Renewable, Solar, and Wind Energy

Welcome to Energyefficiencycenter.com. This site is designed to give you information regarding renewable energy sources. Renewable energy is any source of energy that can be replenished as it is used. There are several types of energy we currently consider renewable. These types are biofuel, biomass, geothermal, hydro power, wind power, solar power, tidal power, and wave power.

Biofuel and biomass are primarily stop gap measures in our energy needs. Biofuel is fuel made from recently deceased biological material. A common example of biofuel is ethanol. Biomass is the solid form of biofuel, such as wood or other burnable materials. Biofuel and biomass differ from fossil fuels such as coal or crude oil because they can be replenished as they are used. They have the drawback of still polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other chemicals as a result of their combustion.

Geothermal energy is tapped from the earth’s heat. In 2007 it accounted for .3% of humanity’s power consumption. The most common form of geothermal plant uses the earth’s heat to vaporize water, and then uses that water vapor to spin a turbine. Geothermal power has an advantage over most other forms of renewable energy because it is highly reliable and can run at near peak capacity.

Hydro power is the most common source of renewable energy in use today. In a hydro plant, the potential energy of water falling towards the ocean is used to spin turbines. The water is held in reserve by a dam, and let through spillways to generate the electricity. It is reliable, stable and has been proven effective. Its main limits are geographical; you need a site with a sizable water holding basin, as well as a water source. There are some environmental concerns with hydro power, the habitat that is covered by the reservoir is lost forever, and in tropical climates decaying matter in the reservoir has been shown to produce greenhouse gasses. However compared to the burning of fossil fuels hydro power is a clean, renewable source of energy.

Tidal and wave power harness the latent energy in the revolution of the earth and moon orbit system. Tidal power has a higher potential for commercialization, although neither of these sources is in wide spread use right now. The most popular tidal power plant uses the tide to spin turbines much like a windmill uses wind.

Wind power is a potent source of clean energy. Current wind farms make up about 1.5% of global electric generation. The current practice of setting up wind farms on land may be the least effective use of the technology. Both on the sea, and higher in the atmosphere there are strong prevailing winds. In the high atmosphere sustained winds over 100mph exist. Both off shore and atmospheric wind farms have extraordinary potential for meeting our energy needs in a clean, renewable fashion.

Solar power is the most abundant source of energy on earth. Solar energy is a direct source for wind and geothermal power, as well as being a power source in its own right. The main drawback of solar power is inefficiency. We have not created an efficient way to translate solar energy into electric current. In the nearly 250 years since we began experimenting with solar cells, we have only gotten to 30% efficiency. This compares particularly poorly with systems such as geothermal and wind which have been shown practical operation at above 80% efficiency. This should not discourage us from furthering this source of energy however, even at 30% efficiency the sun showers us with more than 2500 times the amount of energy we currently consume.

 

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