The law of conservation of energy means that solar heat which warms the earth has to go somewhere.
Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere.
Dynamic windows that can change transparency to manage solar heat gain, glare, and daylighting are building buzz in the green building world.
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If you have a run of cloudy days and there is not enough solar heat to completely heat your water -the water heater will come on and heat water just the same as it always has.
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Low-level clouds are thought to matter more than high-level ones because they are more prevalent and because they are better at reflecting solar heat away from the Earth than they are at trapping it, blanket-like, as high clouds do.
Not only does it have eye candy amenities like a glass elevator and porcelain floors, but it also has a long list of green features including a solar heat pool, vent-less fireplaces fueled by bio-ethanol, and thermal glass double-glazed U.V. windows.
The anceint Anasazi Indians in the desert SouthWest US used passive solar to heat and cool their cliff side dwellings 1, 000 years ago.
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Solar thermal heat is low tech, easy to manufacture and install, low maintainance, the fuel is free, and the energy is easy and low cost to store until it is needed.
Solar thermal heat is ideal as an auxiliary system to existing furnaces and hot water systems -your furnace or water heater operates exactly the same as it always has, coming on and running in response to thermostat settings to keep your house or water heated to the thermostat setting.
Solar panels that heat pools or power handheld calculators rely on silicon semiconductors to turn light into electrons.
In Rizhao, a coastal Chinese city of 3 million people, more than 90% of households use solar power to heat their water, Lovins said.
Whereas heat for domestic-scale commercial installations could come from solar technologies or even heat pumps, it is widely acknowledged that the primary market can only be supplied by biomass.
The heat source can be solar energy, warm water or waste heat.
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Why do we succumb to so many eco-fads, from grass-fed beef to locavorism to passive solar homes that leak heat like sieves?
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Finding ways to dispel this immense heat requires expensive cooling systems and more expensive heat-resistant solar materials.
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In recent years, this dynamic has become especially problematic as technological advances have accelerated market penetration of customer-sited solar photovoltaics, combined heat and power and other genres of distributed generation.
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They did bigger things, like putting solar panels on the roof to heat water, as well as smaller things like teaching residents that their iPhone chargers, if left plugged in the wall after the iPhone is charged, continue to consume electricity.
Fab 15 will be TSMC's next "green fab" following Fab 12 and Fab 14, incorporating green concepts in energy conservation and pollution control in its design, including a process water conservation rate of 85%, reclamation of rainwater, recirculation and reuse of general exhaust heat, and development of solar power generation and LED lighting applications.
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In terms of other eco-features, the new EACH building has ground heat-pumps, but not solar panels.
The cost and time of prototyping new designs, from a new turbine blade to a new solar panel mounting bracket or an intricately designed heat exchanger, could drop dramatically.
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The 59-acre (24 hectare) site will also boast a solar thermal hot water system to pre-heat the water for the heating system, and a biomass boiler that will provide heat using locally-sourced wood chips.
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Similarly, solar thermal energy--which harnesses the heat of the sun to generate steam-powered turbines--consumes more than 2, 600 liters of water per megawatt hour, 200 liters more than coal-powered generation needs to produce the same energy.
The water is further heated by five solar-powered electrical pumps, to create radiant heat coming up through the wooden floorboards.
People tack on all manner of technology to their homes to be green: solar panels, 100-foot-deep geothermal heat pipes and computerized climate zones.
As temperatures soared across the US this week we brought you five eco gadgets to beat the summer heat, and we also learned that solar panels have a cooling effect on buildings.
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Once the sun and planets took shape, heat became readily available in the form of solar radiation, asteroid impacts, and gravitational pressure.
You are now driving(in effect) on free solar energy that you created by removing the need to heat water and using the natural gas to drive your car instead.
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For example, if you plan to add geothermal heat pumps, residential small wind turbines or solar energy systems, the credit is equal to 30% of the cost with no upper limit.
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As solar panel prices have plunged, developers like Solar Millennium have abandoned solar thermal technology, which uses huge mirror arrays to heat water to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine.
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