This is not just good for the planet but is also better for the health of people and animals that have to breathe the air. Derived from natural resources, green energy is also often renewable and clean, meaning that they emit no or few greenhouse gases and are often readily available.Įven when the full life cycle of a green energy source is taken into consideration, they release far less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, as well as few or low levels of air pollutants. Green energy is important for the environment as it replaces the negative effects of fossil fuels with more environmentally-friendly alternatives. Having supplied just 2.7% of the world’s fuel for transport in 2010, the biofuels are estimated to have the capacity to meet over 25% of global transportation fuel demand by 2050. Rather than burning biomass as mentioned above, these organic materials can be transformed into fuel such as ethanol and biodiesel. While the burning of these materials releases greenhouse gas these emissions are still far lower than those from petroleum-based fuels. Biomass power plants use wood waste, sawdust and combustible organic agricultural waste to create energy. This renewable resource also needs to be carefully managed in order to be truly labelled as a ‘green energy’ source. While some nations, such as Iceland, have easy-to-access geothermal resources, it is a resource that is reliant on location for ease of use, and to be fully ‘green’ the drilling procedures need to be closely monitored.įind out more about geothermal energy 5. Biomass The energy stored under the United States alone is enough to produce 10 times as much electricity as coal currently can. Geothermal energy has been used for bathing in hot springs for thousands of years and this same resource can be used for steam to turn turbines and generate electricity. While this resource requires drilling to access, thereby calling the environmental impact into question, it is a huge resource once tapped into. This type of green power uses thermal energy that has been stored just under the earth’s crust. Hydropower can even work on a small scale using the flow of water through pipes in the home or can come from evaporation, rainfall or the tides in the oceans.Įxactly how ‘green’ the following three types of green energy are is dependent on how they are created… 4. Geothermal Energy 3. HydropowerĪlso known as hydroelectric power, this type of green energy uses the flow of water in rivers, streams, dams or elsewhere to produce electricity. Particularly suited to offshore and higher altitude sites, wind energy uses the power of the flow of air around the world to push turbines that then generate electricity. Solar power has now become affordable enough to be used for domestic purposes including garden lighting, although it is also used on a larger scale to power entire neighbourhoods. Solar power is also used to heat buildings and for hot water as well as for cooking and lighting. This common type of renewable energy is usually produced using photovoltaic cells that capture sunlight and turn it into electricity. The six most common forms are as follows: 1. Solar Power Solar and wind power are able to be produced on a small scale at people’s homes or alternatively, they can be generated on a larger, industrial scale. The main sources are wind energy, solar power and hydroelectric power (including tidal energy, which uses ocean energy from the tides in the sea). Green sources also often avoid mining or drilling operations that can be damaging to eco-systems. Green energy sources are usually naturally replenished, as opposed to fossil fuel sources like natural gas or coal, which can take millions of years to develop. For example, power generation that burns organic material from sustainable forests may be renewable, but it is not necessarily green, due to the CO 2 produced by the burning process itself. This means that not all sources used by the renewable energy industry are green. In order to be deemed green energy, a resource cannot produce pollution, such as is found with fossil fuels. Each of these technologies works in different ways, whether that is by taking power from the sun, as with solar panels, or using wind turbines or the flow of water to generate energy. National Structural Integrity Research CentreĪs a source of energy, green energy often comes from renewable energy technologies such as solar energy, wind power, geothermal energy, biomass and hydroelectric power.Structural Integrity Research Foundation.
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