Most active solar heating systems use liquid – water or an anti-freeze solution – to heat the home. Yet solar air heating offers more possibilities than you might think. Active or passive, solar air heater collectors can be placed directly on an exterior wall or in a window and directly heat the living space. Not only that, they can be very cheap. According to the Department of Energy, “A simple window air heater collector can be made for a few hundred dollars.”

The Definition

A room solar air heater consists of an airtight, insulated metal frame and a black metal plate with glazing to absorb solar radiation. Essentially, a fan pulls air from the room into the collector, where it is heated by the sun, and then redistributes it into the room.

The Benefits

• Solar air heater collectors can directly heat a certain room or pre-heat air passing through a heat recovery ventilator.
• They produce heat earlier and later in the day than liquid systems. Therefore they work hard longer to heat living space, although they are not as efficient as liquid systems.
• Also, solar air heaters do not freeze and small leaks are not a significant problem. Leaks will reduce efficiency, but a major breakdown of the system will not occur.

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Solar is already making waves in the developing world, proving once again how beneficial renewable energy can be for everybody. Developing countries have the awesome opportunity of skipping the smokestack revolution and heading straight into clean, sustainable energy. One of the latest in that vein of innovation is the hybrid diesel-solar powered refrigerator.

Developed by Promethean Power Systems, this stand-alone refrigerator system runs on a combination of diesel fuel and 180 Watt solar panels. While this makes it only partially renewable, as Treehugger so aptly points out, there is nothing preventing biodiesel from entering the picture and making it 100 percent clean. Yet this is a big step. While the only refrigeration option people living off-grid have now are expensive diesel generators, Promethean’s hybrid refrigerator would cut operation costs by 66% as it stands now. This is monumental for people who cannot even keep supplies such as milk, fruits, and vegetables fresh long enough to use them. (more…)

In terms of hot topics, offshore drilling is kin to a raging forest fire. It is one of the more vehemently opposed, or supported, solutions to our accelerating energy crisis. The GOP ticket sure has plenty of experience in offshore drilling or, at least, in talking about it and voting for it. The Democrats have long opposed offshore drilling and have fought vigorously to keep it from expansion, claiming that it’s a short-term solution at best because there just isn’t enough oil off our shores (relative to our demand). Although, the Obama/Biden campaign has recently come out in support of some offshore drilling. So what’s the deal? Is offshore drilling suddenly a unifying force in politics? Could it really be safe now? Not likely. Still, risks are high and rewards are low. And yet a lot of myths persist in presidential debates and media discussions. Here are three big ones that I hear most and why they fall apart with just a little investigation:

Drilling offshore will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Sure there is oil off our coasts, most notably in the Atlantic, and they could be harvested. But to what end? Experts widely agree that the U.S. has but 3% of the world’s oil in reserve (including ANWR), but we consume 25%. Where will the other 22% come from? Foreign countries. There is no erasing our dependence on foreign oil with an energy policy focused on oil, on or off shore.

Offshore drilling is finally safe. The oil industry and drilling supporters claim that technology is so far advanced now that drilling can be done with little or no environmental impact. Yes the machinery is more high-tech and less likely for failure. But they are ignoring natural forces. Like a huge slap in the face to offshore drilling, Hurricane Ike wreaked havoc on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, which spilled over a half-million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf and bordering wetlands. This is not to mention that Katrina and Rita, from a few years back, caused 734,400 gallons of oil to be spilled. Bear in mind that 100,000 gallons is considered a major spill. (more…)