The ins and outs of power (Improved!) (Alternative energy sources)

Member Name: Tiger Sanj

Product:	Alternative energy sources
Date:	15/02/01 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Renewable ones are more eco-friendly and won't run out

Disadvantages: Not cheap, R&D needed

In late September, this country suddenly opened their eyes to the possible threat of global warming when our fair country was knee deep in water. People looked on as their homes got flushed away by Mother Nature. However was it Mother Nature or was it Father Industry? Was the whole episode caused by the excess amount of Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? As I tried to put across in that article, we won’t know if Global Warming caused that particular event, but the threats are very real.
One of the suggestions that was brought to the fore after those floods was that we use alternative energy sources, namely renewable ones, instead of the ones we have at the moment. The term “alternative energy source” will, in this article anyway, be taken to mean anything bar oil and coal burning – the two most popular energy sources

Alternative energy sources encompass a whole mass of power solutions. There are the non-renewable energy sources such as nuclear energy, natural gas and even the dung burning of the poorer countries as well as the renewable energy sources. These include solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and Hydroelectric.

Well, first of all, you may ask what is a renewable energy source? A renewable energy source is an energy source that will not run out. If we put this in practice, then we can say that the sun will not end, so solar will not run out, and the same can be said of wind. A non-renewable energy source is one that doesn’t have an infinite supply. For instance, nuclear involves using uranium, which isn’t an infinite supply. These non-renewable energy sources usually involve burning something.

Of the renewable energy sources mentioned in the third paragraph, only three are deemed feasible in the UK – Tidal and wind. The other two aren’t feasible for a variety of reasons. Geothermal (where hot rocks underground heat water which turns a turbine) power is simply not feasible as the
hot rocks beneath the UK’s crust simply aren’t hot enough. Solar isn’t deemed to be practical as we in the UK, with our near constant cloud cover, doesn’t have enough pure sunlight to make solar power work.

Wind farms in Cornwall have already been set up, where farmers are getting subsidised by the government to turn their farmland into land that holds wind turbines. Due to the amount of wind that we do get on our hilltops, this is as good a place as any to collect wind power. A slight problem is that a large area of land is needed to provide nearly enough energy to make the idea work, and the turbines are said to be ugly.

Tidal power is being looked into in the North Sea. This is where the water on one side of the wall is kept at one set height and the other allowed to deviate according to the tide. When the difference is big enough, the water is allowed to flow through, turning massive turbines. An experimental version has been made in France, which creates enough energy to supply 300,000 people. Unfortunately, no such plants have been built yet, and it remains a concept.

Hydro electric Power (HEP for short) is the most widely used of the lot, and is possible to be used almost anywhere with rivers. The idea is that a dam is built across a river (preferably fast flowing) and the water flowing across the river passes through a turbine, which creates electricity. This also does create a large amount of electricity. However, this method is not liked so much by ecologists as it is rumoured to endanger the fish in the area. The irrigation of a certain area may also be affected, as in the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the planned Three Gorges Dam in China.


As has been demonstrated time and time again, the renewable energy source is not the cheap and easy option. Despite the soaring prices of natural resources, upkeep and the R&D involved in these power solutions keeps their prices high. There is the ad
ded downside that many of them don’t produce as much energy as their non eco-friendly counterparts.

However, with petrol and gas set to run out with the next 150 years, one has to believe that these ways are the way forward if one can bring their prices down and make them more efficient. One can even see people having their own wind turbines or solar panels, and making themselves self sufficient as far as power needs go.

Nevertheless, industry still does create a lot of harmful emissions without even counting power stations. However, the development of these power sources can only be a good thing for Earth on the whole.

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