As we as a society move forward and place an emphasis on renewable, clean and green energy solutions, we find ourselves looking for new and improved ways to heat our homes, runs our automobiles, and get through our daily tasks. There are many companies out there this very second looking for the latest and greatest way to provide consumers with renewable energy sources.
Although there may be others, the most common forms of renewable energy are solar, wind, water sources.
Solar energy is the most obvious form of a renewable energy source. The sun shines, the sun is hot, the sun makes energy. The solar energy industry has seen an extreme increase over the past few years. More and more companies are developing ways to capture the suns energy and transform it into electricty. Solar panels can be used for this purpose and can be found in arrays on the ground, on rooftops, and even mounted on telephone poles.
Wind power uses turbines to capture gusts of air with a propeller. These propellers spin and in turn spin a generator which creates electricity. Off shore areas and high mountain tops or plateaus are perfect sites for the turbine fields known as wind farms. The energy and electricty that could be created by wind power is thought to be more than five times the expected global requirement of energy.
Hydro power is the term used to describe the energy that can be removed from the force of moving water. Hydropower along with wind are probably the two oldest forms of renewable energy. Hydropower was first used in mills where a water wheel would spin under the force of a flowing stream and the spinning of this wheel would run the machinery inside the mill. Today the most common form of hydro power can be found in hydroelectric dams.
As stated above there are many more forms of renewable energy however these three continue to be the most obvious and the most common. It is only a matter of time until green, renewable energy is as common as turning on the television and it can be expected that as long as we have the sun, wind, and water, there will be no shortage of people trying to make the most of it.
