How a basic photovoltaic cell works

Nowadays we see a lot of people placing solar cells on their roof. Solar cells are also known as photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic comes from the photo which means "light" and voltaic which means "electricity". So basically, a photovoltaic cell uses light to create electricity. But how does it create electricity?

An average photovoltaic (PV) cell consists of 2 layers of silicon where most of the actions happens. It has antireflective coating to prevent the light that goes to the cell reflected away. The cell has metal conductor strips on it to conduct the electricity from the PV cell out to the load. It then gets back to metal backing of the cell to create a close loop.

A common material for silicon is the boron doped silicon and the phosphorus doped silicon. The phosphorus doped silicon contains more electron than the boron doped silicon.

This difference is necessary to create an electric field between the two layers. When these 2 types of silicon are joined together, the electron from the phosphorus doped silicon goes to the boron doped silicon side to create a stable environment. However, this happens only close to the junction of the joining point. Now the cell is ready for producing energy.

Now that the PV cell is ready, the sun comes play in generating energy. The sun sends a wave of photons (although it is also considered as particles of photons) to the earth. These photons have energy and are able to hit the electron in the PV cell. In reaction, the electrons spring out of their orbit and gets to the metal conductor strips.

Now that the electrons are captured and the potential difference is created, the only thing is to add a load (e.g. a lamp) to make a close circuit and the electrons are on the move to create its stability which in return powers up the load.

I hope that this blog can explain you about the basics of a photovoltaic cell in action. Feel free to comment or add knowledge/experience.

Note: Pictures are taken from PBS Nova site.

Carbon Footprint

When people talk about clean energy, they usually relate it to a term called carbon footprint. What is actually meant by carbon footprint? Is it your footprints made from carbon?

Well, it has actually some relations in it. A person’s carbon footprint is the trace or amount of carbon one releases into the air in a certain amount of time. It can also be considered as the amount of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions one produces over an amount of time. One of the main traces of carbon is by breathing. In the process of breathing a person inhales oxygen, uses internal ‘combustion’ to get energy, and exhales CO2 (carbon dioxide).

However, a person’s carbon footprint is not only the carbon it produces but also the carbon it generates by using equipments and doing activities. By using electric generated equipment, a person generates a higher carbon footprint since electricity is generated in power plants that produces high carbon waste (especially coal powered power plants). Doing certain activites such as smoking, burning waste, burning down trees also produces a lot of carbon into the air.

The effect of these high carbon footprints will destroy the nature and ecosystem, since trees and other green plants are not able to process them all. Therefore, the excess carbon will be hanging in the air, inhaled again by people, but the worse is that it absorbs heat from the sun (the glasshouse effect).

So, the question is how do we prevent this high personal carbon footprint? There are several techniques how to reduce them:

1. Try to save energy. By saving energy, you reduce your carbon footprint, and you save also money.

2. Try to use clean/renewable energy such as solar or wind energy. These kinds of energy produces a little amount of carbon footprint (only during the making of these equipments).

3. Do not burn things. Avoid smoking, burning trees, paper and other waste.

4. Plant trees so that it can process the amount of carbon in the air into good fresh oxygen.

Hope these tricks can help you reduce your personal carbon footprint. If you are not able to do the tips above, there is always a last option: hold your breath for as long as possible!

Major Scale

One of the basic theories that you have to know for playing music is the Major Scale. The Major scale is one of the diatonic scales (a scale with 7 intervals on an octave) which has the following pattern based on the range of the interval:

whole:whole:half:whole:whole:whole:half

A “whole” interval means 2 “half” intervals. A half interval is the smallest interval on a basic music instrument (guitar of piano). Using a guitar, a half interval is the interval between 2 adjacent frets. Using a piano, a half interval is the interval between 2 adjacent and closest note. If you use the C note, than the half interval is the B note (half interval lower than C) and the C# note (half interval higher than C). Remember, there are 2 intervals for a note. The higher interval and the lower interval.

For example:

If you play on a C scale, then the notes on a major scale are C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. On a piano, these notes would be all “white” notes. Therefore playing on C scale is considered the easiest scale to play. If you play it on a D scale, then the notes you must play are D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D (count it if you want and you will see this uses the same major scale pattern as above). In this scale, you will press 2 “black” notes in it.

On a guitar, you can count these scales based on the interval. For a whole interval you should skip one fret and for a half interval you should play on the adjecent fret of the current note. Because you can use a counting method on a guitar, none of the scales are considered easier than the others, because they are basically the same.

Hope this blog can explain and helps you a little but about the major scale.

Clean Energy for a Better Future

Energy consumption is currently rising throughout the world. The current energy source are currently coal, oil and gas. These energy sources besides getting harder to find, is also considered not so clean. Therefore, clean renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydro energy should be considered as an alternative energy.

There are several good reasons why people should consider these kind of energy. Some of them are renewable (always there) and low cost – high revenue for the future. However, in all cases the main reason of using clean energy is building a better future.

Current energy produces a lot CO2 (carbon dioxide) which produces a high carbon footprint. This footprint will in turn make the earth warmer which will lead into global warming. This problem can be avoided if people use clean energy. With clean energy, people could still get a lot of energy from clean energy sources, but with lesser carbon footprint. Therefore you would conserve the world for the people that lives after you.

So, after you read these post, I hope that you will consider clean energy sources to source some of your electric equipments needs.

Guitar Chords

One of my hobbies is playing guitar. One of my friends asked me about how to play a guitar, so I searched the web for some pictures of people playing basic chords. I have found web pages posting chords, but amazingly I did not found any pages posting all of them with pictures. So, I’ve provided pictures for those of you who needs to see the chords.

You can see all of the basic chords (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C) in the image below:

Here is the C chord:

Here is the D chord:

Here is the E chord:

Here is the F chord:

Here is the G chord:

Here is the A chord:

Here is the B chord:

Hope this post helps you to play basic guitar chords.

Introduction

Hello World!

I’ve decided to try blogging up my mind today. I’ve named my blog whatsonmymind62 because that is what I’m trying to write about: My Mind. I wanted to name it whatsonmymind in the first place, but that name was already taken, so I’ve added the 62 on it. 62 means my country code which is Indonesia.

Anyway, I hope some of you who reads my blog can enjoy reading it. Please share with me your comments or thought about my blogs.

Thanks.