I have been writing a lot about solar energy advantages in my previous posts in this blog. We all know that solar energy is one of the best sources of renewable energy available out there. It generates a lot of energy and of course, we know that the sun shines at almost all places on earth except for the poles, of course and hence making it a really attractive source of energy to try and capture to be used efficiently. Unfortunately, one of the solar energy disadvantages is of course, the word "efficiency". Scientists are in a race to try and invent technology that will increase the efficiency of solar energy equipment including photovoltaic cells. But what about the other sources of renewable energy and how well do they convert into electrical energy. What is the availability of these other renewable sources of energy? Is it practical to even consider them as options for converting it into other sources of energy such as electricity? Find out by reading this blog post on the different types of renewable energy.
You may be surprised to know about the extremely high potential of some of the other renewable sources of energy such as Geothermal Energy. I, for one, had always thought that solar energy was, by far, the most practical source of renewable energy that could be converted into other sources of energy such as electrical energy. In one of my previous post, I had written about Mojave Desert, largest solar power installations in the world. The Mojave Desert which uses Solar Energy Generation Systems has a combined electrical capacity of 354 MW (megawatts). This is an immense amount of power and satisfies the energy needs of more than 500,000 people in the United States. If that is not whopping enough to think about, wait till you hear this. The Geysers Geothermal Power plants which has a combined rated capacity of more than 750 MW has more than 22 power plants in it. It is located in California and currently meets the electricity energy needs of more than a thumping 1.1 million people. This is an immense amount of power and is indeed for the environment as all it makes use of is the thermal power or the heat coming out from the core of the earth. However, equipment that makes use of solar energy still remains to be one of the most widely distributed equipment in the world and outcompetes other sources of energy by a pretty big margin. Wind Energy comes at a pretty close second.
One of the countries which meets about 20% of its automotive fuel needs through renewable energy sources is Brazil. It makes use of ethanol that is extracted from sugar canes and other sources and uses the latest technology to generate electricity from that. Ethanol fuel is also used a lot in large powers in the United States.
Let's take a look at what exactly the definition of renewable energy sources is. According to Wikipedia, "Renewable energy is derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. In its various forms, it derives directly from the sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, and biofuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources."
Alright, so lets take a look at each of these renewable energy sources in detail.
Wind Energy: Although the energy generated from wind may not sound like much because it feels like part of everyday life, (at least that's how I used to think) wind energy is capable of generating immense amounts of power sufficient to meet the energy needs of a lot of people. Wind energy is used to rotate turbines
which in turn generate electricity with the help of the standard turbine technology used to generate electricity. Wind farms are places where a lot of wind mills are set up to generate electricity. These wind farms are typically located at high altitudes and basically areas such as the prairies where the wind is really strong. Offshore resources are also used a lot for setting up wind farms as they also receive as much as 90% more wind than land. Wind energy is clean, renewable and does not produce harmful gases such as methane or carbon-di-oxide.
Geothermal Energy: I already mentioned this kind of energy when I was talking about the Geysers and how much energy they are capable of producing. This is another popular renewable energy source that basically uses the heat or the thermal power coming from the core of the earth to convert it into electricity. Geothermal energy is generally converted into electricity using 3 types of power plants – dry steam, flash and binary. Although the initial costs for setting up geothermal power plants can be quite high, the operating costs are really low hence resulting in low energy costs.
Hydropower: Typically set up in places where there is a large flow of water such as waterfalls and rivers, hydropower generates huge amounts of power as it makes use of the kinetic energy of water. Hydropower is also available in other forms such as tidal power and ocean energy. Normally, huge hydro power stations are built along with big dams.
Biomass: Biomass is the energy that is derived from plants. Plants use a process called photosynthesis to convert energy from the sun into chemical energy. Thus energy from the sun is stored in plants as chemical energy. This energy gets released when the plants are burned. This is basically, the principle upon which biomass works.
Solar Energy: This is basically what
this blog is all about and you can find out more information about solar energy by going around in this blog. It is one of the widely used renewable sources of energy all over the world. You too should learn how to make use by browsing through the various solar energy facts available in this blog.
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