Energy consumption and the environment

• Petroleum Oil Vs....
• Renewable Energy Overview
• China Finds Others...
• What's In Your Pepper?

Renewable Energy Overview As political and economic aspects of When water moves, it tends to carry a fossil fuels grow more harrowing, lot of inertia and stored energy. renewable energy is gaining popularity. Unfortunately, the tsunami in Asia was a Here's an overview of renewable energy. perfect example. On a less disastrous Renewable Energy Overview front, man has learned to use the power Renewable energy is more difficult to of moving water to produce electricity. define than you might imagine. Since it The first, and most common, use is in is a catchall phrase for a variety of the form of hydropower. Mostly seen on energy sources, any definition has to be large-scale projects, hydropower broad. With this in mind, let's define typically is used in the form of dams. A renewable energy as any energy source dam is placed in a river, creating a that naturally occurs and is very reservoir. Using gravity, water is then abundant. released through pipes in the dam. The Ironically, almost all renewable energy moving water spins turbines, producing sources rely on nuclear power. massive amounts of electricity. Fortunately, the nuclear power is in the Tidal power has been on the books for a form of the sun at the heart of our long time, but hasn't been seen in solar system. One giant nuclear large-scale projects. This is beginning reaction, the sun produces solar to change. The basic idea is very radiation and sunlight that is converted similar to hydropower. Depending on the on our planet into energy through system being used, pipes with large natural resources. In one form or turbines are placed in strong tidal another, sunlight is the basis for solar areas. As the tide changes, massive power, wind energy, biomass power, and amounts of water move to and fro in the so on. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, pipes spinning the turbines and are a form of biomass energy, but an producing energy. Although the tides ancient one with resource limits and move relatively slowly, the contain brutal side effects in the form of massive amounts of energy. Once thought pollutants. an odd energy idea, tidal energy is Solar Energy is the most basic and coming on strong as an energy platform direct form of renewable energy. in Europe. Depending on the type of platform used, Geothermal energy is a form of energy sunlight is converted directly into using the inherent warmth of the ground electricity or heat. Solar energy is to create power in primarily the form of considered a renewable energy because it heat. Roughly six to seven feet below will exist for as long as the sun, which the surface of the ground, the should be over 4 billion years. Once the temperature of the Earth is regulated. sun burns out, we will have much larger By exchanging liquids between above and problems than energy! below ground areas, temperature Wind energy is another form of solar regulation can be achieved. This is power. Wind is created when the sun mostly seen in residential situations. heats up different areas of the surface Biomass energy is a renewable energy of the Earth at different rates. You source, but not necessarily a clean one. inherently are aware of this if you Biomass is simply organic materials such think about the temperature differences as manure, corn and so on. The idea when standing on a black parking lot behind biomass energy is to convert the versus grass in a park. Heat rises and chemical energy in the biomass into so does hot air. Air above a hot surface usable power. This often occurs by will rise and colder air from burning it, which is problematic since surrounding areas will rush into to fill doing so causes pollution. It also has the void. This temperature-induced to be grown, harvested and converted movement creates wind in its most basic into power. Of all the renewable energy form. sources, biomass is the least To take advantage of the energy, man has attractive. produced windmills and turbines that We have a lot of options when it comes convert the energy into electricity. to kicking the fossil fuel habit. Modern wind turbines are between 25 and Although there is a chance one of these 35 percent efficient at converting wind options will become dominant, it is more energy into electricity. Wind power is likely that a combination of all the now the fastest growing energy platform above renewable energy platforms will be in the world. the answer. 1 A B C 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91