If the paint could collect solar energy to charge a battery, and then once the car starts moving, other fibers in the paint could convert the wind passing over the car to electrical energy, wouldn’t this be a way to decrease our dependency on fossil fuels. Is there any technology out there that can do such a thing?

No. Air drag is one of the chief components in auto efficiency. What you describe would increase air drag.
As far as the solar part goes most cars have about 12 square feet of surface in the sun when the car is in the sun. 12 square feet can produce 900 watts. In four hours that would be 2700 Watt hours. A gallon of gasoline is about 37,000 Watt hours. What means is is that it is going to take over 100 days to produce the energy of one gallon of gasoline and everything has to be perfect.

i would like to install a solar panel in my home to produce electricity, but i would like to know if anybody has actually done it. (please only answer if you have first-hand knowledge of this subject)

I assume you want to generate a portion of your energy needs, not the whole thing. You can start with a small grid tied system for under $4000. However, depending on your usage and where you are, it may only produce a tiny percentage of what you buy. Take a look at this small package at http://www.altestore.com/store/Kits-and-Package-Deals/Grid-Tied-Systems/Alt-E-Designed-Grid-Tie-Packages/AltE-Micro1-Grid-Tied-Residential-Package/p5642/.

Grab your electric bill and see how many kilowatt hours, or kWh you buy a month. A small system like this one may only produce about 25kwh a month. See if that’s enough to accomplish what you want to do.

Before you look into solar, you should do everything you can to reduce your electric bill first. For every $1 you spend reducing your usage, that’s worth about $4 of solar panels.

You can also look into solar water heating, that’s a great way to reduce your energy usage and go solar, but not solar electric. You just use the heat of the sun to provide you with free hot water! http://www.altestore.com/store/Solar-Water-Heaters/c402/

I have a science project and I have to expalin to the judge what happends during the process of solar energy. Can you please summurize it in simple, easy to remember terms?

Basically what goes on in a solar cell is the conversion of light energy (photons) to electrical current (the flow of electrons).

In physics this is called the photoelectric effect.

A solar cell will absorb light energy (the photons, which could be visible light, UV light or IR light generally), and this light energy will energize electrons in the atoms of the cell.

These electrons will cause a charge separation (positive and negative) in the material (a voltage) which will have a mechanism for trapping the electrons to maintain the voltage.

Current will then flow if you connect the separate charged ends of the cell with a conductive material.

I am not sure how to make it simpler…

Would like to add to home but it appears that there is way to much info out there. Need to pare it back a bit. Please help.

You may want to hold off buying for a while….there’s a new technology for them being developed call "thin-cell" solar which may cut the costs for them in half to 1/3 per watt produced. It uses other materials than silicon like cadmium-telluride and others.
http://welcome.colostate.edu/features/ava-solar.aspx

how can I add solar panels to my house? It was built in 1984? Do you know of any websites that can inform me of more about using solar energy for some part of my electricity use?

Step number one in getting started with any solar power setup in your home is to perform an energy audit. This is where you evaluate the amount of power (in kilowatts/hour or kilowatt hours) that you’ll need in any given day.

You will also need to take into account the site where your home is located. Geographical considerations such as climate, number of peak hours of sunlight per day, number of days of peak sunlight per year, and average rainfall will play a big role in how efficient a solar system you can design.

Any solar electric system will need, at the very least, the following components: a collector (usually solar panels); a mount (to put it on); an inverter (to convert 12 volt DC power to 110 volt AC power); a circuit breaker or fuse box and fuses & switches (to regulate the power transferring from the panels to your outlets and/or storage batteries); (optional) one or more storage batteries; (if you get a battery) a charge controller (to keep from over- or undercharging the battery and severely reducing its lifespan);

Once you’ve purchased all the elements of the solar system you’ve just designed, installation is fairly easy, though the simplicity of installing a solar power system does not mean you should necessarily do it yourself. There are numerous advantages to hiring a professional installer with training in both electrical systems and solar electrical systems, including knowing how to set everything up to code, should the building inspector ever have the need to look it over (ie. for insurance purposes).

If you find the right solar professional, they will instruct you in those parts of the installation that you are capable of and allow you to do some of the work yourself, saving you on some of your labor costs.

Even if you don’t decide to have a professional install your solar system, it would be well worth your while to consult one with your design to make sure it’s a viable design, one that’s taken all the necessary considerations into account. For example, there is a wide selection of panels, controllers, inverters, and batteries, each one manufactured with different requirements, each one not necessarily interchangeable with the other.

To further minimize the chances of incompatibilities between components in your solar system, consider purchasing all the elements of your set up from the same company and consulting with someone on their sales team that is knowledgeable in solar electric power.

In fact, many companies sell solar kits that contain all the components you would need to set your house up with solar power, with the certainty that all the components are compatible.

Whatever you decide, you don’t have to break the bank to try and supplant your entire power grid reliance with solar power right away and all at once. If you’re interested in availing yourself and your household of the multifold benefits of solar power, start small. Get yourself a single solar panel and see how well that works for you. When you’re ready, add on more panels, batteries, etc., one at a time as you can afford it and as your needs evolve.

How does using solar energy to create electricity benefit the planet Earth?

here’s a site that can give you the economical and environmental benefits of using solar energy:

http://www.sunsidesolar.com/Benefits.aspx

I am a strong believer of solar power. Why are they so expensive? I’m am not going to pay 15-30 thousand dollars for them I cant afford them. Also, Does Al Gore have solar power? How about the rest of the Hollywood and Political activists? Are the rich or wealthy doing there part in buying solar or wind? How do we bring down the cost of solar panels? As they get more popular they get more expensive.

I’m also a strong believer in solar but like you said its to expensive. Check out this company. I think you would be interested in what they have to offer.
http://www.jointhesolution.com/therisingsun

I’m giving my class a quiz, and I’m in serious need of some solar energy quiz questions. Please! Can I get some questions? Anything will do that is around the 5th/6th grade level. Thanks a bunch! Tali.

What are the main two kinds of solar panels used today?
- solar hot water (thermal) and solar electric (photovoltaic)

How much solar energy falls on a square meter of land at bright noon?
- about 1000 watts

How many houses in the USA have solar electric panels?
- hundreds of thousands, but this is less than 1% of the houses.

When did the White House have solar panels?
- President Carter installed them in the late 70’s.

Who took the solar panels off the White House?
- President Reagan did in 1981, he thought they looked unattractive.

Which country makes the most solar panels?
- China

Which country uses the most solar panels?
- Germany

In the USA, which state has the most solar panels installed?
- California, by far.

How does the Sun generate its energy?
- Mostly by fusion.

What about sources for straight forward solar powered products? Excluding toys, garden frogs and outdoorpath lights I have found few useful items for the home. What I have found are solar panels for under $100 each, inverters, rechargeable indoor lights and a few camping/RV products that are interesting. It seems to me that these could help me start to wean the family off the power company. I can’t afford to go cold turkey and cover my roof with solar panels and I don’t think the HOA would allow me to even if I could. Is anyone using solar on a small scale?

Solar panel technologys are advancing all the time. I could be wrong about this as it has been at least 6 months since I checked, but last time I checked, solar panels as we know them, the kind you put on your roof cant generate enough power to run a full household especially if you have kids, with various game consoles, TV’s, lighting, cooking, fridges and so on, not to mention power tools like the electric lawn mower or sander! That is to say, they cant generate enough power unless you are willing to spend considerable monies on the bestest most up to date ones and you have plenty of roof and garden space to mount them on. Actually, it would be cheaper just to pay the bills over the next 30 or 40 years at present prices than to do something like that.

However, other ideas are more reasonable, I have seen people mount rectulanguler plastic tanks on their roof, paint the outside of them a matt black, and put a transparent layer over them. This heats the water inside, saving them on heating costs for bathing and for heating the home in the evening. the most expensive part of this is getting it mounted and the pump to pump the water around the house.

Another alternative, is the geo thermal approach. That is the idea where you replace your radiators and heating system all together with a set of coiled pipes going through out your house. These pipes then lead out to the back garden under the ground about 3 or 4 feet. The idea being that the ground at that dept is always of a constant temperture no matter the weather, so if the house gets too hot the pipes (which are filled with a water/antifreese solution and are not connected to the water system) transfer heat out of the house and under the ground outside, but if the house gets too cold, the pipes take the heat from under the ground outside, and bring it into the house. This however will make any heating or air conditioning system almost useless as your house will always stay at the same temperature. Again you need a pump to pump the solution in the pipes it round the house.

isn’t there a way with no moving parts? sorta like solar panels i guess. but using just heat.
and can this electricity be stored in a battery?

a thermocouple can do this.
it employs the seeback effect.
when two mettalic wires of different materials are joined end to end and the 2 junctions kept at different temparature a thermo EMF is induced and current flows.