Saturday 16 June 2007

Renwable energy

1.WIND CATCHER FOR VENTILATION
2.RAINWATER COLLECTION
3.WALL INSULATION
4.BIOMASS BOILER


Renwable energy describes all the ways of producing energy for the home and industry from a source that cannot be depleted and do not add to the green house gases . To a lesser degree it will also include transport on land, sea and air because they are more demanding due to higher consumption levels and required for an on demand basis. An example of this would be the wind for sail power although extremely efficient by its very nature is unpredictable.

The source of renewable energy is mainly from the sun the exception being geothermal sources which are used to heat water from the earths core. Energy is collected in a variety of ways and stored for future use, the problem is that the technology requires innovation and can be prohibitively expensive and until the realization of imminent global warming, due to the burning of fossil fuels and massive deforestation it was thought to be the domain of eccentrics and political activists.

The awareness is now being heightened by the media and incentives sponsored by the government and the rising cost of home energy bills.

Renewable resources can be categorized as follows:-

Solar power which can be used to produce hot water using solar panels or electricity utilizing photo-electric cells.

Wind power with the use of wind turbines producing electricity.

Tidal and wave power used for larger scale power stations.

Hydro power from damming rivers or watermills.

Heat pumps either using the air or ground to recover heat.

Bio fuels made from crops extracting oil or sugar and refining them. (unmodified diesel engines will run on vegetable oil something the chancellor knows about because there is a tax on oil of 40 pence a litre still making it cheaper than diesel oil).

Bio mass generating energy from woodchip harvested from sustainable woodlands.




The balance of carbon dioxide being introduced into the atmosphere should be equal to that being taken out and locked in the earths crust.

Fossil fuels are the result of ancient forests locking in carbon in the form of carbon dioxide using energy from the sun in a process called photosynthesis thus storing the suns energy and then releasing it when combusted.

The simple answer to this would be to find a natural way to to collect carbon from the atmosphere

and lock it away. One answer was to use the pacific ocean to create a large plankton pond to absorb the carbon dioxide, when the the plankton died it would sink to the oceans floor out o harms way. However the reason there is no life in pacific ocean is because it is devoid of minerals essential for plant growth. Of course the most obvious way would be to plant more trees and stop the destruction of the forest now left. While research is going on to find away to remove carbon from the atmosphere we must try to find was to reduce our polluting ways.

Now we can all think of ways to lower our carbon footprint from turning appliances off when not in use ,walking instead of using the car to choosing more efficient consumer products .

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