Unlike fossil fuels, which is natural, but are in limited supply. Renewable energy can be used again and again to break up without them. There are five main sources of renewable energy that people can use:
1. Bioenergy
Bioenergy is produced from vegetable or grain that can be replanted and supplemented. Ethanol is an example of the use of bioenergy. Ethanol is a fuel that is made a mixture of oil and an alcohol fuel mostly from corn in most of the United States, although in some other countries such as Brazil, ethanol with sugar cane instead of corn. Ethanol is commonly used in other countries and is growing in popularity in the United States.
Many companies and academic laboratories are experimenting with various bio-fuels a biofuel that existing vehicles used to reduce dependence on oil. Hybrid cars on a combination of petroleum-based fuels and biofuels be used more and more popular. Several vehicles that switched to diesel to bio-diesel, which uses a fuel made from vegetable oil from restaurants and food crops produced is discarded Run Run.
2. Hydropower
Hydropower is familiar with the power of flowing water to electricity. Hydropower is one of the oldest continuously used forms of energy production and was very popular before it commonplace to fossil fuels. For hundreds of years ago was running water to power a flour mill and grind corn and wheat, steam power would be used to operate and provide power for other common tasks. provide the first known use of hydropower for electricity generation was in 1880, and water was used to generate electricity, because the.
Hydropower is still used today. About 7% of electricity in the United States each year comes from hydroelectric plants. The need for a large hydro-power plant directly to a large amount of water sufficient water to the kind of power needed to power hydroelectric plants are not generating much. More than half of the many hydroelectric power plants in the United States are only three states: Oregon, California and Washington.
Hydropower is often the ideal form of renewable energy sources considered, because it is virtually free, it creates no pollutants that damage the environment, and it has almost no waste of any kind
The disadvantage is that water can be localized only in a few areas with the right natural properties. Plus need the big dams, can use water to dramatically change the landscape and wildlife damage.
3. Geothermal
Geothermal energy is derived from the use of natural heat from the depths of the earth. The core of the earth generates much heat and water heated deep in the earth and released to the surface by hot springs and geysers. Volcanoes can also provide for heating houses and buildings and for power generation.
The most common use of geothermal energy, direct heating. Direct geothermal heating system consists of boiling water under the surface of the earth are heated directly in buildings or houses. Iceland gets 95% of their direct heat from geothermal heating. The island nation is the most easily accessible on the global source of heat energy from volcanic magma near the surface.
The United States is the largest user of geothermal energy for electricity generation in the world, but still less than 1% of all electricity produced in the United States generated from geothermal energy. There are about 50 geothermal power plants in the United States, especially in California and Nevada. Because the easiest place to the water in the soil heat input along the fault lines and at the edges of tectonic plates, it is not surprising that these two states most geothermal installations. Geothermal energy produces no pollution or greenhouse gases, but can be expensive and can only operate in limited areas in which the geology are used.
4. Wind
Wind was probably the first kind of natural, renewable energies, to give people in power, was used. Wind energy has no contaminants or impurities and is good for the environment, but sometimes it can be difficult enough power to allow a large wind energy generation.
Wind energy is mainly used in power locally and around wind farms. The United States is the third on the list of countries in wind power capacity in producing wind power is not yet widely used in the United States. In the past it was usually because the design of the machines, known as wind turbines, the use of wind power are used, was expensive and consumes a lot of resources. Since 2005, beginning a few great technological progress, that there is much more advantageous, turbines, reduce the use made wind power to grow in the United States.
One of the biggest problems of producing enough wind energy to the enormous needs of the people in the United States in order to meet again. Since the wind can be grown as plants used for bioenergy and wind power, is not as constant as the water for hydropower and geothermal energy is used, there is a limit to how much wind energy can produce. The variability of the wind is a crucial factor. I'm not much wind on a given day there may be little or no electricity generated that day. Another disadvantage of wind power is that a large number of very large wind turbines for a significant amount of energy needed (they could be 25 stories high).
Wind energy is a good source of renewable energy under certain conditions, but in the long term, wind energy is not the best renewable energy source for countries to use.
5. Solar energy
Solar energy is the collection and then generated using the energy from the sun for things like electricity and heating. combat Solar energy is increasingly of businesses and homeowners as a way to rising electricity bills and living in an environmentally friendly manner.
One of the first recorded use of solar energy was in 1830 when a British researcher to collect in Africa built a field to the energy of the rays of the sun and use to cook their food. Today, solar energy is mainly used to produce heat and electricity.
There are two ways to generate electricity from solar energy. The first is using the photovoltaic method. This method uses a series of cells of certain materials to generate energy from the sun directly into electricity and this address. Since the diffuse solar radiation takes a large number of photovoltaic cells work together on a real power.
The second way is by using solar energy. These giant plants with indirect sunlight to generate electricity. In simple words, the sun heats water, steam and the steam, which generates a generator, the current drives. There are 15 large solar power plants in the United States. 10 are in California and five in Arizona.
Solar energy is completely renewable and has no measurable impact on the environment, which is why it is the renewable energy system of choice for many environmentally conscious people. However, there are a few disadvantages of solar energy. A disadvantage of using solar energy is that, because the energy radiated by the sun, so it takes a lot of diffused sunlight to produce energy. This means that solar systems have a large surface.
Another disadvantage of solar energy is that the amount of energy the sun reaches the solar cells depends on things like the amount of cloud cover, temperature, time of day and other factors that can not be verified. Scientists are looking at ways of using solar energy, large amounts of energy, similar to the central power plants burning fossil fuels produce today looking development. Most experts agree that the best way to use solar energy to generate electricity and heating for individual homeowners and builders solar panels for electricity and heat their own buildings.