Image shows a diaphragm, but this is not required

Electrolysis is actually a very simple process involving water, electricity and often an electrolyte (like salt, creating salt water).   A search on renergy cafe of electrolysis will produce many articles and videos of electrolysis is process.  But for our purposes we will be using a very simple model and picture to describe this process.

When electricity is run through water (sometimes containing an electrolyte)  two gasses are formed, hydrogen and oxygen.  Yup thats right H2O the elements in water.  This means that there are two parts hydrogen created for every one part oxygen.   In order for this process to work the rods must be used, they are called anodes on the positive side, and cathodes on the negative. The anode and cathode are placed in your water NOT TOUCHING, but close. Then when electricity is applied it flows through the anode, cathode but also through the water.  It is when this happens that the water is broken into is base elements.  The cathode, negative, creates two parts hydrogen gas and the anode, positive, creates the one part oxygen gas.

It is important to note that hydrogen is HIGHLY COMBUSTIBLE and although this is the reason is useful and being considered as a renewable energy, it is very DANGEROUS.  If you are going to try this at home, be careful and reference professional material for exact experiment details.  That being said, it is the combustibility that has enough energy to power a piston engine like that of a gasoline engine.

House  #2
Designed by  an architecture professor at a leading national university.  This house  incorporates every ‘green’ feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.

The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional
heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE #1 is  outside of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of the’environmentalist’ Al Gore.

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence of the former President of the  United States, George W. Bush.

An  ‘inconvenient truth.’

Though the fountain water now runs clear, Obama can make the White House itself permanently “green” by bringing Jimmy Carter’s solar panels back. With oil prices again on the rise and energy legislation pending in Congress, now is the time for Obama to highlight the importance of renewable energy to power our economy, curb the emission of climate changing greenhouse gases, and reduce our dependence on imported fuel.

President Carter had solar panels installed on the White House roof in 1977, the same year he established the Department of Energy in response to the oil embargo four years earlier which highlighted America’s dependence on foreign energy.  The energy generated from the solar panels powered the water heaters located in the White House residence.

There was barely enough time to draw a warm bath before President Reagan removed the solar panels after taking office in 1980 (most of the panels were subsequently acquired by Unity College in Maine, where they now, see more, provide hot water for the cafeteria) see more.  The early 1980s were not a particularly promising time for solar energy.  Solar tax deductions introduced by Carter were not renewed during this period and the Solar Energy Research Institute had its budget slashed by almost eighty percent.

Solar energy was quietly reintroduced to the White House grounds in 2002. Small scale panels were installed on a maintenance building to provide electricity and hot water.  A solar energy system was also installed on the White House cabana to heat President Bush’s pool and spa.  The panels were placed out of plain view and the White House issued no press releases on the installations.  There was scant media coverage (see more) of the solar energy systems and what little coverage there was came about six months after the installations were completed.

Obama should take the opposite approach.  Solar panels should be placed conspicuously on the White House roof to draw attention to his cap-and-trade plan, which has attracted opposition in Congress across party lines, and the critical need for a clean energy revolution.

Obama should also use this opportunity to showcase 21st century clean energy technology and current research initiatives in the renewable power sector. Solar energy alone has come a long way from the 500 kilowatts produced worldwide when panels were first installed at the White House in 1977. Global production of solar energy now generates over 2,500 megawatts (see more) of renewable power to fuel a cleaner world economy.  There is no need to wipe the dust from Jimmy Carter’s solar panels.

At the same time, although technological advancements in clean energy are occurring on a massive scale, continued innovation will only happen if demand increases for renewables.  Federal stimulus dollars directed at spurring renewable energy research and development should help lower the cost of equipment like solar panels and encourage average citizens to follow Obama’s lead by generating their own green electricity.

The passage of historic federal climate change legislation may not be feasible over the coming months.  When summer arrives and the hot sun and oppressive humidity dominate the day’s news, however, solar panels on the White House roof can serve as shining symbols of the homegrown power harnessed by renewable energy.  Perhaps as Obama is wading in the White House pool, he will catch a glimpse of the solar panels lining his home’s roof and spot a choice location for a wind turbine.

Written By Jason Marshall

Jason Marshall is a Boston attorney and a member of the Boston Bar

Association’s Telecommunications and Energy Committee.

Retrofit solar hot water heaters are the most cost-effective, learn more, way to utilize solar power in today’s market. By retrofitting, much of the labor and material “costs behind installation can be avoided by integrating the new, solar system into the old, “conventional water heater”. In many cases a new water tank is not needed and existing plumbing can still be used.

Solar hot water systems work using solar collectors to harness solar energy to heat up water, which is then transferred to the home via the pre-existing system. Systems can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 depending on the existing system but, either way, they will save money. Water heating, according to the Department of Energy http://www.eere.energy.gov/de/solar_hotwater.html, is second only to space heating in home energy usage. That being said, *a solar water heater can reduce heating bills by as much as 25 percent*; not to mention the savings in environmental impact.

Beside lower up-front costs, retrofit solar hot water systems pay for themselves rather quickly in energy savings. They often have payback periods less than five years! In addition, state rebates and
incentives http://www.dsireusa.org/ can take a considerable chunk out of the initial investment, making them even more lucrative for the green-minded homeowner.

Green is the new color of home building and remodeling, and every year more avenues are available to homeowners in that regard. Solar power in general is skyrocketing in terms of popularity and accessibility with retrofit solar water heating leading the way. Why not use the same sun that warms your face
every morning to heat your water every day? It is, after all, “free” energy!

Written by
Taylen Peterson
CalFinder
www.calfinder.com

‘Global Warming’ is a misnomer.  The problem is more than ‘warming’, and the
problem is worse than we knew and growing, especially in the poor world.
Over-grazing and over-planting, soil depletion and erosion, falling water
tables, shrinking forests, desiccating grasslands, expanding deserts,
recurring droughts, deteriorating water stocks – ocean and inland, and
globally worsening air pollution.  Why are these worse now?   Two principal
reasons:

1. Increased industrial production and consumption by more rich and ‘newly
wealthy’ consumers are depleting resources faster while overloading the
planet’s capacity to absorb the massive increases of pollution.

2. Human populations of many poor countries doubled over the last few
decades, especially in environmentally fragile regions.  Many areas are
losing their capacity to support life.

The problem is better understood as uncontrolled ecological degradation in
which the world’s oceans, forests and air lose their capacity to sustain
life.  When?  Sooner than we think?  A decade or two?  Next century?  Will
our economies collapse first?  What will that look like?

Energy is the key ingredient in these intertwined problems that entangle
each of us.  That’s right, every human on the planet is inescapably
affected: our livelihoods, even our very existence is threatened regardless
if we are a poor world villager or a rich world commuter.  The crisis is
global: rich countries can’t stay rich, and poor ones won’t advance out of
Neolithic poverty, until we begin making cheap, abundant, renewable, clean
energy.  And do it everywhere.

A dark-age beckons: over-complexity and continuing marginal decline
collapsed Rome and the Mayas.  Do we face a similar end of civilization?  Of
life?  Or might technological innovations stem the decline and reverse it?
Can we invigorate the rich world but ignore the poor one?  If we do, the
number of poor refugees on rich world doorsteps will keep swelling; that is,
the fortunate ones who get that far before their local biospheres collapse.

We know in our hearts that we are stewards, that our children and
grandchildren will inherit only what we leave them – prosperity or calamity,
that we are ultimately responsible.  Only humans can affect the planet’s
destiny, and their own, for good or for ill, forever.  Those are the stakes;
it’s for us to decide whether humanity and life on earth continues or not.
What are you going to do?

© Copyright Christopher W. Johnson, 27 February 2009

View boosterplans.pdf

This is Stanley Meyers dune buggy running on tap water.  Stanley Meyers was evidently poisoned, whether it was in retaliation for his intentions with distrobuting this design is unclear.  What is known is that this man created a system that could revolutionize our world.