- What are renewable energies?
- Importance of renewable energies
- Types of renewable energies
- Advantages of renewable energies
- Nonrenewable energy
We explain what renewable energies are, their importance and the types that exist. Its advantages and non-renewable energy.
What are renewable energies?
When we speak of renewable or sustainable energies we refer to those that can be used continuously over time without risk (or with minimal risk) of their exhaustion or extinction.
They generally refer to natural sources of Energy capable of recovering in time, which is why they are also known as alternative energies or, in some cases, such as green energy or ecological energy, as they may involve less environmental impacts than traditional energy sources.
In the contemporary world, demand power of the humanity it is extremely high, both for industrial, commercial, transportation or basic livelihood purposes for households.
From the Industrial Revolution, when this growing demand started, different methods to satisfy it, usually at the expense of environment: pollution, destructive mining, logging, burning, etc.
Renewable energies are in this sense safer, but generally less efficient and not always usable, as they depend on the geography specific to the region. For example, wind power requires large plains or windy shores; the solar large tracts of land under the Sun; and the hydroelectric large falls of Water.
So far the known renewable energies are:
- Tidal energy. That takes advantage of movement of the tides.
- Solar energy. That collects thermal and light radiation from the Sun.
- The eolic energy. Which uses turbine fields with blades as mills to take advantage of the wind's thrust.
- Hydroelectric power. That mobilizes turbines with the force of natural or artificial waterfalls.
- Geothermal energy. That takes advantage of the high temperature of the earth's subsoil to evaporate water and generate electricity or heat.
- Wave energy. That takes advantage of the force of the waves on the seashore.
- Biomass or biofuels. Organic fuels developed from waste organic material.
Importance of renewable energies
Renewable energies are more environmentally safe than others.
In the face of the complicated climate panorama that the 21st century faces, renewable energies are of vital importance in reducing the emission of CO2 and other gases greenhouse effect that pollute the waters and atmosphere, thus generating a greater global warming.
Since energy consumption cannot be limited in a hypertechnological and industrialized world, its sources could at least be substituted as far as possible with more environmentally safe ones.
However, there is no method of obtaining energy that is 100% safe for the environment and does not have any impact on it.
On the other hand, the depletion of fuel resources (coal, Petroleum, uranium) would represent a long-term trouble world economy, which would justify wars and would cause humanitarian catastrophes, as assets are limited and scarce in the face of a population growing world.
Types of renewable energies
Renewable energies are classified into two types:
- Pollutants Energy sources such as biomass, biofuels or organic fuels, are totally renewable but not for that safer environmentally. In fact, the process of combustion to which they are subjected generates gases that are just as toxic and harmful to the atmosphere as fossil fuels traditional.
- Non-polluting.Despite the fact that its installation and operation generally has a minimum ecological impact, whether in the transformation of natural spaces, lake dams, etc., there are other forms of renewable energy whose exploitation does not systematically damage the environment, such as the solar energy, wind, geothermal or tidal, since its base phenomena (sun, wind, terrestrial heat, tides) would continue to occur, taken advantage of by the human being or not.
Advantages of renewable energies
The advantages of renewable energies are clear:
- They do not depend on a raw material whose market may fluctuate and make the acquisition more expensive.
- They generally have less long-term environmental effect than traditional energies.
- Take advantage means that happen anyway, whether they are taken advantage of or not.
- They allow low-income countries to obtain energy by taking advantage of their own geography instead of buying raw materials or, worse, electricity.
Nonrenewable energy
On the contrary, there are numerous non-renewable energy sources, which take advantage of mineral resources and organics whose formation took thousands of years, such as oil, mineral coal or uranium. Despite being very powerful and effective, these methods have their days numbered, as their raw material is not generated at a fast enough rate.
Non-renewable energies are:
- Burning oil and other fossil fuels (coal, natural gas)
- The nuclear energy (especially fission of the atom uranium)