Solar energy prices from last 10 to 15 years had declined an average of 4% per year. A lot of progress has been made for increasing the cell’s efficiency, and manufacturing economies of scale are the underlying drivers of this price decrease. The figures in the Solarbuzz Global Price survey clearly show that prices had declined consistently over the last two years.

A solar energy system for home usually cost around $8-10 per Watt. If the government incentive programs exist and coupled with lower prices, secured through volume purchases then installed costs for solar panels can become as low as $3-4 watt, means that 10-12 cents per kilowatt hour can be achieved. If there is no incentive programs then solar energy costs range between 22-40 cents/kWh for very large PV systems. Read the full story

Wind and sun are the most familiar forms of renewable energy. While biomass (plant material and animal waste) provides 15 times more energy in United States than wind and solar power combined and still have potential to supply more.

There is a vast range of biomass energy resources, that includes tree, grass, crops, forestry, agricultural, and urban wastes. Biomass is the oldest source of renewable energy used by humans when they known how to burn fire.

Ancient way of converting biomass into energy is just to burn it for producing heat, as humans practiced it for thousands of years. Still this is the most common way for conversion of biomass into energy in United States and elsewhere also.

The heat generated from biomass can be used for heating, cooking, and industrial processes, or for producing electricity.

Using biomass for burning haves some problems regarding some energy waste and also some air pollution if it is not carefully controlled.

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United States already generate 45 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from biomass and that is 1.2% of whole United States electric sales.

United States also produce 4 billion gallons of ethanol, which is almost 2 percent of the liquid fuel used in cars and trucks. Same like that contribution for heat is also considerable. But still it can be produced more by better conversion technology and more attention paid to energy crops.

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Biomass energy is having so many benefits for the environment such as reducing air and water pollution, increasing soil fertility and reducing erosion, and improvement of the wildlife habitat.

Carbon Cycle

Carbon cycle is a way of nature for moving carbon around the Earth to support life on it. Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas is the most common carbon item in which one carbon atom is bound with two oxygen atoms.

Photosynthesis in the plant’s leaves breaks the carbon dioxide in to two, which keeps the carbon for making carbohydrates, and oxygen is exhaled in the air. So when plant dies or it is harvested for burning then it gives back the carbon to air, and that carbon is absorbed again by plants.

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Coal is transported all around United States by train; according to figures almost 70% of coal in 2007 was transported around United States through railroad. Barges and trucks contribution for coal transportation is 11% while rest is delivered mainly by tramway, conveyor belt, or slurry pipeline.

Sometime coal is transported great distances. Such as, Powder River Basin coal is transported by rail to power plants as far away as Georgia. It travels a long way as far as the distance from Wyoming to Georgia.

To save the money from coal transportation costs there is a common way that using coal near the coal-mines. As soon as the coal is mined it’s delivered immediately to power plant through conveyor belt. Such plants are called “mine mouth” plants. The growing presence of mine mouth plants had eased by expanding use of long distance electricity transmission.

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Coal sources of United States are highly concentrated and coal is currently mined in 26 states. In 2007, just three states Kentucky, West Virginia, and Wyoming of United States produced 63% coal with each contributing 10, 13, and 40 percent in whole U.S. coal production respectively.

Underground mines in the Appalachian region provided long before most of coal to America. Underground mines produced 421 million short tons, which was the 75 percent of the coal production in whole United States in 1950. But today surface mining had overtaken underground mining , accounting of production in 2007. Wyoming was the largest single source of U.S coal in 2007, most of it coming from the enormous Powder River Basin.

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United States had burned 1.1 billion short tons of coal in 2007, that is enough to fill a railroad car every 3 seconds. Almost over 90% coal was burnt by electricity sector and rest was burned mostly in industrial and commercial settings. Burning vast quantity of coal by power plants relies on a vast network of mines where companies excel at extracting it from the Earth at prolific rates.

There is a simple principle for removing coal that just expose it, break it up, and cart it off to be burned. In fact practically coal mining is energy intensive, labor intensive and money intensive undertaking. One of the most risky occupations is the underground mining, killing and injuring many in accidents, and causing chronic health problems. Most of underground mining is done in the East and surface mining is done in the West.

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A Huge, 1MW elevated grid connect solar power system for a car auction facility has recently been completed by a U.S. company, Alpha Energy, in Bordentown, NJ. The massive carport will be used by Manheim NJ Auto Auction to prepare, protect and stage vehicles for sale.

It is said to be the largest continuous solar shade structure in the United States, covering over 13,000 square meters, almost the size of three American NFL football fields.

The system consists of 5,880 170W solar panels that are tied in to an electricity meter via 11 separate inverters; making sure that even if a single array is taken offline, 90% of the system will still work, producing electricity.

Careful Planning is needed for Wind Power Plants. Just building a windmill in a windy place doesn’t mean that operating of wind power plant is simple. It’s necessary for wind power plant owners to plan carefully where to locate their machinery and also to check out that how fast and how much wind blows at proposed locations.

As it’s a rule that wind speed increases with altitude and over open areas that have no windbreaks. Good places for wind plants are the smooth rounded hills, open plains or shorelines and mountain gaps that produce wind funneling.

Wind Speed Variation

Throughout the United States wind speed varies and it also varies from season to season. As in Tehachapi, California, from April to October wind blows more than winter season. Wind blowing between those months is more because of the extreme heating of the Mojave Desert during the summer months. The hot air in desert rises and the cooler air from Pacific Ocean with great speed passes the Tehachapi Mountain to replace the vacuum. While in Montana State its totally different there wind blows more in winter.

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Air in motion is called wind. Uneven heating of the Earth’s surface generates wind. As Earth’s surface is made of very different type of land and water and it absorbs sun’s heat at different rates.

The Daily Wind Cycle

In day the air above land heats up quickly than air over water. The warm air over the land expands and rises and as cooler air is heavier it rushes to take place with this procedure wind is created. While in night its total different than day because in night air over land gets cooler quickly than air on over water.

The atmospheric winds that circles the earth are also created in same way because land near the Earth’s equator heats up more than the land near South and North Poles.

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