We now start a series of articles on renewable energies, where we want to analyze what renewable energies currently exist in nature and their applications, as well as the evolution that they will experience in the coming years.
Let's remember here that renewable energies are those that we can obtain from resources that are in nature in an unlimited way and that allow us to use them continuously and are always available. An important feature of renewable energies is precise that they are very clean ways of obtaining energy and that they do not produce any kind of pollution in the environment.
Using these energy sources offers innumerable advantages for our environment and for our production systems. Some of these advantages are in that they allow us to use them exploiting our own resources, which favors that the external dependence to obtain them is reduced assuming, in turn, cost savings.
On the other hand, its use allows to increase the generation of employment and obtain greater benefits. However, indiscriminate use and excessive contamination of other non-renewable energy sources may end up affecting our natural sources, which we must preserve.
Here we review the main types of renewable energy that nature offers us today. In subsequent articles we will focus on some of them:
- Wind power. This energy is generated by the action of the wind. Wind power plants can collect this energy through the windmills that end up transforming this wind force into electrical energy. There are also air currents in the seabed that lead to the generation of offshore wind energy.
- Geothermal energy. This energy can be obtained from the interior of the earth thanks to the heat sources, thanks to the action of volcanoes, geysers, hot springs, among others. This energy can be obtained in very diverse ways and is one of the least known at present.
- Hydraulic energy. It is a source of energy that is obtained from water, the force of water on propellers and turbines causes an energy that can be transformed into electricity. This energy is obtained thanks to the storage of water in reservoirs, however, it is also one of the renewable energies that are more subject to risks of shortage due to effects such as climate change or drought.
- Solar energy. As its name indicates, it is the energy that comes from the action of the sun on the surface of the earth. The sun can generate heat that ends up accumulating in circuits that can be used to transform this heat into energy. It allows us to obtain solar photovoltaic energy and solar thermal energy. This form of energy, as we know, is the most used in many homes.
- Other lesser-known energies are tidal energy and biomass. The tidal energy is obtained through the movement of tides and marine currents. Also in this group, we find the energy that is obtained as a consequence of the temperature difference between the surface and the deep waters. For its part, biomass is the energy obtained from animal and vegetable waste and waste from the livestock, agricultural and forestry industries.
Main advantages of renewable energies:
They are the essential partner against climate change: renewables do not emit greenhouse gases in energy generation processes, which reveals them as the cleanest and most viable solution to environmental degradation.
They are inexhaustible: unlike traditional sources of energy such as coal, gas, oil or nuclear energy, whose reserves are finite, clean energies have the same availability as the sun where they originate and adapt to the natural cycles (that's why we call them renewable). Therefore, they are an essential element of a sustainable energy system that allows present development without jeopardizing that of future generations.
Reduce energy dependence: the indigenous nature of clean sources implies a differential advantage for local economies and an incentive for energy independence. The need to import fossil fuels produces a subordination to the economic and political situation of the supplier country that can compromise the security of the energy supply. In any part of the planet, there is some type of renewable resource - wind, sun, water, organic matter - that can be used to produce energy in a sustainable way.
Increasingly competitive: The main renewable technologies - such as wind and photovoltaic solar - are drastically reducing their costs, so that they are already fully competitive with conventional ones in a growing number of sites. Economies of scale and innovation are already getting renewable energy to become the most sustainable solution, not only environmentally but also economically, to move the world.
Non-renewable or conventional energy is that obtained from limited natural resources, which once consumed in their entirety do not offer the possibility of being replaced. There are a number of reserves in the world for this way of obtaining energy, but nothing beyond that.
It is usual that the means to produce these energy sources is the burning of fossil fuels, which releases large amounts of greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming.
Some examples of non-renewable energies:
Natural gas: Fuel of fossil origin, which is a mixture of light hydrocarbons composed mainly of methane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and ethane. It is located in the subsoil or under the sea and must go through a double transformation from its extraction to its possibility of effective use.
Oil: Organic compound present in different deposits, whose formation takes hundreds of millions of years. After being extracted, it must be separated from gas and water by means of the process known as refining.
Coal: Mineral of organic origin, consisting mainly of carbon. It also takes millions of years, and its energy use is carried out in thermal or thermoelectric power plants to generate electricity: its steam can reach a temperature close to 600 ° C:
Nuclear fuels: Materials that by means of fission or fusion release different types of energy, usually thermal. The technology that uses these energy sources is called nuclear technology, and X-rays and gamma rays are examples. The main nuclear fuels are uranium and plutonium.
Mainly the use of renewable energies has been developed on the planet at the moment in which some sectors became aware of the climate change that has occurred on Earth, since it is said that this is mainly caused by production, transformation, storage and transport of energy as this leads to a number of activities that harm the environment, but the development of societies requires energy resources, both economic and social growth is based on energy, which is why they have gone Thinking new ways to obtain energy in a clean way, which will depend on the resources and political sectors of each country for its development.
There are several agreements between countries committing to climate change such as the Kyoto Protocol in which the industrialized nations committed to reducing CO2 emissions to the environment. Different projects are also being carried out to help the environmental crisis, among which the generation of clean electric power is the main issue, and although it is true that our country already has hydroelectric power, new plants are being created in addition to the creation also from the wind farm.
References.
- https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts#.WsO9HC5ubIU
- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/renewable_resource.asp
- http://homeguides.sfgate.com/definition-examples-renewable-resources-79625.html
- https://greentumble.com/10-examples-of-renewable-and-non-renewable-resources/
- https://sciencing.com/examples-renewable-resources-5290014.html
- http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/index/tech.html