Environmental Benefits Of Alternative Energy Sources
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by: IsaacEvans | Total views: 24 | Word Count: 633
This article is going to take you through alternative energy sources, first of all by explaining what they are an alternative to and why they are beneficial. Then by showing that now there are financial as well as environmental benefits to using things like solar energy.
Conventional Energy V Alternative Energy
What alternative energy sources are an alternative to are fossil fuels. Things like oil, coal and natural gas. The way we get energy from these things is by burning them. One of the most important reasons for doing this is to generate electricity.
The way that electricity is normally generated is through getting turbines to spin. A spinning electromagnet creates electricity, so the trick is to get them to spin. This is usually done with steam, which requires hot water of course. The way the water is heated is by burning fossil fuels. That's the normal way.
In terms of renewable energy, most forms create electricity in a very similar way. In fact with geothermal power plants it is almost identical because the only difference is that the water is heated from the heat in the ground rather than burning something. Then there are things like wind turbines, which get the turbines to spin from the power of the wind.
Just about the only type of electricity production which does not require turbines is that created by solar energy. In that case, the solar panels directly create electricity because when they are set up in such a way that when light hits them, electrons flow. And flowing electrons of course is a description for what electricity is.
Environmental Advantages
The problem with burning fossil fuels is that by doing that, carbon dioxide is released in to the atmosphere. That is a greenhouse gas, meaning that it contributes to the warming of the Earth. If there is too much of that in the atmosphere then what happens is that the planet warms too much and there are potentially disastrous results.
Exactly what the results of global warming are going to be, nobody can say with any certainty. However predictions have been made by serious scientists, which include the idea that the polar ice caps are going to melt and that this will lead to the sea level rising. What is even scarier than that though is the thought that ecosystems may stop functioning the way they are now, and we may not be able to grow enough food to feed ourselves.
Of course if we were using alternative energy sources then this would not be a problem. No pollution would get created, there would be no carbon emissions. That is the huge environmental benefit that we will get if and when we finally make the switch to getting most of our energy from renewable sources.
Advantages Financially
There are some people, given the seriousness of the situation, who would like to see us stop using fossil fuels for our energy all together. They say we should go over to renewable energy straight away. Of course there is a problem with doing that though, which is that it does not make financial sense for everyone to do that yet.
Having said that though, it is in the news pretty frequently about the rising energy prices. At the same time, the cost for solar energy and other renewable energy sources, is coming down. This is being helped by government schemes, such as the feed in tariff, which reward people for using renewable energy.
The UK government introduced the feed in tariff in April 2010 in order to encourage more people to use solar energy for electricity production. Through the scheme, if you get solar panels installed on your roof, you get paid for every unit of energy that they produce. That is with you using the energy as well, so you are also saving on conventional energy costs.
About the Author
If you are interested in finding out more about solar energy, you can do so at alternative energy Sources, where Finley Taylor writes additional information on the subject. Also go to this company should you have an interest in receiving a free quote for an installation.
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