• What are alternative energies?
• Examples of alternative energies
• Importance of alternative energies
• Advantages of alternative energies
• Disadvantages of alternative energies
• Types of alternative energies

We explain what the so-called alternative energies are and why they are important. Advantages and disadvantages of these clean energies.

They are more convenient for the global ecosystem and climate change problems.

What are alternative energies?

It is called alternative energies or, more properly, alternative energy sources, at techniques and procedures for obtaining Energy different from the traditional ones, consisting of burning fossil fuels (Petroleum, Coal, natural gas, etc.). Usually this term is associated with the search for energies less pollutants but of equal performance.

From the Industrial Revolution In the seventeenth century, the burning of hydrocarbons continues to be the most widely used energy source in the world, given its enormous performance when it comes to manufacturing fuels for automobiles, aircraft or sources of energy. electricity. However, its environmental consequences, added to the instability of the markets of raw material, impose the need for cleaner, safer and cheaper energy. Those, then, are alternative energies.

This term appeared in the 1970s, when the environmental impact of human industry and its alteration of the ecosystems animals were more than obvious. There is no definitive criterion as to which forms of energy production are properly "alternative", since the term is often used to refer to ecological energy forms or "green energy".

Examples of alternative energies

Broadly speaking, the forms of alternative energy would be:

• Seawater energy. Take advantage of the movements of the tides and ocean currents.
• Wind power. It takes advantage of the mechanical force of the wind to mobilize generator turbines.
• Nuclear energy. Obtains energy through controlled atomic reactions that release a lot heat and they allow to produce electricity.
• Solar energy. It takes advantage of and stores the energy from daily solar radiation.
• Geothermal energy. Take advantage of the natural heat of the deep layers of the subsoil of the Earth.
• Hydroelectric power. Generates electricity from the use of the potential energy gravity of large bodies of water such as waterfalls or rivers.
• Biofuels. Take advantage of organic material waste to generate alcohols and gasoline of medium performance and lower cost and environmental damage than those derived from Petroleum.

Importance of alternative energies

The great demand for energy makes alternative energy more and more necessary.

The field of development of alternative energies is vital in the post-industrial world, given that the effects of our industrial activity over practically two centuries are already being seen in the world. environment and generate controversy among scientific communities.

Since our demand energy just grows and grows, as we spend more technology and sophisticated appliances, it is urgent to find safer and more reliable forms of energy for the future.

Advantages of alternative energies

The main advantages of alternative energies are:

• Less environmental impact. Although these are not ecological or green ways to obtain energy, since a hydroelectric plant has a considerable ecological impact, they are more convenient for the global ecosystem and the problems of climate change than burning hydrocarbons, since they do not generate as many greenhouse gases.
• Lower cost of raw material. By not depending on the extraction of oil, coal or natural gas, these energies keep their costs stable, in many cases limiting them to the initial installation and subsequent maintenance.

Disadvantages of alternative energies

Despite their advantages, these energies have a weak side:

• Less efficiency. They are usually not as powerful as methods traditional, which requires greater facilities, savings campaigns and a whole energy culture contrary to the waste to which we are culturally accustomed.
• Greater risks. While they are not so damaging to the global ecosystem, these technologies can cause a lot of damage if something goes wrong: the losses of radioactive material from nuclear power plants, the microseisms generated by the geothermal energy or the drop in power generation from wind plants when the wind decreases or changes the weatherare issues that must be taken into account.

Types of alternative energies

Alternative energy sources can be classified into two types:

• Renewable or sustainable energy. Those that use materials or take advantage of inexhaustible resources or that the nature replenish constantly, without risk of running out in the immediate future. In some cases they even take advantage of organic waste materials, such as biomass. Some are more or less ecological, but they do not usually have a very high yield.
• Nuclear energy. All forms of nuclear energy, both fission and fusion (not yet developed), which, while taking advantage of nonrenewable resources (like uranium for fission; although fission would take advantage of hydrogen, so abundant in the universe which is virtually eternal), entails environmental hazards such as the generation of highly toxic radioactive waste.