Modern Energy Sources

[kryptyk]

The growing demand for energy has led to a greater usage of renewable source of energy. Traditionally this demand has been met by fossil fuels. With the rising prices and depleting supply of the fossil fuels, the world is slowly shifting to other sources of energy. The renewable energy sources are known for its unlimited availability and lesser costs. Once the initial costs of installing a renewable energy plant is covered, the energy can be highly profitable.

Today the renewable energy technologies like the wind, solar and the tidal energy produces nearly 1% of the total world energy. This is less compared to the potential present in these sources. These energy sources are capable of providing far more energy than is currently available from all traditional sources.

world energy research (http://worldcarbontrading.com/) is dedicated to promote the renewable energy usage and help people understand the huge advantages present in the sector. One of the key challenges faced by the organization in doing so is making the cost of clean energy more directly competitive with traditional fossil fuel generated energy, besides the environmental benefits.

[Zephik]

You forgot (Geo)Thermal, even if you are pretty obvious albeit interesting spam.

Good luck though! I'm all for renewable energy, man! It's the way of the future without a doubt! The only thing holding anyone back are the lobbiests who continue to prolong the "expensive-age" of renewable energy products and methods. (Seriously, if I can't pay off the equipment within 10 years, forget it. Associated costs like repair and upkeep are too much of a pain, too. That and I just don't have the money for the initial investment.)

[x88x]

It also forgot hydroelectric, which probably provides more power around the world than all of those listed combined. IIRC Canada gets something like 40% of its power from hydroelectric dams.

EDIT:
aahhhwww..and, I just checked the link out of curiosity, and it's not even an alternate energy company...it's a carbon credit trading company.. :facepalm:

[Zephik]

It also forgot hydroelectric, which probably provides more power around the world than all of those listed combined. IIRC Canada gets something like 40% of its power from hydroelectric dams.

Well, he said "Tidal"... but that's not the same as Hydroelectric, I suppose. The energy from waves and the energy from moving water is a bit different.

Is Tidal energy considered Hydroelectric?

It's too bad we can't harvest the energy from the earth spinning. HA! We'd have more energy than what we would know to do with. lol



EDIT:
aahhhwww..and, I just checked the link out of curiosity, and it's not even an alternate energy company...it's a carbon credit trading company.. :facepalm:

I know right?? Talk about disappointing. I was hoping for a real-life PBS special on some new awesome technology or improvement over existing technology! haha

I know there is a guy who is producing low efficient solar paneling, though. That doesn't sound great, obviously. But the stuff is awesome. It looks just like roof shingles. You can flex it, tear it, put holes in it, etc etc and it still works. It's also cheaper than the expensive materials used to create traditional solar panels. I wish I could find that dang link, the stuff is cool. He's also doing a lot of other neat stuff, I think with hydrogen. He had a gas tank for hydrogen that was SOLID. Its like a magnet containing a charge, except here it's a solid piece of special metal that contains the hydrogen. It was really cool.

On another note: What is Algae power considered to be? Solar? or maybe it's like.. a new group? Plant energy? Hmm.

Edit: Ah, here we go. Love you, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy#Biomass

So Wind Power, Hydropower, Solar Energy, Biomass, Biofuel and Geothermal Energy. That pretty much sums it all up. Pretty awesome. And pretty ridiculous that it's not going anywhere as fast as it should be.

[x88x]

Not normally, though I suppose technically it should be. Hydroelectric is traditionally gravity-fed water turning turbines. There are a bunch of different approaches on tidal, but all of them eventually operate on the energy of the tides going in and out. Still a gravity-created phenomenon, but a very different approach.

The only problem with getting energy from the earth spinning is that because a power generation system can never be 100% efficient, every energy generation facility would be slowing down the turn of the earth. Sure, it would be great, seemingly free energy for a while, but eventually the planet would stop spinning and our descendants would curse our names as they fled into space...either that or they would shrug and ignore it since they had all already left...either that or they would have all killed each other by then... /shrugs Anyways, point being, there are better ways. Particularly, once we refine photovoltaic cells (or similar) enough, we can just launch massive solar arrays into space and the only problem we'll have is transferring that power back to the earth. Kinda like the problem we have now of transferring power across the surface of the planet, but 100 times bigger. Even now, solar-based power stations in the mid-west and off-shore wind farms could produce more than enough energy to power the entire country, but without a way to efficiently transfer that power to the places where it is needed, it's useless.

[Zephik]

Hmm. Maybe we can.. like.. beam all the energy down in giant laser beams or something. lol

[msmrx57]

Microwave transmission is a concept being looked at, how seriously who knows.

[Zephik]

Microwave transmission is a concept being looked at, how seriously who knows.

Well, at least we'll be the best damn smelling planet in the solar system. lol

[ownaginatious]

I think Nuclear energy is the best option right now. Very high energy output from a pretty centralized location with little waste. There's something like 5 billion years worth of fuel in the Earth's crust too :p.

Only problem is, the waste although little is probably the most toxic waste imaginable. That and you always got people who want to weaponize it :/.

[x88x]

Judging from the history of the last 50-60 years, I'm pretty confident that in the future we'll be able to use what we currently consider 'waste' to generate power, so my thoughts on Nuclear is that we just go ahead and use it, but store the waste in such a way that we can actually get to it fairly easily later (ie, don't drop it into a tectonic seam or such nonsense), then later once processes have been refined more, go back and use it for fuel and repeat the cycle. The very fact that the waste is dangerously radioactive means that there is loads more energy in it...we just can't get it out yet.

[nevermind1534]

Judging from the history of the last 50-60 years, I'm pretty confident that in the future we'll be able to use what we currently consider 'waste' to generate power, so my thoughts on Nuclear is that we just go ahead and use it, but store the waste in such a way that we can actually get to it fairly easily later (ie, don't drop it into a tectonic seam or such nonsense), then later once processes have been refined more, go back and use it for fuel and repeat the cycle. The very fact that the waste is dangerously radioactive means that there is loads more energy in it...we just can't get it out yet.

That is a pretty good idea, as long as it can be stored safely. Nuclear is also non-polluting and relatively safe.