Solar Powered Cookies,er…Cooking...

Solar Cookies “Free energy“… what could be cooler than that? Well, “free energy” and “food“… Today, I’m baking Solar Powered Cookies in my Passive Solar Oven for snacks at this weekend’s South Sound Green Tour. Solar Oven with Assistant About 20 years ago, I was hired to go to Boston to teach the Fundamentals of Energy at a summer prep school. Given that  the classes offered were electives and there were many to choose from, I was pretty concerned about whether kids would sign up for my class. As a desperate...

June 18-20 Solar PV Design Workshop...

Solar PV Design Workshop, June 18-20th Hosted by: NW Eco-Building Guild Space is limited to 10 participants, so go ahead and reserve your space–email us at classreg.ecobuilding@gmail.com today!   Workshop cost is $250 for all 3 days, with a $50 discount for the first 3 registrants. June 18-20: The Northwest EcoBuilding Guild is sponsoring a 3 day Solar Photovoltaic Design and Installation Class.  This class will present how to design, and install residential-sized, code compliant, battery-less and battery-based grid-tied PV systems. This class will provide...

Solar Tutorial Part A – The Very B...

Creating electricity from the sun has been around since 1954, but using the sun for heat energy has been around since the dawn of time. Have you ever leaned against a rock late in the evening that had been ‘cooking’ in the sun all day and discovered it to be warm? That’s solar thermal energy being stored in the rock or ‘thermal mass’. The ancient architects were all over that one! Despite it’s long history “solar energy” is still a mystery to many. Good Questions: Are there different types of solar energy? What is insolation? How viable is solar in...