Alternative Energy By: Erik Astrand

Despite all the problems with fossil fuels, this plant is not without many other ways to produce power from what are termed 'alternative energy' sources. One of these is solar power: Solar power is driven by photovoltaic cells, and these are progressively getting less expensive and more advanced. Solar power does not harm the environment and can be used for all our energy requirements including generating vast amounts of electricity with the added benefit of being environmentally friendly.

Nevertheless, for us to be able to inexpensively make use of the sun's energy, we need to subject ourselves to more work than ever. Since solar energy cannot be used during the evening and on gloomy days, provisions on the resource is unavoidable that is why backups in the form of storage batteries are utilized.

There is however a great deal of investment (usually private) in the creation of giant 'wind farms' which are less costly to set up. The process in which “wind farms” are developed by placing great arrays of triple-bladed windmills all over the place to capture the motion of the wind thus using its kinetic energy for mechanical or electrical energy conversion is just one of the many effective methods to greatly utilize wind energy. Of course, there is nothing new about the concept of a windmill for harnessing energy.

Of course today's windmills are much larger than their predecessors and much more advanced. There is always a negative aspect to everything and with wind farms it is they become useless when you have days without any or little wind. When the wind doesn't blow we have other power stations that can make up the energy deficit so we cannot, at present use wind farms as a primary source of power.

Hydroelectric energy is available as a source of alternative energy, and it can generate a substantial amount of power. All that is required is a large body of water and gravity - this fall of water from a great height is able to turn large turbines which generate electrical power. Needless to say, water is ubiquitous: finding sources for driving hydroelectric turbines is, therefore, not much of a problem. However, hydroelectricity as a source of alternative energy can be complicated and expensive to produce.

Building of dams is often the most common and effective means of controlling the flow of water to sufficiently provide the source in generating the needed power. Finding a suitable location for these dams usually requires changes to the local (often a wide region) area and they often come under fire from environmentalists concerned about the impact on wildlife. If you are not trying to look after a large town or city, it probably won't be necessary to employ a large dam as other sources are available. There are small run-of-river hydroelectric converters which are good for supplying neighborhoods or an individual office or home.

Some countries have harnessed the power of geothermal energy (energy from inside the planet) to heat water under the ground although this is still an under-utilized energy source generally. The transfer of heat into the water is caused by the earth's inner molten core. Methods such as the “dry steam” power plants, “flash” power plants, and “binary” power plants are some of the various methods used to draw up water for harnessing geothermal energy. When hot water is drawn up, it simply means that there is the need to gather steam. It is in the USA where this technology has become world famous with 'the Geysers' dry steam power plant not that far from San Francisco.

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