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Solar Energy - How It Works
In this video you can get informations about solar energy and about how it works!
Enjoy!
Solar Cell System
Solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity. Solar cells are often used to power calculators and watches. They are made of semiconducting materials similar to those used in computer chips.
When sunlight is absorbed by these materials, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. This process of converting light (photons) to electricity (voltage) is called the photovoltaic (PV) effect.
Solar cells are typically combined into modules that hold about 40 cells; a number of these modules are mounted in PV arrays that can measure up to several meters on a side. These flat-plate PV arrays can be mounted at a fixed angle facing south, or they can be mounted on a tracking device that follows the sun, allowing them to capture the most sunlight over the course of a day.
Several connected PV arrays can provide enough power for a household; for large electric utility or industrial applications, hundreds of arrays can be interconnected to form a single, large PV system. Thin film solar cells use layers of semiconductor materials only a few micrometers thick.
Thin film technology has made it possible for solar cells to now double as rooftop shingles, roof tiles, building facades, or the glazing for skylights or atria. The solar cell version of items such as shingles offer the same protection and durability as ordinary asphalt shingles. Some solar cells are designed to operate with concentrated sunlight. These cells are built into concentrating collectors that use a lens to focus the sunlight onto the cells. This approach has both advantages and disadvantages compared with flat-plate PV arrays. The main idea is to use very little of the expensive semiconducting PV material while collecting as much sunlight as possible.
But because the lenses must be pointed at the sun, the use of concentrating collectors is limited to the sunniest parts of the country. Some concentrating collectors are designed to be mounted on simple tracking devices, but most require sophisticated tracking devices, which further limit their use to electric utilities, industries, and large buildings. The performance of a solar cell is measured in terms of its efficiency at turning sunlight into electricity.
Only sunlight of certain energies will work efficiently to create electricity, and much of it is reflected or absorbed by the material that make up the cell. Because of this, a typical commercial solar cell has an efficiency of 15%-about one-sixth of the sunlight striking the cell generates electricity.
Low efficiencies mean that larger arrays are needed, and that means higher cost. Improving solar cell efficiencies while holding down the cost per cell is an important goal of the PV industry, NREL researchers, and other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories, and they have made significant progress. The first solar cells, built in the 1950s, had efficiencies of less than 4%.
When sunlight is absorbed by these materials, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. This process of converting light (photons) to electricity (voltage) is called the photovoltaic (PV) effect.
Solar cells are typically combined into modules that hold about 40 cells; a number of these modules are mounted in PV arrays that can measure up to several meters on a side. These flat-plate PV arrays can be mounted at a fixed angle facing south, or they can be mounted on a tracking device that follows the sun, allowing them to capture the most sunlight over the course of a day.
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| Solar Cell in Dubai |
Several connected PV arrays can provide enough power for a household; for large electric utility or industrial applications, hundreds of arrays can be interconnected to form a single, large PV system. Thin film solar cells use layers of semiconductor materials only a few micrometers thick.
Thin film technology has made it possible for solar cells to now double as rooftop shingles, roof tiles, building facades, or the glazing for skylights or atria. The solar cell version of items such as shingles offer the same protection and durability as ordinary asphalt shingles. Some solar cells are designed to operate with concentrated sunlight. These cells are built into concentrating collectors that use a lens to focus the sunlight onto the cells. This approach has both advantages and disadvantages compared with flat-plate PV arrays. The main idea is to use very little of the expensive semiconducting PV material while collecting as much sunlight as possible.
But because the lenses must be pointed at the sun, the use of concentrating collectors is limited to the sunniest parts of the country. Some concentrating collectors are designed to be mounted on simple tracking devices, but most require sophisticated tracking devices, which further limit their use to electric utilities, industries, and large buildings. The performance of a solar cell is measured in terms of its efficiency at turning sunlight into electricity.
Only sunlight of certain energies will work efficiently to create electricity, and much of it is reflected or absorbed by the material that make up the cell. Because of this, a typical commercial solar cell has an efficiency of 15%-about one-sixth of the sunlight striking the cell generates electricity.
Low efficiencies mean that larger arrays are needed, and that means higher cost. Improving solar cell efficiencies while holding down the cost per cell is an important goal of the PV industry, NREL researchers, and other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories, and they have made significant progress. The first solar cells, built in the 1950s, had efficiencies of less than 4%.
By: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com
Photo of The Day
Photo of The Day
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| National Geograpich's Photo |
Adults normally grow to be 2 to 4 feet in length. One source even cites them as being able to reach up to 7 feet in length! The head of this animal is considerably smaller in size than its body.
The rhinoceros viper's head is one of its most distinguishing characteristics. The rhino viper's head is in a triangular shape. There are 2 or 3 "horns" above each nostril. The coloration of the rhinoceros viper is incredible. Because of the various patterns and colors, the rhino viper has often been regarded as one of the most beautiful snakes in the world (see the above picture).
Coloration in the rhinoceros viper is an adaptive feature. The degree of light and dark colors of this snake depends on its habitat. This wetland species of adders has darker colors which allow it to blend well with the jungle floor where it would most likely be found.
Berlin Calling Full Movie
Though it claims to be a universal portrait of a modern artist, Hannes Stoehr’s Berlin Calling is largely addressed to techno fans and clubbers who can appreciate the genius of star German DJ Paul Kalkbrenner, who not only plays the lead but supplies practically the film’s entire musical soundtrack.
Playing a tortured artist who is a voracious consumer of drugs, is regularly hospitalised for overdoses, loses his girlfriend and is dumped by his record company but yet still manages to create a new album of outstanding genius, Kalkbrenner carries the entire film on his shoulders - with remarkable aplomb, if not brilliance. Given his international reputation as a performing artist, he may also provide the film with most of its audience. And there is surely a nice crowd waiting for this type of film at the theatre, not to mention late-night cable TV slots.
Not quite the cautionary tale it might have been, Stoehr’s film can’t really make up its mind what the cautionary message actually is. In the world depicted here, creative juices feed on drugs and nobody objects to them as long as the after-effects don’t cross over an unspecified line. The only villain in the film is the drug dealer, who doesn’t abide by these rules.
DJ Ickarus (Kalkbrenner) the younger son of a Protestant priest whose mother died when he was a child, mixes his tracks live in front of large screaming audiences of fans. An adult who hasn’t quite matured, he’s in his thirties and living with his girlfriend, Mathilde (Lengyel) as the film starts out. She doubles up as his business manager and occasional babysitter, whose job it is to keep him out of trouble.
While working on a long-awaited new set of tracks, Ickarus indulges heavily in the merchandise of his favourite drug dealer Erbse (Rolf Peter Kahl), which ultimately puts him out of commission and into a psychiatric clinic. There he comes into direct conflict with Dr. Petra Paul (Harfouch), whose unsympathetic treatment, combined with Mathilde’s decision to go back to her former lover, Corinna (Walton), leads to a series of explosive eruptions, ending with Ickarus being kicked out of the clinic, losing his recording contract and facing total bankruptcy.
Relatively tame for the kind of material it tackles, Berlin Calling is sprinkled with modest quantities of music and a number of live performances that are sadly lacking in either originality or impact. Stoehr’s film predictably follows all the classic patterns of the genre, offering no new insights nor opening new doors of perception. A certain obsession with Christianity is not altogether explained. Kalkbrenner, familiar with all the secrets of the profession and performing his own music, feels secure, comfortable and credible in his part. Rita Lengyel, meanwhile, seems adequately concerned with his fate while the stiffness of veteran Corinna Harfouch playing the doctor suggests an ambivalence that doesn’t quite fit the image of an angel of mercy. All technical credits are satisfactory, with some pretty fancy light displays during Ickarus’ live concerts.
Playing a tortured artist who is a voracious consumer of drugs, is regularly hospitalised for overdoses, loses his girlfriend and is dumped by his record company but yet still manages to create a new album of outstanding genius, Kalkbrenner carries the entire film on his shoulders - with remarkable aplomb, if not brilliance. Given his international reputation as a performing artist, he may also provide the film with most of its audience. And there is surely a nice crowd waiting for this type of film at the theatre, not to mention late-night cable TV slots.
Not quite the cautionary tale it might have been, Stoehr’s film can’t really make up its mind what the cautionary message actually is. In the world depicted here, creative juices feed on drugs and nobody objects to them as long as the after-effects don’t cross over an unspecified line. The only villain in the film is the drug dealer, who doesn’t abide by these rules.
DJ Ickarus (Kalkbrenner) the younger son of a Protestant priest whose mother died when he was a child, mixes his tracks live in front of large screaming audiences of fans. An adult who hasn’t quite matured, he’s in his thirties and living with his girlfriend, Mathilde (Lengyel) as the film starts out. She doubles up as his business manager and occasional babysitter, whose job it is to keep him out of trouble.
While working on a long-awaited new set of tracks, Ickarus indulges heavily in the merchandise of his favourite drug dealer Erbse (Rolf Peter Kahl), which ultimately puts him out of commission and into a psychiatric clinic. There he comes into direct conflict with Dr. Petra Paul (Harfouch), whose unsympathetic treatment, combined with Mathilde’s decision to go back to her former lover, Corinna (Walton), leads to a series of explosive eruptions, ending with Ickarus being kicked out of the clinic, losing his recording contract and facing total bankruptcy.
Relatively tame for the kind of material it tackles, Berlin Calling is sprinkled with modest quantities of music and a number of live performances that are sadly lacking in either originality or impact. Stoehr’s film predictably follows all the classic patterns of the genre, offering no new insights nor opening new doors of perception. A certain obsession with Christianity is not altogether explained. Kalkbrenner, familiar with all the secrets of the profession and performing his own music, feels secure, comfortable and credible in his part. Rita Lengyel, meanwhile, seems adequately concerned with his fate while the stiffness of veteran Corinna Harfouch playing the doctor suggests an ambivalence that doesn’t quite fit the image of an angel of mercy. All technical credits are satisfactory, with some pretty fancy light displays during Ickarus’ live concerts.
Buddhist Culture
Buddhist Culture
For over twenty-five centuries, Buddhist ideas and ideals have guided and influenced the lives and thoughts of countless human beings in many parts of the world. As lay Buddhists, our own experiences and discoveries in life are not enough to give a true perspective on life. To bring ourselves closer to the ideal of a well-balanced man or woman, we need to acquire, at least in outline, what is called a cultural grounding in the Buddha-Dhamma.
Culture reveals to ourselves and others what we are. It gives expression to our nature in our manner of living and of thinking, in art, religion, ethical aspirations, and knowledge. Broadly speaking, it represents our ends in contrast to means.
A cultured man has grown, for culture comes from a word meaning "to grow." In Buddhism the arahant is the perfect embodiment of culture. He has grown to the apex, to the highest possible limit, of human evolution. He has emptied himself of all selfishness — all greed, hatred, and delusion — and embodies flawless purity and selfless compassionate service. Things of the world do not tempt him, for he is free from the bondage of selfishness and passions. He makes no compromises for the sake of power, individual or collective.
In this world some are born great while others have greatness thrust on them. But in the Buddha-Dhamma one becomes great only to the extent that one has progressed in ethical discipline and mental culture, and thereby freed the mind of self and all that it implies. True greatness, then, is proportional to one's success in unfolding the perfection dormant in human nature.
We should therefore think of culture in this way: Beginning with the regular observance of the Five Precepts, positively and negatively, we gradually reduce our greed and hatred. Simultaneously, we develop good habits of kindness and compassion, honesty and truthfulness, chastity and heedfulness. Steady, wholesome habits are the basis of good character, without which no culture is possible. Then, little by little, we become great and cultured Buddhists. Such a person is rightly trained in body, speech, and mind — a disciplined, well-bred, refined, humane human being, able to live in peace and harmony with himself and others. And this indeed is Dhamma.
In order to grow we also have to be active and energetic, diligent in wholesome conduct. There is no place for laziness and lethargy in Buddhism. We must be diligent in cultivating all aspects of the Dhamma in ourselves at all times. If we develop as good individuals, we automatically become cultured members of our society, mindful both of rights and duties. Buddhism addresses itself only to the individual thinking person. It has nothing to do with mass movements, for "masses" are just collections of individual men and women. Any true social development must therefore begin with the transformation of each individual person.
In this way the ethical dilemmas of an economically developing country like Sri Lanka, with a background of Buddhist culture, are resolved, for a true lay Buddhist will aim at personal progress in worldly matters only on the foundation of the Noble Eightfold Path. Progress by way of adhamma — unrighteousness — well inevitably bring in its trail disaster, pain, and suffering to individual, community, and nation.
Such a misguided policy implies disbelief in kamma and its effects. Reject kamma and one is rootless. Rejection is the result of blinding greed for quick material gain and sensual pleasures, conjoined with delusion about the true nature and destiny of man and life. It also signifies acceptance of the philosophy of expediency — that one should "get the most that one can" out of this single fleeting life on earth guided largely by one's instincts, subject to the laws of society, which the affluent and powerful often circumvent with impunity. Such a short-sighted and mistaken view ultimately leads to individual and social tensions, to restlessness and conflict, and to the spread of indiscipline, lawlessness, and crime.
Buddhism distinguishes between emotions that are constructive, such as metta and karuna, and those that are destructive: anger and jealousy, for instance. It encourages the cultivation of the former to eliminate the latter. Human beings can both think and feel. When the Buddha taught the Dhamma, sometimes he appealed to reason, sometimes to the emotions, and sometimes to the imagination, using such means of instruction as fables, stories, and poetry. Buddhist culture, too, manifests in other forms than that of a fine character, such as in the field of literature — the Jatakas, the Theragatha and Therigatha, for examples — philosophy, art, architecture, and sculpture.
Art is basically a medium of human communication. It can help in the education of the emotions and is one of the civilizing agencies of humankind. The work of the artist, whether painter, dramatist, sculptor, or writer, is worthy of study because it has a certain expressiveness that both reveals and stimulates fresh insights. The artist sees new meanings in objects and experience that ordinarily escape the rest of us, and thus he creates new values and insights in life.
Rightly viewed as the expression of the good life, and as an aid to living it — and not for mere enjoyment and appreciation — art can therefore ennoble us. For example, the tranquillity and peace that one sees in the Samadhi statue of the Buddha elevates the mind, stimulates confidence, and induces reverence for the Dhamma. In all Buddhist lands, the images of the Buddha and the Bodhisatta have become the typical form of artistic expression.
Buddhist culture is perennial and so is as fresh today as it was in the Buddha's time 2500 years ago. It is also self-sufficient, self-consistent, and self-sustaining. Based as it is on eternal verities, verifiable by individual experience, it is never obsolete, and animates the progress that seems to kill it. Nor does its content change with context.
The impact of Buddhism on world culture was truly significant. In it, there is no intellectual error, based as it is on reason and on the bedrock of personal experience. It is free from moral blindness, for its ethics is truly lofty, guided by a rational basis for such an ethic, namely, personal evolution in terms of one's own kamma. It engendered no social perversity — hate and intolerance were for none, limitless loving-kindness and compassion were for all. The doors to deliverance were open to anyone who wished to enter them. Its thrilling message of reason, universal benevolence, flaming righteousness, social justice, hope, and deliverance in this very existence by one's own exertion — all had a fertilizing and liberating influence on thought and action wherever Buddhism spread.
To the thinking person, Buddhism offered a rational, practical, and balanced way of deliverance from all life's sorrows, and the certainty of the perfectibility of man, here and now solely by one's own effort. To the humanist it gave an all-embracing compassionate vision, inspiring ameliorative action as a pre-condition for the realization of the highest spiritual attainments.
Even to have a general idea of its achievements, in the manifold ways it has expressed itself in society, is an education in the art of living. Buddhism gives perspective to the whole of life. Nothing in life is seen as more important than it really is. A cultured Buddhist can tell the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the true from the false. He can weigh the evidence skillfully, and his Buddhist cultural background makes his judgment a wise one.
From: www.accesstoinsight.org
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