry of Environment, Juan Martinez Sanchez, “every time we generated more residues and more complex, and if we are not able to establish effective measures for its reduction, really dreadful scenes consider”. At the moment, in Spain, 24 million tons of annual urban residues are generated –540 kilos by inhabitant and year–, from that a 60% arrive at the garbage dumps. “Most of these sweepings could take advantage to do of a useful raw material like the recycled ones and re-use the remainder, or like the gasohol, the synthetic gas, biogas, the heat or electricity”, Martinez explained.
In fact, according to data of the ISR, with the new technologies and the already existing ones, “the sweepings of the garbage dumps could be reduced in a drastic form until a 10%”, but for it “it is necessary to continue investigating in biological, chemical and thermal processes that allow to advance towards a low society in carbon and with spill zero”, added on the other hand the chief of a main directorate of the ISR, Carlos Martinez Orgado. One of the new techniques to transform the residues into energy is one that is being experienced successfully in Ottawa (Canada). The plant uses one hundred tons of residues per the day –industrial and chemical plastics, electric home appliances or remainders– that after a process of gasification by plasma it obtains a synthetic gas of high calorific power similar to the natural gas. In Spain, a company of the sector already expects the necessary permissions to begin the construction of the first plant of this type in our country; it will be located in Carrión de los Condes (Palencia). Another alternative technique is the chemical plastic recycling, that before only could be eliminated by means of the incineration. The idea is to invest the process of manufacture of some rich carbon products, like the plastic, to obtain that the remainder returns to become raw material again, closing therefore the cycle of the materials: resource-product-remainder-resource. This method, in experimentation at the moment, consists on disturbing the polymer molecule to produce fuel-oil.
HYDROGEN IS THE ENERGY OF THE FUTURE.
During the course of this international conference the potential of the residues to produce hydrogen was discussed, the main power plant of the future. Through processes of photosynthesis, or by means of the use of bacteria, it is possible to obtain hydrogen in a continued way from renewable raw materials and residues. “With these techniques we will not be able to cover the energetic demand of the future, but it can be very useful for the micro energy: small plants distributed by all the national territory to give service in rural populations”, explained the university professor of the Department of Geo-engineering and Environmental Technologies of the University of Cagliari (Italy), Aldo Muntoni. The conference showed the great diversity of sources and methods to obtain energy from residues and biomass, as the emergent technologies happening through biological treatments, chemical processes, etc.
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