Volunteers continue to donate warehouses, hair, nylons and their time to make hair booms. Until now, the hair booms were being sent to LA and AL. Recently, Ft. Myers marinas and area businesses are stockpiling the free hair booms. With the potential shortage of booms, it’s time to take the hair booms seriously!

Check out this comparison of the BP booms vs hair booms, taped in LA in Mar

BP is not using the hair boom because of a comparison done in Feb before the spill …Has anyone seen that video?

The BP boom is made of synthetics, in part, petroleum… another revenue stream for BP?

Another challenge was that the hair booms sank. Pics of the hair booms soaking up oil in the gulf, being floated by donated buoys and shrimp nets not sinking:

http://matteroftrust.org/programs/hai…

Uf the oil comes up on our shores we need surface as well as below the surface booming. The hair booms would work with less bouy floatation.

Recently, Matter Of Trust has had to temporarily stop the hair donations. It’s because our warehouses are full! We have so much hair that we have to convert into booms and have used up most of our donated space. In the Ft. Myers warehouse, most of the volunteers are all business owners who can only volunteer on the weekends. As soon as we convert the hair into booms, the collections will start up again.

We have and will continue to be there every weekend, for however long it takes. If you would like to help volunteer contact http://www.MatterOfTrust.org or send a message back.

We can make a difference, if we try!

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Panel manufacturers warranty the output of each panel when it is manufactured, but they lose a little bit every year – 1/2 a percent. That doesn’t amount to much but by 25 years its making 12+1/2 percent less electricity, so if it was say a small 100 watt panel, then in 2035, the 100 watt panel is now an 87.5 watt panel. By agreement once the 10% mark is bridged, then it cannot be warranteed to be still 100%.

Therefor the manufacturer can’t claim its still a 100 watt panel in 2035:when it becomes an 87.5 watt panel.

By 40 years old the panel will have reduced its power output further – at 1/2 percent a year, it will have lost 20% – to 80% of the original rating, or now an 80 watt panel in 2050.

That doesn’t mean its not making power. It is still producing 80% of the original power in 2050, after 40 years.

It is likely that the efficiency of appliances in the house will have improved 12% by 2035, and 20% by 2050 anyway; so it will likely still make the same percentage of the power used in the house. But the manufacturer in 2010 can’t claim it will still be a 100 watt panel in 2050.

These panels provide all the electric for our house and an electric car. The car uses about 0.2kWh per mile. The panels supply enough electric on average to travel about 50 miles per day, plus supply the house. I expect a Leaf would use around 0.225 to 0.250kWh per mile.

[SK: ….and – interestingly, BP just got out of a small US solar market segment (BIPV) they were really good at! The guy who is going to install our solar told me that some people really prefer the BIPV slates to panels, aesthetically, and they used to buy them from BP, but no more, because BP says they “can get more money for them in Europe.”It was really dumb to abandon that business.]

vivzizi

[SK: wow -that is a very intriguing concept – hard to do at the typical 22 degree angle, though, but since so often PV has to compete for roofspace with a solar hot water system to heat the pool, worth trying to figure it out ! It would be a happy marriage of the two -synergistic.]

It’s nice to see you — and Clean Technica — actively promoting solar-charged driving. We just had a 5.5 kW system put up on our Colorado roof last week (got a great deal, $8500 out of pocket cost thanks to us locking in a $3.50 per watt utility rebate by signing up for the system last fall).

Now, we have to wait what is looking like it might be close to two years for the Nissan LEAF or another EV to actually be offered in the Colorado market.

–Christof Demont-Heinrich

Editor, SolarChargedDriving.Com

More demand will spur existing companies to expand and new companies to enter the market. New developments in efficiency, installation, components and storage will continue to advance.

More and more people will have access and this will spur further demand and the cycle goes on.