Your Green Life

Perhaps the biggest event to occur in the United States to emphasize the need to maintain sustain energy sources in the past 10 years was the rolling blackouts experienced on southern California in the early 2000’s. Alternative energy is the term used to refer to energy sources that are not based on fossil fuels such as oil or coal or nuclear power. Alternative and renewable energy sources are also growing in popularity due to the reduced or eliminated pollution and waste that occurs with traditional forms of energy production in the comprehensive effort of many to go green throughout their lives. Alternative energy sources that have been growing in use include solar energy, wind power, geothermal energy, and hydroelectric power. The following is an introduction to alternative energy sources in use today.

Alternative Energy Sources

Solar Energy

Solar energy has been used in various forms over the past several decades. The amount of energy potential from solar energy exceeds the world’s energy consumption by a factor of 35 or more. Unfortunately, the cost of entry into the solar market has precluded average consumers from being able to adopt this power resource to supplement that received from traditional power sources. It has been used successfully for home furnaces and water heaters. Another advantage of solar power is that there are no harmful by-products from use of the sun as a power source. As the cost for solar panels decreases, solar energy has the potential to become a replacement for power plants, homes, and beyond.

Wind Power

Wind power or wind energy is an alternative energy source that has been used for a number of years. Using wind power to help you Go Green for your home power needs has become increasing popular as the cost to build wind power generation units, or small windmills has significantly decreased over the past decade. The primary idea behind harnessing wind power is through the use of a windmill. As the wind goes across the blades of a windmill, it rotates and can be used to generate electricity. Wind power has been used at two different levels over the past several years: 1 – through large windmill farms, and 2- Building small wind generators for home use.

Geothermal Energy

Geothermal energy refers to using the heat of planet Earth to make steam that can then rum a steam turbine to make electricity. The Earth’s radius is approximately 4000 miles with the temperature at the core being approximately 4000 degrees Celsius. The temperature of the Earth mantle and surface crust boundary is approximately 375 degrees Celsius. If you drill approximately three miles into the Earth’s surface, the temperature is approximately 100 degrees Celsius which is hot enough to create steam. This is still pretty deep, however, so focus of geothermal energy has been on using geothermal hotspots located throughout the world. A hotspot is a volcanic feature where there is a reduced thickness in the Earth’s mantle that results in excessive heat to be transmitted from the Earth interior to the crust. Some examples of these hotspots include Yellowstone National Park and the Hawaiian islands. Geothermal energy sites do require extensive maintenance and cost more than other forms of alternative energy.

Harnessing the Power of the Ocean

Similar to the technology behind hydroelectric dams, harnessing the power of the Earth’s tides can be used to create energy. This method uses the natural motion produced by tides to fill reservoirs which are then discharged back to the sea to turn turbines that produce electricity. Although renewable, this method incurs a large cost but is used.

Hydroelectric Power

Hydroelectric power or energy is created from damming a river and then releasing the water stored behind the dam to generate energy through the turning of specialized turbines. The United States currently produces up to 60,000 MW of power through the usage of dams. Constructing a dam results in a large up-front cost, and also can play a significantly negative role on the surrounding environment. Once constructed, however, the hydroelectric energy produced by a dam has low maintenance and production costs.