Alternative Energy

Alternative Energy

Introduction

Alternative Energy has recently been a cause for much debate in the United States and the world over. It has also been termed as clean energy and many efforts are going into making it mainstream. However, there have been many issues with regards to alternative becoming the norm. The issues range from general education in alternative energy sources to outright opposition. The contrasting form of energy would be traditional sources of energy. The driving force behind all traditional sources of energy is fossil fuels. Based on these fuels through various chemical actions, jet fuel, diesel and gasoline are manufactured. The question is why we need alternative sources of energy if the job is being done by traditional fuels for centuries?

Discussion

Interesting as it may seem, the discussion on using alternative sources of energy did not generate in the late 20th or the 21st century. Instead, it dates back to as early as the 16th century where the Europeans discovered that they were fast depleting their wood resource by cutting off forests. Coal was suggested as an alternative to the traditional source that was wood (Cantor, 1993). If we fast forward to today, we see the debate continues even today the only addition to that is the people are advocating alternative fuel sources to petroleum based fuels. Let us briefly take a look at the main alternative sources of energy.

Solar Energy

Solar energy stands out among the available sources of alternative energy because of its availability. The energy is derived from the sun and is stored in solar panels. The places on earth where there is abundance of sunlight stand to gain a lot from it. The objective is to collect the energy from the sun and to store it in photovoltaic cells. These cells become charged and the charge can be stored in batteries for use as electricity. Examples of solar energy in practice are the numerous observatories around the world which use solar panels to keep their electronic equipment running. Engineers around the world have also developed vehicles that can run on solar energy and they too employ the utilization of solar panels.

Wind Energy

Wind Energy employs the use of wind turbines which rotate when wind strikes them. These turbines produce charge which can be stored for utilization. The only thing to keep in mind is that a wind turbine farm requires a stretch of land which is uninterrupted by ...