Types Of Renewable Energy

For so many years people have been burning fossil fuels like gas, coal and oil for energy, except now sources of fossil fuels are depleting – and they create pollution to the environment when they are burned too. People are now starting to realize that we need to find alternative sources of renewable energy. These [spin]various types of sources include solar, wind and marine energy.

One of the most used and commonly known sources of renewable energy is solar power. Everyday the sun generates a huge amount of energy and that sunlight can be used to convert into electricity using various technologies. It can be collected by solar collectors. These are the heat-absorbing panels that you see on many rooftops. The way these solar collectors work is that they harness solar energy and turn it to heat energy. Water is warmed by the heat energy and then stored in water tanks. Solar collectors are being used to heat the water in your house and to heat swimming pool. Both makes use of the same technologies.

Wind power is another main sources of renewable energy. The energy contained in the wind comes indirectly from the sun, that is the sun heats the surface of the atmosphere which causes the wind to blow. Wind power is preferable to the use of fossil fuels as it does not generate any greenhouse gases and it is an abundant resource. Wind energy is not a new initiative. Wind power was originally used to produce electricity by the ancient Egyptians and by the beginning of the 20th century wind power was used extensively in Europe, in particular Denmark. However it was the introduction of cheap oil and gas that ruined the wind power industry. It is only now that people are becoming interested in wind power once again due to the issues with pollution and green house gas emissions.

Scientists are looking at developing technologies that obtain energy/power from the tides and the waves. Marine energy is thus another of the main sources of renewable energy. As an energy source it is sustainable and has very little effect on the environment. Using water to generate energy is quite a new idea and there are no commercial wave energy devices on the market at the moment. However, there is some technology that is being applied and trialled. One such technology that is producing power on the Scottish island of Islay is an equipment known as LIMPET. More and more technologies are being developed all the time. Watch out for any new innovations in marine energy technology next time you pick up the newspaper or an environmental magazine.

Geothermal energy is the last in the renewable energy sources that is going to be mentioned in this article. The simplest way to make full use of geothermal energy is by salt water and steam that is trapped in the many layers of rock below the earth’s core. Natural hot springs are the most common type of geothermal energy that has been used in the last few centuries. But, geothermal heat pumps are the new “it“ energy product. Even though geothermal energy is sustainable, it is not widely available. This is because not everybody stays by a geothermal reservoir and that often the technology is far too costly. But it is still good to have this as an option.

You can visit our Green Homemade Solutions website to find out more about renewable energy.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 10:33 pm and is filed under wind power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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