Archive for April, 2009
Make Your Own Green Energy Source
Hi guys,
How about this for a fantastic idea. Wouldn’t it be great if we can produce our own green energy source? If we can do that, we don’t have to pay electrical bills or gasoline anymore for our cars. While we can buy some of the equipment, the rest will have to be done on our own.
Take solar or wind energy for example. We already know how to harness and make it. If you want to make one, do some research online and then set up the system yourself.
To have solar energy, you will need to buy an inverter, battery, charge controller, solar panels, some wires and support structure. The only difference with wind energy is that you need a fan. Once you have everything you need, you can put it all together.
If you are not skillful, you will be happy to know that some companies sell the entire system. By buying it from them and having it installed by their experts, you are sure that there won’t be any problems the moment you switch it on.
There is one more thing you need before you can use one or the two green energy sources. Before you buy the materials or the system, make sure you have a flat area that is about a hundred square feet or so because it occupies a lot of space.
For those who don’t have the space or the budget to use these two energy sources, another option is to create your own biofuels.
Biofuels are used in many countries and they get it from harvesting corn, sugar and other crops. Luckily, you don’t need a farm to produce it because you can also make your own using some recycled waste.
A good example of this is vegetable oil which we use for cooking. To turn this into a biofuel, we first filter it by warming up the liquid and then filtering this with a coffee filter. The next step is to remove the water also by boiling it again at 100 degrees for a short period of time.
We need to know the amount of lye present in the vegetable oil and we do this by a process known as titration. When we are done with that, we now mix sodium hydroxide to produce sodium methoxide.
The process of converting used vegetable oil before it becomes a biofuel takes quite awhile and it must be heated the entire time. This is done so the fuel we produce is pure and only when this is achieved that we give it time to cool.
Just how much biofuel we make after all the work varies but you will have an idea of how much you have produced since this is the one you see floating at the top. If there is still some glycerin present, filter it again. From there, you already have your own backyard biofuel which you can use and even sell to those who are just as concerned with the environment as you are.
By making our own green energy sources, we make ourselves less dependent on gasoline in its various forms to power our heater, home or car. Why don’t a lot of people do it? Well simply because they don’t have the time to make it and would rather rely on someone else to do it for them.
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April 18th, 2009
TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR FINANCES: TIPS ON BUDGETING
With prices of commodities increasing day by day it is proper to make your very own strategic plan on maximizing your financial resources and making sure that every penny earned is well spent.
Make your move on coordinating your finances and list of expenditures that may affect the way you use your income and empower you on your economic stability as a working individual.
Your source of income, lifestyle, spending habits, current job and house location, cost of living, payables and loans determines your level of budgeting needs. Starting to take charge of your finances is one sure way of becoming successful in a field of self-fulfillment and success.
The following tips and recommendations will provide you details on how you can help yourself manage your finances and assume a new outlook to become responsible in your spending.
1 Treat Math As Your Lifetime Partner – Do the entire math in your purchasing needs. Try to compare prices across your current location for the price of a range of grocery and household items you need in a day-to-day basis.
2 Save as much as you can in an item you are trying to buy. Chinese businessmen exercise effective buying techniques. They save as much as they can and usually purchase in bulk to increase their revenue index on the item they plan on selling as well.
3 Gambling – Gambling tops the chart in making your life as chaotic as it could get. Gambling strips you off your finances and keeps you vulnerable from the threats of bankruptcy.
4 Know Your Wants and Needs – Limit your spending on something which you are not in dire need of. According to a recent study, luxuries are second to gambling in terms of the degree of money-stripping capability.
5 “Do Not Spend More Than you Earn” – Rags-To-Riches stories do not fail to mention this famous cliché. There is always truth to this phrase for you cannot live in a world where you consume more than what you can produce.
6 Keeping A List – Making your own budget list is vital to your success to becoming prudent. A wise buyer needs to consider the amount of a certain commodity and how will it impact his life as an individual.
An unconscientious consumer would not care about what is being purchased as long as he or she has money to buy for them. Unless you are someone who has a considerable amount of wealth and income resources, you can not afford to disregard this recommendation and go ahead with your practice.
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April 16th, 2009
To All Our Readers
Hi all, we are just trying out some new blog front ends and a few add ins to make your experience with Frugality Guru a more enjoyable experience. If you have any comments, money saving tips, articles you would like us to post on our site. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.
For all our friends that have signed up for our free month news letter, I hope that you have enjoyed them and thank you for the many positive mails we have received. I am sorry if the work causes any inconvenience. Thanks again to all our readers….Bill F.G
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April 15th, 2009
A War Between Eating And Sustainable Power
Today climate change is a reality that is acknowledge by even the most doubtful of skeptics. The warmer temperatures in areas where its supposed to be cool, scorching summers, and bone chilling winter have become a pattern that people cannot simply ignore.
What The War About?
Funny enough it seems that people are getting desperate and all are turning to bio-fuel like it’s the savior of all mankind. So what is bio-fuel? Bio-fuel is any gaseous, solid, or liquid material derived from biological materials. The argument ensues when people talk of the future. Bio-fuel’s raw materials are usually agricultural crops that are made to undergo fermentation and certain processes in order to produce bio-fuel.
The Problem
Who is the world’s largest oil consumer? Those with the highest number of vehicles running their roads, countries like the US, England and generally most of the European nations. When you think about it bio-fuel is made from corn, sugarcane, palm oil, vegetable oil, and etc; where do these agricultural crops come from? Third World Countries.
In Mexico they have this “tortilla crisis”. Corn which is the basic ingredient of tortilla is now sold five times the price it used to be marketed for. The reason for the inflated prices? The demand of bio-fuel in highly developed countries has severely altered the business people’s sense of profit. Why sell for a dollar when you can for 5 because the demand is now higher.
Who Suffers?
The first world countries will have to export goods from the third world countries to fuel their increasing demand for energy. The third world countries are usually tropical ones located near the equator, hence a higher crop growth of corn, and all those needed to manufacture bio-fuel; but for these countries corn is food, so is sugar cane. For the first world to survive the t poorer countries must either starve in hunger or break their back working to be able to afford the price hikes of the most basic of all commodities: food.
A Compromise
So what should we do? We need to address the problems of the environment and pollution, but it is also not right that to solve a problem we must create one. Think about it if the agricultural countries go into decline because its people can’t afford food then who will till the land to supply the giants with endless bio-fuel?
Sustainable energy is geared to sustain life, not make it harder. A proposal is in order. Since the crops needed for the production of bio-fuel can only survive in tropical countries then the governments of the more well off countries will have to invest in the agricultural countries to supply their own demand. These crops must be independent from those for local consumers. Stringent rules governing pricing and distribution must be implemented to further protect the source of the energy.
Sustainable power means the world working hand in hand to create a better way of life for the future. The road to betterment is paved with hard work and dedication. The ancient Egyptian used sails to go up and down the Nile; they were patient and they reached their destination. Let us all be patient but diligent in our quest for sustainable power to sustain life.
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April 15th, 2009
Can You Use a Green Energy Source like Water to Power a Car?
For more than a century, we rely on oil to fuel our cars. But did you know that the world’s oil is close to drying up because it is a nonrenewable resource? Well that may not happen tomorrow or next year but we are getting closer because of the demand in the world market. Why wait for that day when we can rely on a green energy source like water to power our cars.
Water can power a car? If you think that’s impossible, well it is already here but this is not yet being made on a commercial scale.
The German automobile BMW has produced the world’s first ever hydrogen powered car. While only 100 of these units were produced, you can already imagine if more of these vehicles are on the road.
The initial model namely the BMW Hydrogen 7 uses the body of the 760i model. Once you pop the hood, you will notice that the engine is different since it uses gas and hydrogen.
This just means we have not yet totally abandoned are dependence on gas. Given more time and money, the current 4.7 miles per gallon it can travel using water alone could hit double digits in the future.
The biggest challenge to using water as a green energy source as opposed to oil in vehicles is the engine. While there are cars around like the Prius which runs on electricity and gas thanks to fuel cell technology, the hydrogen combustion is less than 10 years old so you could say we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
To prevent the water from evaporating, this has to be stored in a large, 30-gallon, bi-layered and highly insulated tank so this does not evaporate into compressed gas. Another safety mechanism is the valves which are designed to open should the pressure within the tank exceed 5 bars.
With the success of the BMW H7, the company came out with a new car that is also partly powered by water known as the H2R. While we cannot yet put our garden hose into the fuselage to fill it up, this vehicle uses liquid nitrogen as a fuel.
Tests on this vehicle have shown it can achieve 285hp and reach a top cruising speed of 185.5 miles per hour. It can also accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour under 6 seconds.
But why use water? It is because hydrogen combustion is clean so it does not emit harmful gases into the atmosphere unlike cars that run on petrol or diesel that emit carbon monoxide. Studies have shown that it also weighs less than hydrocarbon-based fuels and burns faster than conventional gasoline.
So when can you expect to buy a car that uses water as a green energy source? Hopefully in the next 10 to 20 years. It is really up to the automakers because all we can do is wait until a better and clear car hits the dealership.
Right now, the best option we have are electric cars. Since its introduction in 1999, more people are using it because they don’t want to spend anymore for gasoline that could hit an all time high of more than $110 per barrel.
If water as a green energy source can be used to power a car, why don’t we do the same for solar power which has been around much longer?