Renewable Energy Sources
The Rise of Alternative Energy Sources
Across the world we are slowly, but surely, using up our traditional energy sources. Coal, Oil and their like have powered the growth of the world’s economies for centuries. But they have done damage to our environment, and their prices will continue to rise as stocks begin to run dry and the cost of extracting them from their remaining locations, deep below the surface of the earth in many cases, will keep rising and rising.
Given this background there has never been a better time for us all to investigate Renewable Energy Sources, that will be cleaner and greener. Another advantage of many Renewable Energy Sources is that they are much more accessible to the individual homeowner. Whereas it was practically impossible for you or I to drill for oil in our spare time, it is within our reach to erect a wind turbine or put a solar panel on our roof and start generating our own energy.
This video from the EEC looks at the reasons why we need to increase our use of Renewable Energy Sources, and introduces some of the ways we can do that.
Let’s have a look at these main renewable energy sources and investigate how easily they can be set up in your home.
Solar Power
The heat from the sun is a powerful course of renewable energy, and is one that man has used for many centuries. Traditionally we have harnessed the suns power by heating water, laid in pipes, and then using that water for heating and washing. This form of solar water heating is still to be found in use, and can be a useful addition to household water heating, helping to reduce energy costs.
However it is the advances in cell and lens technology in the last 30-40 years that has really helped us generate more and more useable power from the suns rays. Photovoltaic cells have the ability to convert the light from the sun into useable electric currents. Photovoltaic cells are being used, with other technologies, on a commercial scale across the world now. However this technology can be scaled down to work on a single house.
Indeed building codes and regulations in many countries now require a percentage of energy on new homes to be generated using this technology. It is also now possible to retrofit these systems onto an older house for around a hundred bucks or so.
Click here to discover how to generate your own renewable energy at home
Wind Power
For many centuries man has harnessed the power of the wind. We are all familiar, from our school days, of images of old windmills and the great sailing ships that spread explorers and trade around the globe. Wind Power is probably one of the first renewable energy sources to be extensively used. Despite a dip in usage in the early 20th century, the growth in commercial wind power generation has been rising steadily in recent years.
Whilst the old mechanical windmills and sail boats are still around using the power of the wind, the real growth area with this form of renewable energy is in the use of wind turbines. The wind turbine simply turns the energy from the wind into stored electricity. This is done by getting the wind to spin the turbine’s fan, thereby driving the device that will generate the useable electricity. Wind turbines come in a wide range of sizes. Most of us will have seen that massive turbines that are now appearing in most countries and generate electricity on a commercial scale.
The growth of this industry looks set to increase, despite some concerns about the visual impact of the turbines themselves. On the domestic scale, wind turbines are still a viable renewable energy source.
Whether you want a small turbine to tackle a small job (such as to pumping an irrigation system in your garden) or you want to generate useable electricity to reduce your overall household energy costs, then there will be a domestic wind turbine option for you.
The Power of Water
In a similar way that windmills have been around for many years to use the power of the wind, water mills have been used to get the power of water to drive our machinery. In the twentieth century the use of water to generate power has increased with major projects to build dams across river and inland waterways (for example, the Hoover Dam) and also to extract the power of the sea that comes from the tides and the waves Water power is one of the hardest renewable energy sources to harness at the domestic level. Whilst every home has some sun and wind, very few has access to natural running water. As such there a limited products available to generate power from water for the standard home.
That said if you are lucky enough to life next to a river or near the sea, there may be possibilities for you to set up a water wheel or similar to try and extract some energy from these renewable sources.
Power from the Earth
Heat can be drawn from the earth using Geothermal Heat Pump, which are sometimes known as Ground Source Heat Pumps. The heat that is being accessed has been produced by the ground being heated up by the sun.
