What exactly is the meaning of green energy? In this article, you will learn about green energy.
Throughout the last years, a lot of fuss is being made over the term green energy and its benefits to the environment.
New technologies based on this type of energy make their appearance and scientists try to reduce the dependence of mankind on non-renewable sources of energy, like coil, wood and natural gas. So, what does green energy mean?
Sources of green energy
Green energy is produced by every type of natural source, including sunlight, wind, plants, rain and geothermal heat.
All of those sources are inexhaustible and renewable, meaning that they will not burn off after a while. Compared to the existing sources of energy, known as non-renewable ones, like fossil fuels, green energy presents itself with an infinite resource that will take millions of years to diminish.
The main sources of green energy are the following:
- Wind power
- Solar power
- Geothermal heat
- Hydropower
- Biomass
- Biofuels
Origins of green energy
Although green energy is considered by many a new type of energy, in reality, people have used it in its various forms for years.
Transportation, heating, lighting are only some of the applications of green energy in societies. Sunlight has been used for its healing properties and the wind has powered ships for sailing.
However, in modern days, mankind has turned to cheaper and unfortunately dirtier sources of energy, like coal and fossil fuels.
Why is green energy important nowadays?
In the past, the world did not possess the scientific background he was in need of in order to understand green energy and exploit it to his benefit.
However, we now have the knowledge and technologies we need in order to capture solar and wind energy, hydropower, biomass and any other type of renewable energy.
Green energy offers a series of benefits to both the environment and the everyday life of humans.
For this reason, it is really important to focus on that type of energy instead of the dirty, non-renewable one.
Benefits of green energy
The use of green energy can have an important effect on the environment.
The emission of harmful gases will diminish and environmental problems, like the greenhouse effect or the ozone depletion, will not get any worse.
The general reduction of air and water pollution will also, positively affect the health of every species on earth, including mankind.
The new technologies used for producing green energy will also, increase the available jobs and therefore, have a positive impact on the global economic market.
But most importantly, everyone will have access to vital sources of energy, like electricity even those living in remote areas or rural suburbs.
Most people consider green energy as the energy of future generations, and they are not wrong.
The various benefits that accompany this type of energy along with the necessity for something healthier that will not further damage the environment or the public health make the development of new methods that will help us exploit the sources of green energy vital.
After all, future generations should not be left with the extra burden of having to deal with the destruction of the environment.
What is Green Energy?
Green energy may come from a variety of natural sources and some of the great examples of natural sources which we can include are wind, sunlight, tides, rain, algae, plants, as well as the geothermal heat.
These energy sources are huge and are known to be renewable which means that they will be replenished naturally so we can enjoy the benefits of being able to generate useful energy which can be used to power up the electrical grid to supply more power to the residential areas as well as the industrial areas.
On the other hand, we also have energy sources that are finite such as fossil fuels.
The fossil fuels requires millions of years to develop and the amount fossil fuels currently are decreasing which means that we need to find a new sources of energy which can supply us with more power, is more reliable in the future and it also needs to be environmentally friendly which means that no pollution of any kinds will be produced during the productions of the energy so that the future generations may be able to enjoy a cleaner world.
If we were to make a comparison between fossil fuels and the green energy that we have today such as the solar power and hydroelectric power station, we would find that the green energy that we have access today have a smaller effect to the environment compared to that of a non-renewable energy sources such as the fossil fuels which causes air pollution as well as water pollution which can be detrimental to our health as well as the aquatic lives in the sea.
On top of that, fossil fuels also produce air pollutants like greenhouse gases which can be one of the causes of climate change.
Fossil fuels also require some areas that need to be used for either mining or drilling and often located in an ecologically sensitive area.
Green energy, on the other hand, takes full advantage of energy sources that are can be found abundantly in nature and are readily available anywhere in the world and this includes deep remote as well as rural areas that usually don’t have access to electricity.
The advancement of renewable energy technology has made the cost of solar panels to be lower, wind turbines as well as other sources of renewable energy.
This, in turn, gives the power of electrical generation to the people instead of the big utility companies so the people would be able to learn to be independent and not fully rely on others to provide for them.
Green energy is also able to fully replace fossil fuels in all of the huge areas and that includes space heating and the generation of electricity.
An example of green energy would be solar power.
It is considered to be one of the most common types of green energy and solar power is usually being generated by using solar panels which have a photovoltaic cell that captures the sunlight and converts it into electricity.
Other examples of Green Energy
- Wind Power
- Hydro Power
- Geothermal energy
- Biomass
- Biofuels