How to Build a Homemade Solar Water Heater

In a world where fossil fuels are running low and where electricity becomes expensive with each passing day, people have to adapt and start living independent of these resources.

Considering all alternative energy sources available today, people should start implementing them in their lives, in their homes.

This is the reason why I chose to show you in this post the simplest way to build a solar water heater for your home.

Assembling this system is not very difficult but it is important to take into account several things:

Before you start installing this solar heating panel, you have to decide where it will work best. It should be installed where it can find maximum sunlight. It is also better if you’ll keep it close to the back up heater.

For maximum efficiency and zero risks you have to use water tight panels sealed with plexi-glass. To make it water proof it should be endorsed with black pond liner.

Today, panels are made of thin cylinders because of their greater efficiency. Plywood tank is a substitute for the thin cylinder, which is a shallow box with the plywood bottom and four walls used for the water tank.

At the bottom of the panel you have to connect the pipes using connectors. The role of these pipes is to drive water from the house to your solar heater. With another set of pipes connected at the top of this heater you’ll send the warm water back to the house.

The color you’ll use to paint your solar heater will be black (including the inner side of the panel). Black color absorbs light rays better than any other color and it stores heat energy efficiently. You have to make sure that the paint dries completely.

Now when you’re almost done, you have to cover your panels with a part of plexi-glass acrylic plastic.

For the purpose of glazing glass is the most appropriate material (for homemade water heaters). To avoid leaks, glazing should be done carefully and also make sure to glue the panes perfectly to avoid condensation.

This homemade solar water heater should not be very difficult to build. Give these plans a try and start build it. Good luck!

Bangkok residents flee as floods threaten to overwhelm capital

Mass evacuation as authorities fear crocodiles from outlying areas may have arrived in the city's swollen watercourses.Residents of Bangkok are bracing themselves for peak tides that threaten to overwhelm Thailand's capital with flood water. Many have fled to beach resorts unaffected by the country's worst flooding in half a century but those who remain face a shortage of bottled water and unconfirmed reports that crocodiles from outlying areas may have arrived in the city's swollen watercourses."We are hearing disturbing reports of dangerous animals such as snakes and crocodiles appearing in the floodwaters and every day we see children playing in the water, bathing or wading through it trying to make their way to dry ground," said Annie Bodmer-Roy, spokeswoman for Save the Children.Supermarkets are racing to import crates of bottled water because most plants supplying the city of 12 million people are located in central provinces, some of which are under two metres of water. In the absence of water, crates of beer have filled swaths of empty shelf space in shops.
Flood walls protecting much of Bangkok's inner-city areas are 2.5 metres (8ft) high and Saturday's high tide is expected to reach 2.6 metres.

Friday's morning high tide passed without a major breach, but the waters briefly touched riverside areas closer to the city's central business districts of Silom and Sathorn.
"It is clear that although the high tides haven't reached 2.5 metres, it was high enough to prolong the suffering of those living outside the flood walls and to threaten those living behind deteriorating walls," said the Bangkok governor, Sukhumbhand Paribatra.
Seven of Bangkok's 50 districts in the northern outskirts are heavily flooded, and residents have fled aboard bamboo rafts and army trucks and by wading in waist-deep water. Eight other districts have seen less serious flooding.
Hotels are packed in beach resorts such as Pattaya, where there is an uneasy balance between recreation and concern for the capital's fate with holidaymakers gathering around TV news bulletins, Bodmer-Roy said.
Almost 400 people have been killed in the nationwide floods, which began in July. The government has warned that Thailand may lose a quarter of its main rice crop, which could increase prices from the world's top exporter of the grain.
"The 6m tonnes damage [to the rice paddy] is just an initial estimate.

We need to conduct a survey again after flood water recedes," Apichart Jongsakul, head of the Office of Agriculture Economy, told Reuters.

Solar-powered internet school set to benefit children in rural Africa

Resilient mobile classroom incorporating laptops, video camera and electronic blackboard will work in areas without electricity.

Their days of sitting in a ramshackle, sweltering school building, or taking lessons under the shade of a tree, could be about to change.

Children in the farthest corners of rural Africa are the target of a mobile, solar-powered classroom that was launched in Johannesburg this week.
The classroom, built inside a 12-metre-long shipping container by electronics firm Samsung, has an array of gadgets including laptops, a video camera and a 50-inch e-board in place of a blackboard.
According to the manufacturers, the "solar powered internet school" can easily be carried by truck to remote areas, survive harsh weather conditions and, crucially, operate where there is no electricity supply.
Foldaway solar panels provide enough energy to power the classroom's equipment for up to nine hours a day, and for one and a half days without any sunlight at all. The panels are made from rubber instead of glass to ensure they are hardy enough to survive long journeys across the continent.
Samsung said: "Electricity remains Africa's largest economic challenge with the level of penetration lower than 25% in most rural areas.
"This lack of power isolates communities, and limits their access to education and information, both of which are key to fast-tracking a nation's development."
The classroom has space for 21 pupils and a teacher, and includes a ventilation system designed to maintain a "temperate environment".
It is fitted with a variety of computers including solar-powered laptops and tablets. It also has an energy-efficient fridge, a file server loaded with educational content, a router, a video camera and a "world first" Wi-Fi camera, all of which communicate via 3G.
This allows a central location, such as the department of education, to monitor classes and deliver curriculum-based content directly to the laptops of both pupils and staff.
If the best-laid plans are struck by a computer glitch, teachers can still use a regular built-in whiteboard and chalkboard.
The prototype is being piloted at the Samsung Electronics Engineering Academy in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg. It will then be sent to Qunu in the Eastern Cape to undergo further testing.
President and chief executive of Samsung Electronics Africa, KK Park, said: "We have set an ambitious goal for ourselves in Africa: to positively impact 5 million lives by 2015."

Family Gets Green Names to Promote Environmental Lifestyle

Somewhere in China a whole family renamed, to promote environtalism.
So let's see the new names: father's name is Chen Low-Carbon, wife's name is Zhang Green, and the names of their boys are Chen Enviromental Protection and Chen Enviroment.
In my opinion it is a good idea, i will think to change my name.

Recovery of waste from industry, shrimp and lobster processing

Shrimp are popular foods, from fish or shrimp farms, fast-growing industry in some parts of the world. Shrimp are traditional ingredients in many cuisines of regional abdominal muscles that form representing the tasty white meat part.

Shrimp farms were originally developed in Asia and is now widespread throughout the tropical world, representing between 33-50% of the total shrimp market.
Following the intense growth of shrimp and lobster consumption considered in the past to be luxury foods, most of these products remain in the form of bio-waste.
Increasing shrimp processing has led to increasing the amount of waste available because they are sold without the head and outer shell, 40-45% of these products being used.
These bio-wastes are stored as landfills, thrown on the ground or sea water removed, resulting in significant pollution of coastal areas of surfaces and is an important concern in terms of environmental pollution.

Shrimp and lobster residues containing biopolymers such as chitin and chitozanul, compounds with great economic importance. Because of special biological properties, biodegradability and biocompatibility of its chitozanul is widely used in medicine and pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, agriculture and biotechnology.

Biomedical applications of these materials are different from sutures, bandages and ointments for healing wounds, contact lenses and artificial skin to controlled release drug systems.

The cosmetic industry is used in hair care products such as shampoos and hair dyes, but also in skin care products such as creams, lotions, private foundation, lipstick and makeup.

Chemical derivatives of chitozanului materials were studied as antimicrobial against a wide range of target organisms such as algae, bacteria, yeasts and fungi. In agriculture, chitozanul is mainly used as seed treatment and booster natural growth of plants as bio-pesticide organic plant that stimulates the innate ability to defend against fungal infections.

Chitozanul can also be used in water treatment plants because it has the ability to bind fine sediment particles are then removed with them during sand filtration. It is used to remove phosphorus, heavy metals and of oil from water.

Because chitozanul is one of the most abundant biodegradable materials in the world and because of its multiple applications to open a new market for waste left after processing process shrimp and lobster.

How do you make goat milk bullet resistant :)

Dutch researchers have managed to made ​​- with the help of goat milk proteins similar to spider web - a material ten times stronger than steel. This could be combined with human skin, and would thus become strong enough to stop a bullet, writes Tuesday.

See also: "Children's Forest came to life! "

According to the Daily Mail, Forensic Genomics Consortium researchers from the Netherlands were more genetically modified goats to get a type of milk rich in those proteins that provide resistance to spider webs. Milk is then transformed by means of a novel, in a material ten times stronger than steel.

The material can then be combined with human skin to get, according to the researchers, a skin strong enough to stop a bullet.

Research team's objective is to replace the keratin - the protein that gives skin strength - of human skin with spider web proteins.

The first step is to increase a real layer of skin around a piece of leather armor, phase which takes about five weeks.

Dutch researchers say the project - which turn into reality something that exists only in science fiction - seems promising, although test results were not perfect.

"It is possible, by adding in the human genome the genes with which produce spider threads its canvas", say Dutch scientists.

The most famous examples of skin bulletproof franchises appear in "Superman" and "Man of Steel / Man of Steel"