In alternative energy news, it seems that solar power has become quite accessible to anyone now...
what used to cost many thousands of dollars now can only need to cost a small few hundred.
What am I talking about here? Well, remember when solar energy had its first, really big boom in the early to mid seventies? People were talking about how covering their roof with solar panels would supply enough electricity for their entire house and more.
One could either live completely off the grid, or choose to stay connected to the power grid and sell the surplus power generated back to the electric company.
Most State laws mandate that if someone generates their own electricity and stays connected to the power grid, that the local power companies must buy back all surplus power.
But the initial cost was phenomenal - so how have things changed today? True, with alternative energy, news of people experiencing the thrill of watching their kilowatt-hour meters running backwards representing revenues to be paid back to them from the power companies is a very attractive thing indeed.
But to completely install expensive solar panels on the roof of your house would have an initial cost of many thousand dollars, perhaps even in the tens of thousands.
However, after these past few decades of development in this field, it seems that production of solar panels have vastly improved in efficiency.
Further, with the use of better materials in their creation, and with energy outputs having largely increased, the per-product price of solar panels of various sizes have dropped dramatically over the years.
A further bit of worthy alternative energy news in this regard is that even the components to make your own solar panels are swiftly and easily produced and available to anyone...
now people of all walks of life can not only afford to buy them, but to make them themselves as well.
Many kits are available, but do-it-yourselfers everywhere are finding it too easy to bother with prefab kits to just make their very own panels from components that are inordinately accessible and inexpensive.
Designs found online show many how to construct these, and people everywhere are indulging in weekend projects to build their own.
For about less than a couple hundred dollars, a 3x6 panel can be constructed that can power a dormitory sized refrigerator, a laptop PC, a battery charger and a coffee maker all on the single panel.
Think about it - perhaps two of these can power everything in a kitchen, another two for the living room with TV, desktop PC and so on, as well as maybe another one for the house's lights.
Instead of $25,000.
00, you might just power your whole home for less than $2,000.
00 or so.
This is truly worthy alternative energy news!