Mainstream Green | Green Energy News

October 24, 2004 – Vol.9 No.31

MAINSTREAM GREEN.

Not surprisingly, green energy products are incrementally becoming mainstream products. Give credit for products being available to consumers to concern for the environment, the geopolitical situation or high oil prices, but in many cases the green energy products just make good sense.

Lowes, the second largest home improvement chain in the U.S. is now selling solar powered attic vent fans. (I see two of them on neighboring roofs outside my office window.) The fans not only cut cooling costs in the summer by removing hot attic air, they operate without cost once installed.

True, at almost three-times the cost (about $300) of conventional hard-wired attic vent fans the solar fans are a bit pricey, but energy is saved (read money saved) without the additional load on the electric meter. Further, for many if not most, an electrician doesn’t need to be called for the installation as with hard wired fans. Electricians don’t work for free. The roofer does the whole job. Visit Lowes at http://www.lowes.com/

Traffic lights, crossing signals and other roadway warning lights are often far from an easy connection to the grid. Trenching long distances for underground cables is not cheap. Neither is planting additional power poles for overhead wires.

The simple solution is solar-powered warning lights. Solar powered portable signs already seem popular. Permanently mounted solar traffic and warning signals could be the next big thing. Carmanah Technologies, a maker of solar electric LED (light emitting diode) roadway lights is happy to report that it had new record sales of $100,000 in one day.

Carmanah claims its fully self-contained and independent-from-the-grid solar roadway flashers can be installed in as little as 30 minutes, are immune to blackouts and operate cost and maintenance free. The LED bulbs should last up to eight years. Visit Carmanah at http://www.carmanah.com/ .

LED lights as reliable indicator lights in electronics have been around for many years. But white light LED’s - those that could possibly replace incandescent bulbs in the near future - have only been around for a few. While they still have a way to go technologically they are certainly promising. (For now the white light they emit seems a little too blue to be comfortable).

OptiLED is now offering dimmable LED lamps that operate on 12 volts DC or AC, and can be dimmed-down to three volts when operating at a candle-glow level of illumination.

Known as the Designer Dimmable, the LED lamps are offered in number of different defuser options and a variety of colors for various applications. The lamps (which inside are actually arrays of small LED bulbs) are bright enough to replace conventional light bulbs in many applications, but probably not your bedside lamp.

Still, when white-light LED technology gets better, these lamps that require only 10 percent of the electricity consumed compared with equivalent incandescent lamps will dramatically reduce electric light bills. Visit OptiLED at http://www.optiled.biz/ .