[TEMPLATE]Renewable Energy[/TEMPLATE]
[TEMPLATE]Equipment & Tools[/TEMPLATE]
[TEMPLATE]home improvement store[/TEMPLATE]
Types Of Renewable Energy Explained
Author: Tim Mcdonald
To date there are four main types of renewable energy that we can produce: wind power, solar power, hydro power, and geothermic power.
Wind Power: Wind turbines have been around for millennia, further back than the birth of Christ. Over the years they have been used to pump water, drag boats and grind flour. But at the turn of the industrial revolution, wind turbines were made to produce electricity.
Although many people envision windmills as those ornate ones in Holland or the small wind-pumps on farms, they have been developed tremendously in the past decade. Now wind turbines are able to generate thousands of megawatts of power, and when used on a small scale at home, wind power can substitute conventional energy sources, helping households to get off the grid.
Solar Power: The sun is the most readily available form of energy there is, so we should be using it to a larger extent. And as technology advances, households are provided with a number of ways to harness the power of the sun. These ways include solar electricity, solar heaters, solar dryers and solar cookers.
With solar electric and heating systems, they are both cost-effective, good for the environment, they require little maintenance and help you save on your utility bills. Solar cookers are very healthy way of cooking food, since they cook the food at a lower temperature-helping to retain its vitamins and minerals. They are also very portable, making them ideal for travelers and campers.
Hydro Power: Initially hydro or water power was used industrially to rivers and waterfalls to power waterwheels that would then be used to move water for irrigation or grind flour.
Today hydro power is used in dams to produce electricity for households and businesses. Hydro-electric power is generate on a large scale where dammed up water is channeled through turbines, which spins a dynamo as it gushes through. The best example of hydro-electric power would be the Hoover Dam, which was built to provide electricity to Las Vegas. In fact hydro-electric power is efficient is popular nowadays that it accounts for over 90% of the worlds renewable energy.
There have been some social and environmental concerns about building dams for hydroelectricity since entire village and communities are flooded by the dam, and the walls prevent certain species of fish from swimming upstream to spawn.
Geothermal Power: Geothermal power is typically produced in areas with ongoing volcanic activity, where magma is relatively close to the surface. One such area is Iceland, where a large proportion of its power is produced from volcanic geysers.
Here, large power plants are built over the geysers, where hot fast-moving steam from the geysers drives large turbines to make electricity. To speed up the process, water is sometimes pumped back into the geysers to make more steam, which is then used to drive the turbines once again, thus making it an endless cycle.
Well, this concludes our brief overview of the 4 main types of renewable energy. You can find out more in-depth information on each type by reading our other articles or browsing our website in the link below.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/diy-articles/types-of-renewable-energy-explained-792570.html
About the Author
Tim McDonald and his wife have been living off the grid since June 2008. If you want to learn to make your own diy renewable energy and save thousands on your electricity bills, then Try Earth4Energy For FREE, before you go out and start any renewable energy project.
[TEMPLATE]home made[/TEMPLATE][TEMPLATE]amazon search[/TEMPLATE]
Nuclear
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as renewable energy. Biomass, wind, and water (hydro) is all solar as it is the sun that drives them. But the sun is irreversibly consuming its nuclear fuel. Geothermal is a result of gravity that happened to produce a thermal gradient during the earth’s planetary formation. But the earth is cooling down to space via radiation and, at some point, it will cool off completely.
The first law of motion is not directly connected to renewable energy. The first law is a special case of the second law when the sum of external forces in an object is equal to zero.
i think you should renewable energy
This is a question with a HUGE answer and there are lots of books out there – Godfrey Boyles Renewable Energy covers all of them. Basically most renewable energy sources come from the sun whether it’s solar photovoltaic (PV) panels which produce electricity or solar thermal panels which use the sun’s power to directly heat water (over half of our domestic energy use is for heating and hot water – electricity is only a part of the equation), wind power as our weather patterns are all a product of the sun’s power, or ground source heat pumps which rely on the grounds ability to retain the heat of the sun. In addition to these are geothermal – which taps into the heat generated by the earth’s core, hydro power from flowing water and tidal.
Biomass (burning anything recently living – from wood and straw to rubbish) is not always “renewable” as there isn’t an infinite supply of it but it is generally treated as “carbon-neutral” as the carbon realeased into the atmosphere is only that absorbed in the lifetime of the growing matter that is burnt (but it still takes energy to harvest, process and deliver it). For it to be renewable it must be replanted and regrown. Biodiesel is created by fermenting living matter and then refining the alcohol thus created. It can then be used to replace diesel although a lot of older diesel engines will happily run on half and half diesel and vegetable oil. Whilst it might seem like the magic solution to the oil problem remember that we have a limited amount of space on the planet and where food crops are being replaced with fuel crops or, worst of all, rainforest is cleared to provide growing space then not only does it exacerbate the problems of climate change but it also causes food shortages in some of the countries who can least afford them (If we wanted to run all the vehicles in the UK on biodiesel we would require a growing space over that of the area of the UK to grow the stuff). The Centre for Alternative Technology provides a wide range of tipsheet, books and courses on all of these topics and more and operate a free information service.
-Solar
-wind
-wave
-hydo (dams)
-biomass
-nuclear???
wat r t various types of renewable energy resources that can be employed for generation of electrical energy?
and also suggest some methods for the generation of bio fuels…
is it possible to set up a bio fuel plant with samll investment?
Which types of renewable energy should be developed?
Which types of renewable energy should be improved so it is safe and efficient for everybody to use and why?
What types of renewable energy are there?
What are the five types of renewable energy? And Newton’s 1st law of motion?
What are five types of renewable energy and Newton’s 1st law of motion?
Thanks a lot if you answer!
I think some are biomas, wind, water, and geothermal =)
Identify the risks and benefits of extracting or using one type renewable energy?
And one type of nonrenewable energy source from the forest ecosystem. Or in near that ecosystem.