The Green Optimistic

Ryszard says it’s much more efficient to assemble solar cell this way than put them directly into light, where you’ll lose a lot through reflection back into the environment. Some recently invented anti-reflective coatings may even accelerate the light’s absorption into the solar cells. This is one of the advantages.

Many have tried to build magnetic motors, but it’s difficult, and the difficulty comes from the fact that you somehow have to isolate and beam the magnetic field into only one direction. Here is another experimenter that uses rotating magnets on the stator, that if aligned properly to a certain pattern that he tries to find every time the motor starts.

This man (a retired school teacher) says he applied what many others on the internet describe as “on-board hydrogen generation”, with a couple of jars, some electrodes and potassium hydroxide.

Here’s a Sky News Australia video about an inventor who claims he got to obtain overunity in something that resembles a magnetic motor at a first glance.

The first thing I read when I woke up this morning was Michael Jackson’s death. “Earth Song” and “Heal the World” were among the first that taught me about caring for the environment and for the people as a part of it.

It’s time for some fun once in a while on The Green Optimistic. I wish I could do that a habit and, once a week, present some funny environmentally-related video. If there are lots of them, I’ll even make a category.

The device below is known as WindCube, and is developed by Green Energy Technologies. It incorporates a fan and a wind concentrator system, which directs the wind at a higher speed though the fan, producing eight times more electricity than if it wasn’t used.

Boston-based Practical Solar comes with an interesting house heating offer and, with the help of a millennium-old technology, aided by computer software, wants to bring heat in your homes directly from the sun. Simpler said, they projected a set of mirrors to beam their light on your house.

For all those of you living in a house, with roof and fence, the problem of cooling your residence in the summer is pretty pressing. SolarStar has thought at this niche and built a standalone cooling system, based on the Universe-aged principle of cooling by evaporation of water, getting the hot air out, and putting the colder one in.

Electric motors have simple designs, are easy to operate and have a great resistance to various environments. That’s why they are to be chosen as alternative to internal combustion engines. This is a trivial experiment showing how you can feel you made a real electric motor yourself. Just for fun.

James May evaluated a Honda FCX Clarity, with a positive attitude towards its environmental purpose. We don’t enter the discussion as of how eco-friendly is the making of FCX, or its price, because these are all going to change in a few years to accomodate to the markets.

Here’s a video we’ve been expecting for so long: a real image of a real car, expected by so many electric vehicle enthusiasts. Enjoy…

I guess that the Chevy Volt has been one of the most hunted electric cars from the beginning of this year. GM has done all their possible to keep the secret from the press(?), but it seems that several images and specs have “leaked”, acting as a teaser for the information thirsty public.

I really didn’t like what Top Gear guys did the last time to a Prius, but this time I think they have a point (partially). They’re going to race a Toyota Prius (1.5L)versus a BMW M3 (4L). Of course the BMW will win the competition… but wait… not the speed competition. The BMW will get 19mpg and the Prius only 17mpg. Why is that? Does it prove that the Prius is more gas-guzzler than the BMW? No.

This is a short video showing a device made up of a simple bicycle wheel to create electricity for your tent in the mountains.

There are a lot of speculations around the future Chevy Volt, the series car that it’s said to revolutionize the car industry. Although there hasn’t been much proof that they have the battery to power the electric-hybrid car, they’re confident in their success, or at least that was wanted to be seen on this abc news video clip. Watch it. I think they’re going to make it, because probably they’re going to be using the EEStor technology or something equivalent, technology that has only recently been unveiled.

Here’s a method of producing a battery out of some Cola, salt, aluminum and copper coins. It lights a LED and it can be an interesting source of free energy!

Michael Strizki’s house is the most low impact house I’ve ever seen. He lives his life off-grid, because his home system feature solar panels, 10 hydrogen tanks filled with the excess energy from the solar panels, with the hydrogen taken out of water, and a 15 year-old geothermal system, that covered its price 8 times since it was installed.

This video is a clip from a 1978 CBC News, showing Jack Nicholson driving a hydrogen powered car. The concept existed since then, the hydrogen was packed in high pressure tanks, and the engine’s timing (top dead center) was retarded a bit (probably 8 degrees, it’s a common value). And, as extra value, the hydrogen was obtained from solar power, through some solar panels, cutting edge tech at that time.

If you watch The Green Optimistic you already know that we covered air cars in previous posts, both MDI CAT’s and the Angelo DiPietro air motor. The first time we wrote about these inventions was about 6 months ago. Now, MDI and Angelo DiPietro have contracts all over the world with auto makers to sell them the compressed air technology so automakers do what they do best: cars.