Alternative Energy

Alternative Energy

Introduction

In today's fast advancing world, the global economy has been steadily growing, and along with it, the demand for energy has also shot up these past years. Such demand has been majorly rising in developing countries of Asia like India; however, developed countries have also seen an increase in energy demand. Many factors affect the demand of energy, namely, higher population growth rates in many nations, urbanization, and the rise in all fields of technology. Moreover, statistics from the IEA or International Energy Agency show that in between 1990 to 2008, there was direct correlation between the global population growth which increased by almost 39 percent (www.iea.org, 2012) and the demand for energy which increased by more than 27 percent, meaning, with an average person's need for energy grew by an astounding 10 percent in just 18 years (www.bp.com, 2012). In the year 2010 only, the demand for energy grew by almost 5 percent (www.bp.com, 2012).

Primary Sources of Energy

Fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil are the chief sources of energy even today which satisfy more than 90 percent of the global energy demand (www.eia.gov, 2012). However, these energy sources are non-renewable and limited, and so it is only a matter of time before we exhaust them completely. These energy sources also cause pollution in water, air and even soil (www.iea.org, 2012).

Therefore, the need for alternative energy sources which can be renewed, or which are not detrimental to the environment has grown majorly. These can be wind, hydropower or solar energy sources. They are infinite, can be renewed and have been proven to release a negligible amount of pollution. Since the past decade or so, many countries have taken the initiative of experimenting with these alternative energy sources, and increasing their usage (www.eia.gov, 2012). The EIA or U.S. Energy Information Administration regularly monitors the consumption rate of energy sources in America, and their statistics for the year 2010 show that their consumption of alternative energy had risen up to 8 quadrillion Btu, as slightly less than 10 percent of the total electricity generated in the nation was through renewable sources, which amounted to almost 8 percent of the global usage of alternative energy sources (www.bp.com, 2012).

Discussion

Alternative Energy

There are many sources of alternative energy as mentioned above. Rays from the sun, water, wind biomass, are all renewable energy sources, and can provide us with a considerable ...