Renewable Sources of Energy

Let's face it the resources that we rely on heavily for transportation, and everyday life will not last forever. We tend to rely the most on non-renewable resources like oil, fossil fuels, and nuclear power. These resources only have a fixed amount on our planet and tend to be used faster than the earth can produce them. So what happens when these resources run out? Well hopefully we won't have to worry about that because we will already have a solution before it happens. New sources of energy are being researched and discovered extensively today to save tomorrow.

*Solar Power*
Solar power as the name implies uses energy from the sun to do work. The energy from the sun's heat and light can be converted for use as heating, lighting, and electricity. Solar panels are used to absorb the heat and light from the sun and then can be used for electricity. Buildings can be engineered to use the sun to their advantage for heating, lighting, and temperature of the building. Properly positioning windows, the type of material of the building, and location of the building to the climate of the area can greatly help. Solar power can be used for lighting, heating, air conditioning, cooking, process heat, disinfection, desalination, electricity, and many other experimental technologies.

*Tidal Power*
Tidal power uses the movement of water from the tides to harness energy. Places with large changes in tides and tidal currents posses the most potential of energy from tidal power. There are different ways to harness this energy from the sea. One way is with a tidal stream system which uses turbines to generate energy. Another is Barrages these use the level change of the tides to generate energy. Europe has been using tide mills to grind grain for many years.

*Wave Power*
Wave power is just what it sounds like, it uses the energy from waves of the ocean on the surface and converts it to do work. Wave power is very different from tidal power even though many tend to get them mixed up. Wave power does not have anything to do with the tides or tide current, it only uses the waves on the surface of the ocean. So far a commercial wave power plant has not been built, but plans are in the making. In Northern California the first commercial wave power plant is supposed to be opening in 2012. They will harness the energy of the ocean by using bouys that rise and fall with the rolling waves.

*Wind Power*
Wind power uses the energy of the wind and converts it into electricity by the use of a wind turbines. Wind power really started to boom in 2000 and is still progressing today. Wind farms can be seen all over the country, but wind power still only makes up about 1% of the world's electricity. Why is this? Because wind power is very effective but takes a lot of wind turbines to produce electricity and these turbines are not small. Wind farms need a lot of room for many turbines to produce significant amounts of energy. This of course may disrupt the ecosystem in that area and therefore there aren't very many places that wind farms can be produced.