Archive for January, 2009

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A very popular type of portable solar panel system is the 12 volt one, often written as 12v.  You might wonder how much energy 12 volts can really provide.  Such a system would be inadequate for heating your house, but you could run some  portable devices, or you could recharge their batteries, assuming they were the rechargeable kind! Keeping car, RV, boat, and cabin batteries charged is one of their main uses.

The portable panels for a 12 volt system operate in the same way that large solar panels do, but naturally since they are smaller, they generate less electricity. Like larger ones, they operate best when you have direct full sun, without much shading from trees or other things.  Most of them will provide some power on cloudy days or even on rainy ones, but expect it to take longer under those conditions to get the charging done. Read the rest of this entry »

I live simply in many ways by choice, and in some ways because I think it’s the right thing to do. And sometimes I wonder, does it really matter if I re-use plastic bags or keep my use of energy to a minimum? I mean with all the billions of us here on the planet, how much difference do a few bags or kilowatts make? Read the rest of this entry »