Alternative Energy - Our Need for Alternative Energy

by anonymous

Alternative Energy Congress has passed an Energy Bill requiring utility companies to produce 15% of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020. The Bill passed in the House on a 241-172 vote, despite a strong opposition from electric utility companies and the White House, which has threatened to veto the measure.

Twenty six Republicans voted in favor and nine Democrats opposed the bill. The bill from congress also calls for a stronger energy efficiency standard for appliances and lighting and incentives for building more energy-efficient buildings. The bill bans the sale of 100-watt incandescent light bulbs by 2012 and requires that all bulbs be 300% more efficient than today’s ordinary bulbs by 2020.

The bill also includes a range of loan guarantees, federal grants and tax breaks for alternative energy programs. These include building biomass factories, research into making ethanol from wood chips and switch grass and producing better batteries for hybrid cars.

Here are types of alternative sources that we must look at in the future:

1. Solar Energy. Solar Energy is a form of energy radiated by the sun, including light, radio waves, and X rays, although the term usually refers to the visible light of the sun.

Solar energy is needed by green plants for the process of photosynthesis, which is the ultimate source of all food. The energy in fossil fuels (e.g., coal and oil) and other organic fuels (e.g., wood) is derived from solar energy. Difficulties with these fuels have led to the invention of devices that directly convert solar energy into usable forms of energy, such as electricity.

Solar batteries, which operate on the principle that light falling on photosensitive substances causes a flow of electricity, play an important part in space satellites and, as they become more efficient, are finding increasing use on the earth. Thermoelectric generators convert the heat generated by solar energy directly into electricity.

Several projects have produced electricity on a large scale by using the solar energy available in desert areas. In another, oil flows through pipes that are set in reflecting parabolic troughs that can trap the heat from sunlight falling on them. The heat from the oil is then converted into electricity.

Heat from the sun is used in air-drying a variety of materials and in producing salt by the evaporation of seawater. Solar heating systems can supply heat and hot water for domestic use; heat collected in special plates on the roof of a house is stored in rocks or water held in a large container. Such systems, however, usually require a conventional heater to supplement them. Solar stoves, which focus the sun's heat directly, are employed in regions where there is much perennial sunlight.

2. Wind Energy. Wind energy is simple air in motion. It is caused by the uneven heating of the earth’s surface by the sun. Since the earth’s surface is made of very different types of land and water, it absorbs the sun’s heat at different rates. During the day, the air above the land heats up more quickly than the air over water.

The warm air over the land expands and rises, and the heavier, cooler air rushes in to take its place, creating winds. At night, the winds are reversed because the air cools more rapidly over land than over water. In the same way, the large atmospheric winds that circle the earth are created because the land near the earth's equator is heated more by the sun than the land near the North and South Poles.

Today, wind energy is mainly used to generate electricity. Wind is called a renewable energy source because the wind will blow as long as the sun shines.

3. Biomass Energy. Biomass is matter usually thought of as garbage. Some of it is just stuff lying around -- dead trees, tree branches, yard clippings, left-over crops, wood chips (like in the picture to the right), and bark and sawdust from lumber mills. It can even include used tires and livestock manure. Your trash, paper products that can't be recycled into other paper